KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — North Street resident Jim Ferner is a man on a mission to make Kalamazoo safer for bicyclists, joggers and his neighbors by calming and redirecting traffic, even if he has to redesign the entire downtown to do it.
Ferner said Wednesday afternoon that, according to what he’s seen, northsiders like to use North Street as a short cut to avoid one-ways.
He said other neighborhoods experience the same issues — speeding cars, loud radios, litter and no safety for pedestrians.
“We’ve been asking government officals for over two years to do something about it, and we think it’s time,” Ferner said. “We’ve joined with other neighborhoods to try to form a coalition.”
Ferner and some of his neighbors staged a protest on Wednesday at North and Berkley, launching a campaign involving several neighborhoods that have suffered the unintended consequences of Kalamazoo’s tangle of downtown one-ways roads.
“They either funnel traffic up through the neighborhoods or they don’t allow drivers to turn and get to their destination conveniently, so they have to go through our streets,” Ferner said.
Ferner has been attending local board meetings for months asking for changes without much headway. He’s hoping Wednesday’s event will spark something that will lead to change.
– John McNeill
