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Those changes are being considered in response to the drowning deaths of seven young men in recent years.
Safety measures could include flotation rings, signs and ladders.
Council members should approve these changes. Anything we can do physically to make the levee a safer place should be done.
But council members — and area residents in general — need to realize that physical changes are not enough. Every one of the young men who drowned in the river did so after a night of drinking heavily.
Blood alcohol levels for all the victims were well above what the state considers to be evidence of driving under the influence.
Whatever changes we make to the levee itself must be accompanied by changes in behavior and programming to change the culture of binge drinking in La Crosse.
Council members know this, because the levee safety changes came from the same alcohol task force that also developed many recommendations to deal with the binge drinking issue.
Other recommendations made by the task force include addressing the need for activities for college-age people that don’t revolve around alcohol consumption. Those are still important.
Most of all, we need to recognize how dangerous excessive drinking can be — and how even just reducing the amount of alcohol people consume can help make them safer after a night downtown.
That message is as important — possibly even more so — than any physical changes we can make in the park.
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