Here’s another example from Superior, Wisconsin to help put the Red Plan into perspective. Its in Today’s Trib and concerns increased investment in downtown Superior. As an afterthought it notes the remarkable reduction in traffic at the intersection by Superior’s recently demolished old Central High.
Ironically, Belknap investment has surged despite a reduced traffic count. The most recent study, conducted in 2005, counted 13,700 vehicles daily at Belknap and Weeks Avenue, down from 20,300 in 1999 (those numbers represent the sum of vehicles traveling in each direction).
“Closing Central school eliminated a bunch of traffic,†said Morris Luke, a Wisconsin Department of Transportation traffic engineer.
The traffic has decreased by 30% next to a languishing Middle School. Now imagine how much it will increase in Duluth on Superior St. and 40th Ave. E when we triple the enrollment at Ordean and exchange its middle school student population with high school students who drive.
No studies were conducted by JCI on traffic at Ordean. This has been a great frustration to Kent Worley. Kent is a former Ordean resident and landscape architect who led the design for the I-35 extension through Duluth.
For over a year Kent has repeatedly warned the School Board and JCI that:
Superior Street and 40th are arterial major through-going streets; for all-around SAFETY, the school building needs to be built back away from these streets and provide more ‘interior site’ space for facility needs such as parking, bus circulation, parent drop-off, facility expansion needs, managing water runoff, snow storage, maintenance equipment and structure, general open space and exterior student gathering space—again providing enough space for needed safety and security.
To date MNDOT and the City of Duluth have done no studies on the impact of turning Ordean into high school despite the fact that MNDOT has been conducting an extensive analysis of London Road traffic. Neither the City or State want to deal with this political hot potato and are waiting for JCI to do the work. Don’t expect JCI to do a traffic study anytime soon while the Red Plan is under attack. They have no commercial interest in exposing the scandalous safety risks their Ordean Plan will subject our children to while there is any chance it could be derailed.
