Sign outside of the Portage County Courthouse and Stevens Point's City Hall. Image courtesy: WAOW TV
STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — The Stevens Point City Council has voted down a proposal to move plans to redesign Division Street, or Business 51, in Stevens Point to voters this April.
A motion by Alder Jeremy Slowinski to put a binding referendum question on the ballot for the upcoming election failed 10-1 with Slowinski providing the lone yes vote. He says he doesn’t think that enough community feedback has made it into the current 30% design for the project.
“Eighty percent of the people who did the online survey during those public involvement meetings said they wanted this [to be a four-lane road,]” said Slowinski as he was introducing the measure.
Many of those who spoke during public comment agreed with him as well. Beth McBride, the owner of Puro-Clean, says she’s afraid that the redesign will end up re-routing traffic through her parking lot causing more problems than she already has.
“It will crate havoc by forcing traffic flow to the neighboring streets. Angry drivers will speed through my private lot, over my grass medians, damaging my signs, and increase the risk of accidents in my parking lot to get to the less populated streets,” said McBride.
RELATED: Stevens Point Approves 30% Plan for Business 51 Project
She also noted that many of those things already happen in her lot, and she doesn’t expect the issue would get better if Division Street is slimmed down to three lanes in some places (one lane going each way, plus a shared left-turn lane).
Discussion on the 60% design phase for the project is expected to continue into 2022. Mayor Mike Wiza encourages further discussion on the issue at those upcoming meetings but noted no matter what ends up happening with the project, not everyone will get what they want.
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