CASCADE AVENUE CONCEPT PLANNING
Spruce Street to Wasson Lane
Background
The City of River Falls
has begun planning for the eventual reconstruction of Cascade Avenue
(STH29/35). The City of River Falls has had the upgrade of the road
surface and underground utilities in its capital improvement program for
some time. Scheduling of these improvements has been pushed back
multiple times due to budget constraints. In the meantime, the road
surface, street lighting, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and water main
systems have continued to degrade. The City would like to take a phased
approach to developing plans for reconstruction of this roadway by first
developing a detailed Concept Plan. With a clear concept plan in place,
the City hopes to be able to better identify and secure funding for
implementation of the proposed project.
Cascade Avenue
functions as a Principal Arterial Street for the City, and is designated
as a Connecting Highway for STH 29 and STH 35 on the State Highway
system. Furthermore, it goes through the UW-River Falls Campus. This
unique combination of functions and characteristics create challenging
and sometimes contrary goals regarding concepts to consider in
reconstructing this roadway. The project shall take into account
existing elements and make considerations for current and future
pedestrian, bicycle, and parking elements and develop a context
sensitive concept design for the project. Current traffic volume on
this roadway is approximately 7,000 AADT. Future traffic volumes for
this roadway are projected to increase to 15,000 AADT under full build
out of land uses in the Urban Area Boundary. Such build out is expected
to occur over a 50-60 year timeframe corresponding to the anticipated
life-cycle of the roadway improvements.
Establishing a plan for
improvements to the Cascade Avenue Corridor from Main Street to Highway
35 will involve a cooperative effort between the City, WisDOT, the
University of Wisconsin-River Falls (University), and citizens. It will
require an approach that carefully considers all problems and concerns,
existing and projected population and transportation data, and a careful
analysis of all potential alternatives. Its ultimate goal is to have a
well thought out concept plan that has gained the support of involved
stakeholders by applying flexible design standards to resolve existing
problems, anticipate the future growth, and incorporates aesthetics.
The project limits, as
currently defined, extend approximately from Spruce Street on the west
to Wasson Lane on the east. The existing right-of-way width between Spring Street and
6th Street is generally 100 feet. East of 6th Street the right-of-way
width varies from approximately 75’ to as narrow as 66’.
Planning Process
The City of River Falls
has retained Short-Elliot-Hendericksen (SEH) for the conceptual planning
stage of this project. The technical Committee shown to the right
will be working with SEH throughout the process. A key elements in
this process will be public meetings where information is exchanged
among various stakeholders. Planned public meetings are as
follows:
Meeting #1: April
30, 2007
This meeting is
intended as a receiving meeting for the technical committee. The
planning process will be discussed in general but the focus will be on
engaging those present to identify what they see as goals, objectives,
problems, concerns and solutions.
Meeting #2: September
24, 2007
This meeting is
intended as an opportunity for the technical committee to report back
with follow-up information regarding what was received at Meeting #1.
The goal will be to narrow down options that should be further
considered in developing an overall concept plan for this roadway.
Meeting #3: November
26, 2007
This meeting is
intended as an opportunity to bring forth overall concept plans
including a "preferred alternate" recommended by the technical committee
based on public input and technical rational. The desired outcome
of this meeting will be to achieve a consensus on a preferred
alternative that can be recommended to the City Council. A
recommendation to the City Council is anticipated in December 2007
