Streets For All FAQ

This is a project to redesign downtown Kalamazoo for the next 100 years. Kalamazoo is a welcoming, inclusive and vibrant city, and it’s time to make it as easy to navigate as it is to enjoy.

For decades, the roads were meant to move people through as quickly as possible. This included many five-lane and high-speed roads. While this worked in the 1950s and 1960s when they were originally designed, they no longer serve the community. It’s harder to get around, find what you’re looking for or feel connected from the neighborhoods around downtown.

Kalamazoo Streets For All redesigns streets, sidewalks and parking to encourage people to stop, stay and play. The project also includes underground updates to water and internet systems to support our businesses and residents both now and in the future.

Yes. Streets for All is rooted in years of community input. The work builds on the Imagine Kalamazoo planning process, which engaged thousands of residents and identified key priorities like:

• Better connections between neighborhoods and downtown
• Improved safety
• A more vibrant and accessible city

Since then, the City has continued gathering input through workshops, surveys, and project-specific engagement. Community feedback has directly influenced street designs, including decisions about traffic flow, parking, and neighborhood impacts.

Engagement is ongoing, and residents will continue to have opportunities to provide input as planning moves forward for the remaining projects.

Kalamazoo is a vibrant place to live, work and visit. However, the existing structure of our neighborhoods, the downtown and our college campuses leaves people feeling disconnected more often than not. The goal of the Streets For All project is to help improve and support the community for businesses, residents and visitors alike. Downtown infrastructure hasn’t been updated in many years. This project ensures the roads, water and communication systems are all up to date to carry us into the future.

Construction is phased over several years (2026-2030) and includes both street and underground infrastructure improvements.

• Kalamazoo Avenue: reconstruction begins in July 2026, starting at Kalamazoo Avenue and Park Street and moving eastward a few blocks at a time toward Pitcher Avenue. This is a full rebuild including updates to the road, water mains and communications infrastructure.
• West Main Street: this work will begin in later in 2026 or early 2027.
• Douglas Avenue: this work is also in 2027.
• Michigan Avenue: this work is expected to begin in 2028 and continue into 2029. 
• South & Lovell Streets: Work on these streets and their connection to Michigan Ave is expected to take place in 2030.

The benefits show up in a few key ways:

Safer streets: Design changes like lower speeds, fewer lanes, and better crossings help reduce both the number and severity of crashes. Changes like two-way conversions and narrower lanes are proven to reduce crashes, by as much as 36–60% in some cases.

Easier navigation: Two-way streets make routes more direct and intuitive, reducing unnecessary travel.

Better connections: The updated network improves access between neighborhoods, downtown, and campuses.

Stronger infrastructure: Upgrades to water, sewer, stormwater, and other underground systems make streets more reliable (especially during heavy rain) and prepared for the future.

Environmental benefits: More direct routes and improved travel options are expected to reduce driving by about 3.65 million miles per year, lowering emissions in the process.

A more connected, walkable and inviting downtown allows all residents to enjoy everything our city has to offer. Whether you’re a senior citizen, a stay-at-home or work-from-home parent, a college student or someone in between, you deserve a downtown space where you can connect and live your most vibrant life.

An enhanced downtown space is full of opportunities to connect! Start a Wednesday morning walking group before work. Schedule a playdate in the park with friends, or better yet make some new ones at the park! Meet up with colleagues for a bite after work or class. Enjoy a quiet, calm Sunday morning drinking coffee and reading the paper. Go for a bike ride or run safely on downtown’s streets. With Kalamazoo Streets For All, the options are endless.

Our current road system provides more barriers than connections for our downtown, for residents, businesses, and visitors. Moving from point A to point B is important. But Kalamazoo is a destination, not a drive-through. The five-lane, high-speed setup prioritizes moving cars quickly, but it doesn’t create much opportunity to see what downtown has to offer or comfortably stop and explore.

Kalamazoo Streets For All keeps the streets drivable while also lowering speeds, widening sidewalks, and making parking easier. These changes are designed to support local businesses. Research consistently shows that walkable, pedestrian-friendly streets are linked to higher retail sales and stronger business performance. Increased foot traffic is one of the biggest drivers of local spending, and people who walk or bike tend to visit more often and spend more over time.

By making it easier to arrive, notice businesses, and spend time downtown, these improvements help turn quick pass-through trips into meaningful visits, supporting local shops, restaurants, and the overall vitality of downtown.

Traffic will change, but it’s not expected to stop working, and in many ways, it will work better.

Today’s system pushes a lot of traffic onto a few high-speed, one-way streets. The updated network is designed differently. It spreads traffic across more streets, creates more direct routes, and reduces the need to circle blocks or take indirect paths.

Before these changes were proposed, the City completed traffic studies and modeling to understand how the network would function. Those studies show the system can continue to move traffic effectively, even with fewer lanes in some areas, by redistributing traffic and improving how streets work together as a network.

That means some trips may feel a little slower, especially during busy times. But the goal isn’t to move cars through downtown as fast as possible: it’s to make the system work better for getting to and around downtown.

Traffic studies and national research support this approach. In similar cities, converting to two-way streets and calming traffic has reduced crashes, improved navigation, and maintained overall traffic flow across the network.

In Kalamazoo, these changes are also expected to reduce total driving by about 3.65 million miles per year, simply by making trips more direct.

It’s also important to think about what downtown is for. Downtown Kalamazoo is a destination; a place where people live, work, shop, and spend time. Streets in that environment are designed to balance movement with safety, access, and comfort. Regional through traffic is better served by roads like I-94 and US-131, which are built for higher speeds and longer trips.

The goal of Streets for All is to keep downtown easy to drive, while also making it safer, more connected, and more enjoyable to be in. That means a system that may move a little more calmly but works better overall.

This project is for everyone. It’s for the resident who drives out of town to work every day. It’s for the group of friends meeting up in the city for a day of fun. It’s for the elderly who can’t drive but want to meet with the morning coffee club. It’s for the family who wants to plan a birthday party for their child downtown. And yes, it’s for outdoor enthusiasts like runners, cyclists and more who want to enjoy the outdoors and the downtown simultaneously.

Traffic doesn’t disappear, but it does shift. Instead of being concentrated on a few one-way streets, traffic is distributed across a more connected, two-way network. Routes become more direct, which reduces unnecessary travel and helps match traffic to the purpose of each street. Traffic studies show there is capacity on other streets in the system to absorb this shift, reducing pressure on any one corridor and helping the network function more efficiently overall. At the same time, some regional traffic, especially high-speed or long-distance trips, is already using routes like I-94 and US-131, which are designed for that purpose.

Truck traffic has already been shifting in recent years. Data shows that heavier through-truck traffic has decreased downtown and moved to routes like I-94 and other regional corridors, which is appropriate, since those roads are designed for that type of travel. Downtown will continue to support local deliveries, service vehicles, and business-related traffic.

Reducing heavy, high-speed truck traffic in downtown improves safety, reduces noise, and creates a more comfortable environment for residents, visitors, and businesses.

Train crossings are currently one of the biggest causes of delays in downtown Kalamazoo.

In particular, switching activity near the rail yard contributes to backups on streets like Michigan and Kalamazoo Avenue. The City has received funding to study relocating rail operations and removing the switching track. If implemented, this could eliminate a large portion of train-related delays.

This is a longer-term effort, but it’s an important part of improving how the overall system functions and something that city staff are currently working on.