Losey Blvd. solutions include narrowing lanes, lowering speed limit

Residents have complained heavy pounding traffic is destroying their homes.

The work to slow a busy street in La Crosse will start with a lower speed limit.

A proposal has been introduced at the city council that would lower the speed limit on Losey Blvd. from 30 to 25 miles per hour.

It’s a response to complaints from neighbors about heavy trucks speeding down the road.

Mayor Tim Kabat says a narrowing of the street could also be in the future, which would also help with reducing speed.

“It still moves traffic but it slows people down just a little bit,” Kabat said Thursday from the WIZM studio, adding that the street would still be five lanes, those lanes would just be narrower.

 

Changing the speed limit would, of course, literally do that, as well.

“At 25, everyone’s driving 31-32 miles per hour,” Kabat said. “So, reducing by that 5-7 mph, it does slow down, reduce some of that heavy pounding of the roadway.

 

“We still want to move the 22,000 plus cars and truck that travel that road every day. We don’t want to slow it down to the point where it’s adding minutes and minutes to people’s travel time.”

Other recommendations for slowing traffic on the street include adding roundabouts.