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Popular street needs a change

The stretch of Harrison street on the west side of Wisconsin is too small for the volume of traffic that travels it. Residents, and patrons of local shops park on either side of the street – and usually every available spot is taken – often with people resorting to illegal spots because they can’t find any other. Additionally – the road is 2 way – so at any given time you could have 4 vehicles abreast on this small street.

Harrison is a major cut through. Drivers use it to get to shopping, or get over to River road. Also, it is a quick way to avoid congestion on Wisconsin – where all that shopping means lots of cars.

Take a look at the street here. In the satellite image from google – you can see cars parked on the street, and just imagine if 2 cars, one going each way were trying to get through there – even with this screen shot, I think it is fairly obvious it is too tight. Full disclosure, I live in the area, and had my side view mirror knocked off three times. It happens to a lot of people that park on the street. I know my neighbor’s side view mirror is currently attached with tape, and I have seen other cars with the mirrors dangling. But last month – my car was totaled while it was parked on Harrison. A person driving an Escalade was headed one way, and another driver was coming up the street in the opposite direction. Driver of the Escalade thought it was too tight, and to avoid hitting the on-coming car, drove into my parked one. This street needs a change made. I think the best is to make it a one way. Either direction. Doesn’t matter. Another option is to take away parking on one side of the street – but I just think there are too many people that legitimately need to park there either because they live in the area – or they want to patronize stores in the area.

As far as I can tell, the best place to start to make this sort of change is DDOT. Here is the page where you can ‘Ask the Director’ anything – and according to the site, they want to hear from you. It is a small change, but could save a lot of side mirrors.