It’s just about December, and that means that work duties will be dominating my time. You may remember from last year that each December the church where I work (Grace Presbyterian) puts on a big Christmas concert called “Grace Family Christmas,” and I spend the time between the actual concerts (Nov. 30-Dec. 3) and Christmas Eve editing the concert footage to show on WEEK, channel 25, at 10:30 p.m. Christmas Eve and 12:00 p.m. (noon) Christmas Day. That takes up so much of my time that any free time I have outside of that I spend with my family, and that leaves no time for blogging.
Some things that are upcoming that I want to remind everyone about:
- Tuesday night (11/28) at the council meeting, the Heart of Peoria Commission will be presenting their position paper on the Glen Oak School siting issue.
- The next two Wednesday nights (11/29 and 12/6) are the last two public hearings scheduled for 2006 on the Land Development Code for the Heart of Peoria area.
- Dec. 13 is the Park Board meeting where they will be discussing whether or not to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the school district to allow them to share Glen Oak Park land for a new school building.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d just like to say once again how much I appreciate you, the readers of this blog. And a special thanks to those of you who take the time to comment — whether it’s to encourage me, disagree with me, or offer constructive criticism, or whatever. The best part of the blog, for me, is the feedback I get and the discussions we have.
I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and I’ll see if I can’t squeeze in some time to post a couple times this month. You know how it goes… If there’s some big local news story (say, if the STB hands down a decision on the Kellar Branch between now and Christmas), I won’t be able to contain myself and I’ll have to put something on the blog about it. But other than that, it will be pretty quiet around the Chronicle until after Christmas. While I’m out, please check out the other fine blogs that I have listed on the sidebar.
Happy holidays, everyone!
C. J. Summers
Under Community Announcements…
The recent City of Peoria idea to turn part of busy, industrial Washington Street into a 2 lane version of Prospect Road is beyond ludicrous. The city even mentions using Prospect’s “success†as their reasoning. Prospect is a residential/shopping area and has never been an industrial area. Washington is a state route for hundreds of large trucks between I74 and I474 and the many warehouses and industrial facilities between those 2 interstates.
Choking traffic on a major road is a bad idea.
Billy: You may be right! But don’t count on it — work keeps me pretty busy during December….
MDD: Remember that they’ve redone the interstate now — with the new flyover ramp on westbound 74 they can take through East Peoria and over the Cedar Street bridge and into the more industrial area of Washington St., I imagine most truck traffic will take that as a shortcut instead of going into Peoria and taking the Adams St. exit and snaking through downtown to get to the same place. Also, they’re trying to redevelop the warehouse district as residential/shopping area, similar to Prospect but obviously more urban. I think it’s a good idea to make the streetscape more conducive to the kind of development they want to attract.
Regarding Washington St., truck traffic will continue to use that stretch between the I-474 interchange and I-74 because there are numerous heavy industries along it. These and their entrances off Washington St. are:
Allied Iron & Steel (Darst St. to Clark St.)
Behr Peoria (Darst St. to Clarke St.)
Clark Paper & Packaging (Darst St.)
Midland Davis (Washington St.)
Future Environmental (Darst St.)
Greater Peoria Sanitary District (Darst St.)
R. A. Cullian & Son (Darst or Sanger St.)
Peoria Barge Terminal, Inc. (Darst or Sanger St.)
Tabor Marine (Sanger St.)
Sheet Metal Products (Washington St.)
Freesen, Inc (Leland St.)
United Ready Mix (Leland St.)
Peoria Stock Yards/Calihan (South St.)
Construction Materials (Cass St.)
ADM and ADM/Growmark (Cass, Edmund and Persimmon St.)
A. Lucas & Sons (Washington St.)
Cast Technologies (Persimmon St., unloads sand at night from Washington St. side)
AmerenCILCO gas plant (Persimmon St.)
US Postal Service (State St.)
Converting it to two-lane is asinine (hmmm, maybe the City wants to de-industrialize this corridor?)
David, they’re only talking about narrowing Washington from MacArthur to Harrison, not the entire corridor between I-74 and I-474. Besides, no one is telling trucks not to drive on Washington street. It’s not like they’re taking the street out and putting in a hiking trail. They’re just taking it from five lanes to three. I’ve personally seen trucks drive down three-lane streets, so I know it can be done.
Many trucks use that section between Harrison and MacArthur and a lot of ’em are grain trucks getting off I-74 at Washington St. heading down to ADM. Sounds to me like reducing the number of driving lanes from four to two will cause congestion. I don’t see trucks heading north up Rt. 29 crossing the river on Cedar Street or the Bob Michel Bridge, which would only add to the heavy traffic on Main St. in East Peoria. If they’re headed back west on I-74, trucks could use Adams St.
I would just favor leaving the street the way it is, unless Adams is made a two-way street. Since the I-74/Washington St. interchange was rebuilt, you’d think they’d leave it as a five-lane corridor, since it can accomodate heavier traffic going to and from the interstate.
