Lyon & Fountain Redesign
Several reconfiguration options for Lyon St and Fountain St are under consideration. For those not familiar these are each wide one-way streets tracks connecting Heritage Hill and downtown, with a large public school facility situated between them in the highest point and center of the study area. Downtown is down the hill to the west and Houseman Field is down the hill to the east The east end study area stops roughly two (2) blocks short of the Fulton St Farmer's market site, and three (3) blocks from Fuller Ave.
There are no east/west bicycle facilities north of Fulton St until you reach the bike gutter on Leonard St a full mile to the north, across both Michigan St and I-196. Other than Michigan St there are no through-running east west streets in the same distance due to the topography of the area. There are no north/south bicycle facilities connected to the study. There is an bicycle gutter on Lafayette north of Michigan St up to Leonard St.
The consideration of the lack of both bicycle and pedestrian facilities overlaps with the city's ongoing analysis of all one-way streets. The city has already evaluated Ottawa Ave and Ionia Ave and determined that both should be converted to two way traffic. While that conversion has not happened modifications have been made to Ottawa Ave to facilitate that change in the future.
The city has also mentioned pedestrian crossing improvements on Fuller Ave.
The Data
Transit: Rapid #6 and #15 serve the study area.
Parking: While Fountain Ave has intermittant sections of street parking on one side Lyon St has street parking on both sides for the length of the study area.
Traffic Volume: Lyon: 1,200 - 4,300 vehicles per day, Fountain: 1,200 - 2,800 vehicles per day. While the speed limit of both streets is 25mph the benchmark speeds of motorists is 24mph on Lyon and 31mph on Fountain. North of the study area Michigan St carries 15,000 - 17,000 vehicles per day based on 2023 data; College Ave between 10,000 and 11,000 vehicles per day. Fuller Ave to east carries ~19,500 vehicles per day, with Fulton to the south carrying ~15,000.
Crashes: Over five years (2018 - 2022) there were 195 crashes on Lyon St and 121 crashes on Fountain St. Combined there have 13 crashes involving a pedestrian or cyclist. Five critical injuries have resulted from these crashes.