Traffic should be calmer and students safer near two Milwaukee schools soon, with changes being made to combat reckless driving.
Ralph H. Metcalfe School, 3400 W. North Ave., and Alexander Mitchell Integrated Arts School, 1728 S. 23rd St., are two of 60 different sites the Milwaukee Department of Public Works, or DPW, has selected for its next traffic-calming projects.
The effort is part of Milwaukee’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate annual traffic deaths by 2037.
DPW has already completed projects in front of other Milwaukee Public Schools as part of a citywide Safe Routes to School plan, including U.S. Grant School and Westside Academy. Metcalfe and Mitchell were ranked in the top 10 for highest-priority schools in need of traffic calming, said Marissa Meyer, senior transportation planner at DPW.
“A large proportion of it is just crash risk, also how many students are in the walk zone,” Meyer said. “How much opportunity we have to get more students walking and biking.”
Changes for Metcalfe and Mitchell
Meyer said safety is a top priority at Metcalfe School.
It’s a challenge for students crossing the busy North Avenue traffic to get to school.
DPW offered to implement raised crosswalks or curb extensions with flashing lights across from the school at North 34th Street or at the corner, Meyer said.
DPW will conduct an engineering investigation to figure out which option is the most feasible in front of Metcalfe School, she said. Construction will be complete in 2026 or 2027, according to Tiffany Shepherd, DPW’s marketing and communications director.
Pedestrian visibility is important at Mitchell School, but Meyer said the biggest priority there is slowing drivers down around the school.
Residents there voted on several options, all of which included curb extensions for more visible crossing. Residents chose a design that incorporates traffic circles on Maple Street and speed bumps on South 23rd and South 22nd streets.
Community reactions
Elizabeth Ramirez, Muskego Way Forward initiative coordinator, often sees drivers recklessly speeding past Mitchell School, especially on Mitchell Street.
Muskego Way Forward, a nonprofit organization in the Muskego Way neighborhood, played a major role in connecting the community with opportunities to engage with the project at Mitchell School, Ramirez said.
In her experience living near the area, Ramirez said most of the danger near the school isn’t on Maple Street, it’s the reckless drivers on the other three streets surrounding Mitchell School – South 23rd Street, South 24th Street and Mitchell Street.
She doesn’t think traffic circles on Maple, which are part of the proposed plan, would work well on that street. She fears it will make the street too narrow and interfere with how neighbors actually use the street.
She thinks speed bumps on Mitchell Street, 23rd Street and 22nd Street would be adequate to slow down drivers near the school.
Julia Powell, a crossing guard in Milwaukee for over 15 years, said she’s seen mixed results at schools that have made the traffic changes.
Powell predominately works at South Side schools. She said the street in front of one South Side school she worked at changed to a one-way, which congested traffic on surrounding streets. She said drivers are still moving recklessly and double parking there often.
Powell wants to see two speed bumps on streets near schools.
“That way they won’t slow down and then just speed up again, but they’ll have to keep slowing down,” she said.
She also recommended adding a visible white line to identify the crosswalk at stop signs, a suggestion likely to become a reality at both schools.
“People come up so close that I can basically reach out my hand and touch their car,” she said.
Shepherd said construction near Mitchell School will be completed in 2026.
How do traffic-calming measures work?
Speed is a major factor in how severe a crash is between a pedestrian and a driver, so Meyer said most traffic-calming measures are designed to force drivers to slow down.
“Anything that we can do to prevent drivers from speeding makes a huge difference,” Meyer said.
Making drivers cross a speed bump slows them down. A traffic circle, like the ones considered at Mitchell School, also makes people slow down to veer around the circle.
Traffic-calming projects also typically work to make pedestrians as visible as possible when crossing a street. Raising crosswalks makes it easier to see children crossing and serves a similar purpose as speed bumps.
Curb extensions, another common measure with DPW, shorten the distance students cross the street and also makes pedestrians more visible, Meyer said.
Shepherd said drivers may notice these changes slow them down, which is the goal for reducing reckless driving in the city.
“We’d much rather have you have a 5-minute longer commute if that means saving someone’s life, right?” Shepherd said.
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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