According to IDOT, the section of Washington St. between MacArthur Highway and Harrison sees about 9900 to 10700 vehicles per day, of which 700 to 900 are trucks. War Memorial Drive carries almost double the amount of truck traffic at places (as high as 2050 between Glen Ave. and Allen Rd.) and triple the amount of overall traffic (28100-38400), yet it’s only a four-lane state route. I think the traffic on Washington will not be adversely effected by reducing it to three lanes between MacArthur and Harrison.
The majority of the Washington St truck traffic occurs between 7am and 6pm, right when these “cafes” would be in operation. It is a bad idea.
What then happens during Civic Center events, ballgames, etc? In other posts you complained about people being able to easily get to I74 to go East? It just chokes trafic even more… Washington is a good cross route right now.
MDD — Whether or not there are “cafes” is up to the developer and public demand. But the goal is not to create cafes, per se. The goal is to create an environment where people would want to live and shop. If you want to attract development and tenancy of loft apartments and street-level retail stores, the streetscape has to be conducive to that kind of development — and that means providing on-street parking and wider sidewalks and some street trees. You and I apparently have different definitions of traffic being “choked.” I cited IDOT’s traffic count for this area and compared it to War Memorial. At three-times the volume, do you find War Memorial Drive impassable? No, it can handle the traffic volume just fine. Washington St. will be able to easily sustain traffic with three lanes instead of five between MacArthur and Harrison without anyone feeling “choked.” And even though I realize this is anecdotal, I’ll mention it anyway: I often traverse Washington St. in the middle of the day and I have never personally seen traffic volume that justified five lanes.
My complaint about ease of access to I-74 was not related to traffic volume, but traffic patterns; viz., the way northbound traffic on Adams has to go around the block to get on I-74 east. I think traffic volume on Adams and Jefferson doesn’t warrant keeping them as one-way streets, and that they could be converted back to two-way.
It’s the traffic into downtown from I-74 onto Washington Southbound that will be the issue. Besides, who wants an apartment (loft in your fancy terms) near McArthur with all of the crime near there? Do you? I doubt it. Where is the “neighborhood school that everyone can walk to”? It’s the wrong location to try this.
If I didn’t have kids I absolutely would be interested in living in a loft apartment downtown (so would my wife). I doubt such a development would attract families with young kids. But it very well could attract singles, couples without kids, empty-nesters, baby-boomer retirees, etc. We want to have options and a diversity of housing types in Peoria, don’t you agree?
As far as crime is concerned, I don’t believe we should just surrender parts of our city to crime and call them irredeemable. It sounds like your proposal is to maintain the status quo down there — keep the buildings empty and the crime rate up, but our traffic fast, and all is well. I just don’t agree with that vision for the future of Peoria.
The buildings are not empty – they house warehouses and other industrial companies. Why not try this “vision” of yours along a street like Sheridan, say the area around Nebraska and North? How about Wisconsin, South of Nebraska? Prospect from Abington/Frye on North? Then, that school at Glen Oak wouldn’t be on such a “dangerous street” would it?
The Heart of Peoria Plan covers all those areas, but that’s about 8,000 acres and the city can’t afford to redevelop that entire area at once. You have to start somewhere. The city is creating four “form districts” — two of them on streets that you mention, although not the exact stretch you cite: the Sheridan/Loucks Triangle and the Prospect Road corridor. The other two districts are the West Main Corridor (Ren Park) and the warehouse district.
According to the Heart of Peoria Plan, p. IV.10:
Furthermore, the city did a “Targeted Development Areas Housing Survey” within the past year, the results of which were presented to the council in February. The council minutes state:
I guess the point I’m driving at is that just because you, personally, would not want to live downtown, that doesn’t make the development of downtown housing a bad idea. Warehouse-to-loft conversions have been going on since at least the 1970s and have been successful in many communities, which is why they were suggested for the warehouse district in the HOP Plan. Surveys have shown there are many people interested in living in these kinds of housing arrangements right here in Peoria, if those options were available.
I thought Water St. presently functions in a way that is envisioned by reducing SW Washington to three lanes between Harrison and MacArthur?
There are few if any empty buildings along that section of SW Washington and many are industrial. For some, trucks have to back into tight spaces to load/unload, blocking traffic. For example, steel-carrying trucks backing into A. Lucas & Sons will block traffic on the northbound lanes and Cast Technologies uses the right northbound lane to unload foundry sand at night. Trucks backing into Glideaway Bed Carriage Mfg. have to back up and block the southbound lanes. I can see some problems with converting the outer lanes to side-street parking.
If SW Washington has to be converted to three lanes, it should be limited to the area between State and Harrison Streets. But since SW Washington has a convenient interchange with I-74 (eastbound off-ramp and westbound on-ramp), it is a major corridor, I would say, leave it as-is.