Vote goes for bike lanes for Jackson St., though still worries about parking

Bike lanes on Jackson Street in La Crosse may be accepted by people living in that area, but they wouldn’t like losing curbside parking in exchange.

At a public meeting Tuesday night on plans to repave Jackson, audience members voted 26-19 — four were undecided — to include bike lanes on the busy street.

But that would eliminate parking on one side of Jackson.

Tim Acklin of the city planning office says if that happens, Jackson would become exempt from winter rules for alternate-side parking.

However, the prospect of losing on-street parking stalls bothered many in attendance. The most likely proposal, for now, would be to remove parking on the north side of Jackson, which would eliminate about 180 spaces, compared to 200 spaces in the south lane.

For example, the Dickinson Funeral Home there could be forced to tear down a nearby house to create a parking lot, if there’s no parking in the north lane.

A repaving of Jackson, which would not include widening the street, is scheduled to happen three years from now.

A number of audience members asked the city and the Wisconsin DOT to help make busy intersections there safer, especially because of heavy traffic.