It was a dark and stormy night in April.....what a great time to hold a meeting about a sewer project! The meeting was sponsored by the TLNA council for two major reasons: 1. Discuss progress on the Thornton Avenue sewer project which is intended to provide significant relief from sewer overflows on the isthmus, and 2. Consider options for Thornton Avenue once the sewer work is completed. Attendees included representatives from Great Big Pictures, the Mullins Group, Marling Lumber, TLNA residents/council members, former members of the Yahara River Task Force, Alders Barb Vedder and Judy Olsen, and Larry Nelson from the City Engineering Department. Due to the extent of the discussion and the complexity of the issues I will restrict the summary of this meeting to the discussion relevant to N. Thornton Ave.

At a similar neighborhood meeting last December, city staff indicated they hoped the sewer reconstruction project would begin this spring and be completed by the fall, 1999. The project has been delayed because of engineering considerations regarding the most feasible route for the sewer line through Burr Jones Park. The park was a former ash and cinder dump site and this material is not the most favorable construction material. DNR and Corps of Engineer permits will also be required because the sewer line must cross under the river. Larry Nelson indicated construction would only begin when all of the permits were obtained and the engineering finalized. We will keep you informed through the newsletter when the details of this project have been finalized.

Larry Nelson indicated the city will be finishing the bike path through Burr Jones Park (between Thornton Ave and Johnson Street) this year. We appreciate the City's attention to this segment of its bike trail system.

The majority of the meeting was devoted to considerations of the fate of Thornton Avenue once the sewer work is completed. The discussion centered around the letters exchanged between the neighborhood association and Yahara River Task Force members with the City Engineering staff. The former parties were encouraging the City and the major landowners to think creatively and holistically about the impending sewer project, E. Washington bridge reconstruction, E. Washington repaving and the goals of the Yahara River Parkway project. Specifically, they were requesting the City and landowners consider the following options:

1. Encourage the businesses to work together to enhance traffic options within the blocks bounded by Dickinson-Dayton-Thornton-E.Washington.

2. Request City Engineering staff to consider all available city owned properties in this area as potential traffic access points.

3. Encourage the City and businesses to think about the ramifications of the loss of Thornton Ave when the E. Washington bridge is reconstructed. In essence, only repave/patch essential portions of Thornton Ave given the impending loss of this street to the E. Washington Bridge reconstruction project in 2-3 years and consider alternative ingress and egress points for the businesses. Except for Great Big Pictures, the businesses were not in favor of closing or reducing the extent of Thornton Avenue.

Larry Nelson indicated his preference was to repatch the road to its current width. He also was not in favor of using the existing right of way owned by the City between Thornton and E. Washington as a (temporary or permanent) replacement for Thornton Avenue. The TLNA council members indicated disappointment with this response given the private encroachment on this public right-of-way and the lack of a clear showing that this alternative would be any less safe than the current N. Thornton Ave-E. Washington intersection.

Mr. Nelson had recommended in his letter to the neighborhood and at the meeting that the sewer project could be split. He suggested leaving the portion of the sewer project between the railroad tracks and E. Johnson Street undone until the issues of cul-de-sacing N. Thornton Ave at E. Johnson Street was resolved. He suggested forming a street improvement district to consider this street work. An official Public Works hearing will be held on April 21 to discuss this issue. The results of this hearing will be reported in the following newsletter.

The TLNA council has taken a position to oppose partial completion of the sewer work if it will not provide significant relief from sewer back-ups in our neighborhood. Mr. Nelson was informed of the TLNA position at the meeting.

Mr. Nelson further recommended that no position on the fate of Thornton Avenue be taken until the E. Washington corridor study is completed. There was general agreement that the variety of interests and the complexity of the issues surrounding these inter-related projects makes decisions about a preferred set alternatives difficult. As with all big projects the devil is in the details.

-Ed Jepsen


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