MILWAUKEE — Before we can solve the problem of reckless driving in Milwaukee, it helps to take a hard look at how we got here.
That includes talking about how our streets have changed over the decades.
One of the most visible examples is the corner of Sherman Boulevard and Center Street.
Today, Sherman is six lanes of pavement with a narrow median.
Center is four lanes, with no median at all.
The place those lanes meet has become a hotbed of reckless driving in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
But the intersection was not always like this.
Mabel Lamb is executive director of Sherman Park Community Association, and she lives right on the historic boulevard.
We asked Lamb to step into the wayback machine with us to see what Sherman was like back in the day.
Based on the cars in an old photo, that looks like the 1930s.
The differences are striking.
"These boulevards were wider," Lamb said. " And look at this big flower bed that's here. I mean, absolutely beautiful."
I found that image while spending a day at the Milwaukee County Historical Society, sifting through photos that show how some major Milwaukee streets have changed over the last century.
It's a way to better understand how decisions made by city engineers and highway planners helped create the streets and problems we have today.
To help me, I met up with Robert Schneider, a professor of urban planning from UW Milwaukee.
We met at the place where 6th Street, Keefe Avenue, Atkinson Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive all come together.
Compared to how the intersection looked in a photo from the years after WWII, it is a massive chunk of pavement that shows just how much things have changed.
"When this picture was taken in probably the 1940s or early 1950s, the neighborhood was much more oriented to local business as well as walking and public transportation to get around," Schneider said.
Over the years the streetcars were ripped out and cars took over.
Schneider says priorities changed to moving those cars through as fast as possible.
"The main way this was dealt with was thinking about how can we simplify our streets, add numbers of lanes, make the pavement a little bit wider so cars could go through without as much congestion," he said.
You can see another part of the reason in something as simple as a street's name.
Green Bay, Fond du Lac and Appleton Avenues are all good examples.
Those aren't just names -- those are destinations.
A reminder that these streets in the middle of neighborhoods were once built as highways to somewhere.
"You are placing that priority on the public space which is the street itself. Sometimes at the expense of other purposes for that street, which is the local businesses access and the pedestrian safety provided by that street," Schneider said.
In other cases, streets had neighborhoods torn down around them.
Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive is a sea of concrete.
Around 1950, it was Green Bay Avenue.
That was a much narrower road with streetcars and a bustling business district.
Priorities changed and so did the street.
"That has consequences for us today," says Schneider. "I think it's important to think where can we reverse some of those choices made decades ago."
Milwaukee's Department of Public Works declined to go on camera but endorsed Professor Schneider's perspective.
As for un-doing all the changes made over the decades, a spokesperson said it comes down to money.
"We've been more aggressive in reconfiguring these roadways to safely support more modes of transportation," the statement reads, in part.
"But fully reconstructing a street is costly and we have to manage our funding as best we can."
Back on Sherman Boulevard, Mabel Lamb knows the best way to make our streets safer is to change people's bad driving habits.
But she sure wouldn't mind taking a stroll down the boulevard looking a little more like it did 90 years ago.
"I think we probably need to go back to two lanes," she said. "I mean it will help slow the traffic."
Photos courtesy of the Milwaukee County Historical Society photo archives.
