Help redesign the Menomonee River Parkway

Two years ago I wrote a post about the potholes on the Menomonee River Parkway. Since then condition of the parkway has only worsened. However, there is finally a plan--and, more important, money in the budget--not only for repaving but also for redesigning the parkway. About time!

All aspects of parkway design are to be considered, including "pedestrian access, bike and pedestrian safety, traffic flow, traffic calming, and aesthetics of the parkway" as well as runoff water quality. 

You can help! Please do. (Read on, or click here to go directly to the County Parks Menomonee River Renewal site.) 

The parks department held a public open house last week at Mount Mary University that was very well attended--by the public as well as a variety of officials.

Those who attended were able to fill out a survey and leave comments and suggestions. If you missed the open house, you have until December 6 to go to the County Parks Menomonee River Renewal website and fill out their survey. Be sure to include comments.

My suggestions were these:

The Parkway ought to be considered a park and not a highway. Therefore, bicycle and pedestrian access and safety should be considered more important than the speed or convenience of vehicular traffic. (I live right next to the parkway and I drive on it daily. I'm happy to slow down for bikes and pedestrians.)

Off-road bike paths should be included along the entire length of the parkway, as already exists in Hoyt Park.

Street design should encourage drivers to slow down. (Check out the maps provided on the website and share in the horror when you learn how many accidents there have been all along the parkway.)

Except for invasive species, existing trees should be preserved. Let's not clearcut the parkway and then plant new seedlings (as we've seen done elsewhere in Wauwatosa!)

The wild sections of the parkway along the river are among my favorite places to walk. These should be preserved and not cleared or paved. They are the urban wildernesses that our children and grandchildren need be able to explore.

Go to Menomonee River Renewal today and make your voice heard. Let's get this right, shall we?

Parkway between Burleigh and Hwy 100

The Transit Center and the Public Trust

If you have been following local news lately you may have noticed a number of stories relating to a  high rise development proposal, called the Couture, for the site now occupied by the Transit Center, which is located where Michigan Ave. meets Lincoln Memorial Drive. The plan for the development has been endorsed by many in the community. However it is opposed, in its current form, by Preserve Our Parks (POP). I am on the board of POP. Our group's opposition to the current plan has generated more controversy than the plan itself. Unfortunately, POP has been criticized for our stand, which has been characterized as intractable, among other things. 

POP is not opposed to appropriately sited development. In fact, POP is working with architects Mark and Linda Keane to provide a visionary alternative to the current proposal for lakefront redevelopment. Furthermore, POP is not opposed to the Couture. And no one likes the Transit Center. The issue has never been about that outmoded structure. The problem is that the Transit Center was built on partially filled lakebed land. All of Wisconsin's waterways, included filled lakebeds, are subject to the Public Trust Doctrine, which serves to protect them from private development. POP opposes any development that encroaches on filled lakebed land because of the Public Trust Doctrine. If the Couture were to be sited on the portion of the Transit Center site that is not filled lakebed, POP would not be opposed to it.

If POP had not stood its ground on an earlier lakefront development scheme there would be a freeway now where Lincoln Memorial Drive is.

I invite you to read a more detailed account of POP's position. The following is a letter written by board member Bill Hibbard to the County Supervisors:

Please reject the current Transit Center deal!

Preserve Our Parks (POP) understands that you may soon be discussing and possibly voting on the sale of the Transit Center site to a developer who wants to build the Couture, a 44-story multi-use tower on the land. POP, a local organization dedicated to saving parks and other green spaces from commercial development, strongly urges you to vote NO to this specific proposal.

Preserve Our Parks has no problem with the County selling roughly the western third of the property, for commercial development, as that parcel is not affected by the Public Trust Doctrine of the Wisconsin Constitution. Here’s the story:

*Old maps, many of them official public records, show that Lake Michigan water once covered roughly two-thirds of the site. Under Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine, this means NO commercial development or private ownership of this filled lakebed land.  (The maps are on file with the Milwaukee City Engineer, County Register of Deeds and Public Land Commissioners; pertinent maps also are available at the County Historical Society, at the UWM Library’s digital collection and in commercial plat books.)

                                              

*The Legislature’s late insertion into the state budget bill – with no advance notice, public hearing or committee debate -- of a provision declaring a new, fictitious shoreline that doesn’t include the Transit Center site. This seems to POP a curious and illegal way to try to amend the Constitution. We believe the lake – not the legislature -- sets its shoreline!

*Over nearly a century of transferring Lake Michigan shoreline land to the City and County of Milwaukee, the state has specified each time that this filled lakebed be used for public purposes. And the Public Trust Doctrine reserves these lands for the use and enjoyment of the public, with no dilution or interference with the public’s rights by private development.

*If the Couture is allowed to proceed at the proposed site, it opens opportunities for development of filled lakebed land all along our Lake Michigan shoreline. And its implications could be felt across Wisconsin; similar legislation could lead to the statewide loss of waterways and wetlands to commercial development. 

*No public hearings were held on best use of the site,  no bids were solicited out, it was the County Executive’s done deal with little or no outside input.

We want to emphasize that POP does not oppose the proposed Couture project; we simply object to building it on the portion of this site that’s clearly governed by the Public Trust Doctrine. POP also is not anti-development; recently the organization commissioned prominent Milwaukee architects and urban planners  Mark and Linda Keane to prepare a concept for development of the area to create a striking Grand Gateway to Milwaukee.

The plan would expand the area’s park-like qualities and make it a focal point for recreation and fun, inviting development that would add to the city’s tax base. It would ease traffic flow through a point of congestion, And by moving the Couture construction to the wesr or to nearby land that will be freed by planned relocation of freeway ramps, the 44-story tower will bring it into compliance with the Public Trust Doctrine.

Again, we strongly urge you to oppose sale of the full Transit Center site to the Couture developer.  Selling just the western third would be a win-win situation for all concerned. Thanks for your consideration

BILL HIBBARD, Preserve Our Parks Board  member

For Preserve Our Parks

County Grounds update: Discovery Parkway opens

View of Discovery Parkway looking north toward Swan Blvd.

If you live in Wauwatosa, as I do, and have been avoiding the Swan Boulevard route through the Milwaukee County Grounds because it's been closed for so long, there is now a detour through Innovation Park. The connecting road, called Discovery Parkway, between Swan and Watertown Plank was quietly opened last Monday. It will become the main thoroughfare for Innovation Park, the first two components of which are currently under construction. For a more detailed account of these developments, read the article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel business section.

Some of my readers will remember that the construction of Discovery Parkway began with a bang last January when the land was cleared of its tree cover. (See previous post.) As promised at the time, new trees have been planted (see below). Unfortunately, more trees have recently been cut to make way for the new cloverleaf ramp that will be part of the redesigned Watertown Plank Road interchange at Highway 45.

Location of the new ramp

I visited the Grounds over the weekend and have some photos to share. In addition to the new road I was able to check in on volunteers with the Friends of the Monarch Trail who were out in force with spades and trowels. They were planting milkweed, which is an essential plant for the Monarch butterflies.

500 plugs of milkweed were planted by Friends of the Trail

South entrance to Discovery Parkway from Watertown Plank

View of Parks Administration Building from new entrance

North end of Discovery Parkway

View west across Discovery Parkway towards Eschweiler Bldgs

View east across County Grounds Park towards Milwaukee

Friends of the Monarch Trail trail marker flag

Lu Ann and Jan planting milkweed

Fred and Dan doing likewise

Barb Agnew, director of the Friends of the Monarch Trail, leads a tour of the trail and, here, one of the new biofiltration basins that will treat storm runoff.

On my way to Innovation Park, I almost stepped on this garter snake. It quickly slid off the gravel road surrounding the detention basin where I was walking. I consider it a good omen that it escaped harm.

Autumn in the Arboretum

Sadly, I was out of town for the opening of the new Rotary Centennial Arboretum last month. I would have loved to attend. I finally managed to visit yesterday. Wonderful accomplishment! Just a few moody fall shots to share.

Signage acknowledging donors - gotta to that!

The hilltop with newly planted trees

Evidence of the earth-moving equipment required to design nature

An oak seedling: the future

Wauwatosa Common Council to act on TIF for County Grounds

The Wauwatosa Common Council is set to debate and decide this Tuesday whether or not to grant a TIF--tax incremental financing district--to support plans by the UWM Real Estate Foundation and the Mandel Group for residential development around the Eschweiler Buildings.

The importance of this decision for the fate of the beleaguered historic structures and the Monarch Trail habitat surrounding them, as well as for the development plans, has been outlined in an op-ed article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The authors of the article are Barb Agnew and Jim Price, founders of the Monarch Trail and indefatigable supporters of habitat preservation on the County Grounds.

Click here to read "An important vote in Tosa for UWM plans."

Photo Essay: An arroyo in Santa Fe

A Santa Fe resident, someone I met in passing, suggested I visit an arroyo to see the magnificent flowers that were currently abloom. I did. I also Googled the flower to see what it's called. I learned that the exuberant bushy flowers are Chamisa, aka Rabbitbrush. It is both native to NM and also aggressive. Apparently some people love it and others hate it.

I've been seeing it all over northern New Mexico during the past couple weeks and I've been enjoying it immensely. Here is a small selection of images from an arroyo next to the La Farge Library in Santa Fe.

The White Place

For the past week I have been staying, teaching photography, and relaxing at one of my favorite places: Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM. Ghost Ranch is a retreat/education/conference center owned by the Presbyterian Church but is most famous as the place where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and painted many of her striking New Mexican work. One of her subjects was this unusually pale sandstone slot canyon in Abiquiu. The gray stone can look white in the bright New Mexican sun, hence the name. The site is owned by Dar al Islam, a mosque and Islamic Education Center.

I've been in the mood to write haiku here in New Mexico, a land of contrasts and, for me, introspection. Here is the one I wrote for the White Place:

the White Place

a monk in saffron robes

raises an ipad

I am teaching a workshop in digital photography at Ghost Ranch and I took my class to the White Place for a photo shoot. As our group gathered back at the parking area after a couple hours of shooting, I saw this monk walk slowly up to the mound with the “Plaza Blanca” sign on it overlooking the site. As I watched he slowly drew an ipad out of his robes and began to raise it with both hands. Knowing the capabilities of an ipad it was obvious that he was about to shoot a photograph. However, it reminded me of a priest raising a host, or a supplicant seeking absolution, or simple praise; something sacred and holy, as befits both the symbolism of his robes and the grandeur of the site. 

The well-known form of Haiku originated in Japan and is a very short, traditionally three-line, poem. In current practice the form is flexible. The essential quality of haiku is usually a small epiphany based on the observation of two contrasting images. I was inspired by the juxtaposition of the monk’s traditional garb with the latest technology—even if upon second thought, it ought to be considered perfectly normal in today’s polyglot society. 

I had put my camera in my bag when I saw the monk raise the ipad. I would have liked to catch a shot of him raising it. Alas, that was not to be. I did introduce myself and ask if I could make a photo of him, a request to which he acceded with humility. He said his name but it was so multi-syllabic and foreign to my ears that mind unfortunately would not grasp onto it.