Have a problem in your neighborhood?

Maybe you think more sidewalks are needed. Or maybe too much traffic cuts through in the morning or late afternoon.

If you want to take your complaints to the city, it’s good to have allies  your neighbors.

“I think that a strong neighborhood association is the voice to take to the city on issues,” said Kirsten Roussel, president of the Brook Creek Neighborhood Assn.

A native of Scituate, Mass., Roussel, 37, moved to Lawrence during the summer of 1991.

About three years ago, she began attending Brook Creek Neighborhood Assn. meetings and quickly took on a leadership position.

She said that the community is friendly and neighbors know each other.

“I was out looking for my cat and the neighbor across the street said, ‘Hey, go look in Michael’s yard. She’s over there,'” Roussel said.

“It feels a lot more like the neighborhood when I was growing up, when the neighbors knew your kids’ names and everybody was watching out for everybody else. It’s a very comfortable feel. … It is a very nice, personable, welcoming neighborhood.”

Mix of old and new homes

There are between 980 and 1,000 homes in the Brook Creek neighborhood. The boundaries are the former Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad spur on the west, city limits on the north and east and 19th Street on the south.

The neighborhood is primarily single-family homes, with some renter-occupied dwellings. Many of the homes were built in the 1920s through 1950s, with the newest homes in the east.

“We’re getting a lot of growth out east with a lot of Habitat (for Humanity) homes. They’re doing fabulous job in the section that’s east and south of 15th Street,” Roussel said.

Most of the children go to East Heights School.

“There have been some tremendous changes. The (school) district has made a commitment to revitalize that school, ” she said. “We are looking at ways to involve the community and the neighborhood in that school.”

Common gathering points are the East Lawrence Recreation Center, Brook Creek Park and Edgewood Park. The neighborhood also includes three cemeteries, Oak Hill Cemetery, Mount Calvary Cemetery and Memorial Park Cemetery.

Rain brings drainage issues

Roussel says there are some problems in the Brook Creek neighborhood that need intervention by the city. The recent heavy rains have demonstrated a yearly concern.

“A continuing issue has been flooding and stormwater drainage,” Roussel said. “The city is making some great improvements. But they seem to be further upstream from our drainage area.”

Roussel and her neighbors gathered on Earth Day to see whether they could do a few things themselves.

The association organized a park cleanup, with some residents wading into Brook Creek to clean out the debris that is restricting the flow.

“There are several of us who have held onto the hip-wader boots with the intention of getting further downstream, as weather permits,” she said, laughing.

Traffic troubles

Besides stormwater issues, the neighborhood association is also interested in improving safety, with more sidewalks and better street lighting.

They’ve also been dealing with a traffic cut-through issue.

Many drivers heading to work to and from the East Hills Business Park or from Kansas Highway 10 take a shortcut through the neighborhood, she said.

They try to avoid the 15th Street and Haskell Avenue intersection and the pedestrian and vehicle traffic at the East Heights School on the northeast corner there.

Generally, they cut east on 12th or 13th streets, take those to Oak Hill Avenue and get off Oak Hill at either Prairie Avenue, Prospect Avenue, Summit Street or Elmwood Street to get onto 15th.

Much of the traffic comes down Summit and Prospect, she said.

Roussel said the neighborhood discussed the situation with the city’s traffic and safety commission, which was instrumental in lowering the speed limit to 20 mph.

“But we’re still experiencing a lot of traffic on Oak Hill that exceeds that,” she said.

The traffic, combined with no sidewalks due to the drainage ditches on the roadways, discourages pedestrians in the morning and afternoons, she said.

“It makes it hard to have it a nice walkable neighborhood,” she said.

“We watched what they did over at Schwarz Road (near Sunset School) with great interest, as far as making that a one-way,” Roussel said. “And we’re hoping to come up with something akin to that to discourage people from using our neighborhood as a cut-through between 15th and Haskell.”

She said they have spoken with the Traffic Safety Commission about that idea.

“They basically said ‘Find a plan that everybody can agree on and bring it back to us,'” Roussel said.

“We’ve proposed within the neighborhood, everything from making some of the streets one-ways to having no left turns to even the extreme of cutting off 13th Street right at Brook Street and having it end with a hike and bike path going through with no vehicle traffic.”

But it’s a slow process. It’s difficult to reach every family in the neighborhood that would be affected by it, she said.

Forty to 60 active members

The neighborhood association has a board of four: a president, vice president, treasurer and secretary.

Roussel says active membership fluctuates between 40 and 60 people.

The board meets the second Wednesday every month from September to May, excluding January. Its newsletter is distributed every month from September through May.