Sharing the Streets
NEVER HAVE THE words of Word on the Street been more about the streets… specifically, the streets of Marquette. In case you haven’t seen it, there’s a congenial tug-of-war taking place between those who favor vehicular transportation versus those who want to see a better defined sharing of the streets with walkers, runners, and bikers.
There are a number of individuals and organizations, like Strong Towns, which I’ve written about here previously, advocating for the concept of “complete streets.” The idea is to encourage street use and design that responds to the needs of both motorized and non-motorized traffic. In fact, there’s a push for the city’s Traffic & Parking Advisory Committee to be renamed the Complete Streets Advisory Committee.
As summer approaches, we’ll no doubt be seeing an increase in activity from the two-wheeled and two-footed travelers in every corner of the city. With the growth of the biking industry, and no shortage of foot and paw traffic, our designated paths and residential streets are going to be pushed to the limit. E-bikes and the speed at which they travel will only add to the challenge of keeping users happy… and safe.
A Different Demographic
Back in the day, when a young person turned 16, they usually couldn’t wait to hit the road, licensed and legal. It’s a different scene today. Statistics show that eligible young people are considerably less likely to get a driver’s license than previous generations. Reasons for that are varied, but include things like cost, as well as concern for the environment. Cities that have evolved to become more biking and walking friendly also play a part.
Which brings me to the recent honor received by the city from The League of American Bicyclists. Marquette was awarded the Silver level designation as determined by the Bicycle Friendly Community Report Card. After taking a whole bunch of criteria into consideration, largely related to our transportation network, Marquette scored high enough to warrant the salute.
According Marquette City Planner Dave Stensaas, the award recognizes “there is a well-established, flourishing bike community and that we are making substantial strides to create a system that will provide comfortable and relatively safe travel routes within the street network for biking.”
Why Should You Care?
If you’re a biker, walker, runner, or driver, what happens on and around our streets will have an impact on your travel plans. Sharing the street with someone using it in a different way than you will become the norm.
Stensaas continues, “We are hopefully on the cusp of making a push on the implementation front, to get street markings done and wayfinding signage established to create the kind of on-the-ground improvements that will make a major, tangible difference in the next few years.”
If you’d like to have some influence on the decisions that will be made in the upcoming months and years about topics like this, you can always volunteer for one of the city’s many advisory boards.
Attack at the Bear
This year’s Festival of the Angry Bear hosted by the Ore Dock Brewing Company suffered an unfortunate black eye, figuratively and literally, as a result of an unprovoked attack on one of the attendees.
Lindsey Locke, an NMU student out with friends and hundreds of others at the annual festival, was the target of the attack. The young… we’ll call her a lady, who took it upon herself to assault Lindsey has yet to be identified. The police have a few leads and have spoken to witnesses, but as of now, no one has been able to give the cops a name to go with the face.
Lindsey’s injuries include a broken nose, a concussion, bruising and swelling, and the aforementioned black eye. Like every other law abiding citizen of this community, she wants justice to be served. “I want the woman who assaulted me to be caught and prosecuted. I was shaking for hours after the attack and it was really scary. It has already caused me a great amount of physical and emotional pain. I’m trying to move on with some normalcy and I am trying to be positive.”
According to the police, such assaults are rare around here. It’s a first for the popular downtown festival, and hopefully the last. There’s probably nothing the organizers or other patrons could have done to prevent the attack. It happened so fast that Lindsey and her friends were unable to avoid it, and for event security to catch the culprit before she fled.
If you have any information that would help police track down Lindsey’s attacker, please let them know. This behavior cannot be tolerated… or accepted as just something that happens these days. Nope. Marquette is a safe community, and it will take all of us to keep it that way.
Though obviously this could have happened to anyone at the festival, it didn’t… it happened to Lindsey. Let’s keep her in our thoughts and prayers and do everything we can to see that it never happens again.
A Roaming Klatch
If you’re a normal person who loves coffee, you’ll definitely enjoy tomorrow’s sixth annual Marquette Coffee Crawl. There are three different two-hour sessions, beginning at 8am and running until 2pm.
The crawls start at the U.P. Children’s Museum and wanders through the city taste-testing the brews at no fewer than 11 different coffee houses.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased through NMU Ticketing Services. The event is hosted by the NMU Public Relations Student Society of America with the majority of proceeds going to the Marquette Women’s Center.
Speaking of Brews
Once you’ve got yourself all hopped up on coffee you can check out Brits and Brews ’24 at the Ore Dock. This popular celebration of British Musical Innovation starts at 5pm and features an open mic session followed by five different bands, all playing to honor the historic British Invasion of pop music, dating back to the mid 60’s.
The event is a fundraiser for JJ Packs. Your $10 donation, or whatever you can afford, will help provide healthy food packages for MAPS students in need.