MILWAUKEE — Two streets on Milwaukee’s north side claim more lives than any other road in Milwaukee County.
Since 2017, Wisconsin Department of Transportation data shows 27 people have died in crashes along Fond du Lac Avenue and 26 people have been killed on Capitol Drive. Both have recorded twice as many traffic fatalities compared to the third and fourth deadliest streets of Appleton Avenue and Silver Spring Drive.
City leaders say speeding and street design are the two biggest factors.
The two deadliest streets in Milwaukee have several similarities. Both are busy urban highways, both cross paths on the city’s north side and both have been the scenes of fatal crashes within the past week.
"What's the mindset behind some of these people? Some people just don't care,” said Tracey Dent.
Dent is a community activist who makes a living driving for Uber. He says Capitol and Fond du Lac are the two most terrifying streets to traverse due to how often drivers speed, weave and run red lights.
“People are too impatient and they stop and a red light and then they just go,” he said. "I had a rider in the backseat and there was two SUVs actually start shooting at each other in front of us. I mean, literally right in front of us on Fond du Lac."
WisDOT data shows more than 10 percent of all crash fatalities in the past five years in Milwaukee County have occurred along Capitol and Fond du Lac.
"Even one is devastating, 53 is horrific,” Dent said.
Alderman Michael Murphy says what’s most concerning is more than half of the traffic deaths on Capitol and Fond du Lac were a result of high speeds.
"It's a very dense area in terms of a large number of people, but it's a very open-wide roadway,” Alderman Murphy said.
Alderman Murphy says the way the streets were designed opens the door to illegal driving activity. The straightaways were built to have two traffic lanes going both directions along a majority of each route. But parking lanes lining the right side of the road are often misused as additional traffic lanes.
"You see nearly six lanes because people are using the parking lane and that can be so deadly, and so you put that in the mix with people who are driving not 10 or 20 but sometimes 30 miles above the speed limit, you can see what the end result is,” he said.
Alderman Murphy says a traffic calming solution is coming in the new year to discourage drivers from using the parking lane to illegally pass on the right.
"It will really curtail them and funnel them to slow down,” he said.
The city engineer says the Department of Public Works plans to install what’s called pinned-on bump-outs along these stretches of both streets.
That means elevated concrete will be used to extend the curb at intersection corners to protect the parking lane while also shrinking crossing distances for pedestrians.
"Would I have liked to see more done? Absolutely, but it would have been done a number of years ago when we did reconstruction,” Alderman Murphy said.
Alderman Murphy knows the biggest consequence of reckless driving behavior is the loss of life. He’s hopeful a combination of traffic enforcement and the re-engineering of roads make the two deadliest streets much safer.
