Citizens Speak Their Mind About Main Street Reconstruction

Changes in traffic and right-of-way, specifically around , top the list of things Sussex residents are most concerned with on Main Street.

The village held to prepare for a complete reconstruction of Main Street in 2015, and the notes were presented to the Public Works committee Tuesday night.

Among the 62 comments collected, some were: 

• "Lots of traffic problems and confusion at part of Piggly Wiggly entrance."
• "Relocate Silver Spring and allow left turns from westbound Main to Silver Spring."
• "Concerned about limiting traffic flow. I am afraid that those bumpouts and the reconfiguring of road will decrease traffic."
• "Lots of concern about how businesses will be affected. How accessible will Main St. be during construction?"
• "Turn lanes are too difficult to see."
• Tell us what you’d like to see changed on Main Street in the comments.

During the first public forum, Village Trustee Jason Wegner talked with citizens about his view for businesses after construction.

“My main focus for this project, at least, is to reconstruct this road to feature businesses,” Wegner said. “Then we have the grounds to attract businesses on our most used street, get the taxes from that, and hopefully build other things around Sussex.”

The next step

The design team and village will now work together to create alternative designs for the street based on the comments. They'll use these alternatives to gather more comments and receive a clearer understanding of what would work best for residents.

“We’re going to get a lot more comments once we get to the alternative designs,” said the project’s manager Matt Bednarski. “That’s our next step is to create some feasible alternatives, present it to the village board and then go to the public one more time. I think we’ll get a lot more than 62 comments then. The intent is to show these alternatives at Spring Fest on March 19.”

Jeremy Smith, Sussex’s Village Administrator, agreed that Spring Fest’s expected turnout of 1,200 residents would be a good venue to get further insight on the reconstruction project.