Last Week
On Tuesday, Jim Wolfe from Engineering presented two options under consideration for this summer’s Winnebago Street reconstruction to the Pedestrian, Bicycle, Motor Vehicle Commission. If you haven’t been following along, you can get more background on the project on the city’sproject page or by reading this Madison Bikes article from February. For those that couldn’t be there in person or catch the live stream, you can watch a recording of the discussion here thanks to City Channel.
Option 2 for the Winnebago Street reconstruction
Public comment at the meeting was split between those that worried about the impact of lost parking on adjacent residents and businesses (supporting Option #1) and those that supported Option #2 for its positive impact on our urban canopy and the improved bike access for people of all ages and abilities. Commission members received 27 emails in support of Option #2 and 0 emails in support of Option #1 in advance of the meeting.
After close to an hour and a half of comment and discussion, the commission voted 5-1 in favor of Option #2. The project is expected to be in front of the Board of Public Works on April 18th and a final decision will be made by the Common Council on May 1st. Watch for additional action alerts for both of these meetings and please consider adding your voice to this important discussion.
This Week
Tuesday: Remember to ride your bike to your polling place and vote in the spring elections! The Madison Bikes Communications Committee will also meet up at the Memorial Union at 6pm. Check out the About Us section of our webpage for more info on any of the Madison Bikes Committees.
Thursday: The Wisconsin Film Festival kicks off on Thursday and runs through April 12th. Two movies that feature biking this year include Makala and Not Without Us. You can read a brief summary and watch the trailers after the fold. Just remember to save yourself the headache of car parking and ride your bike!
Saturday: Cafe Domestique Spring Rides continues on Saturday with this rain or shine series. Coffee at 8:30 and roll out at 9:00a. And if you’d rather ride inside, come to the season finale of the Capital Goldsprint Series at Octopi Brewing at 7pm.
Sunday: And on Sunday, Bombay Bicycle Club hosts its annual Spring Member Meeting. RSVP required by Monday, April 2nd.
For details on any of these events, head to the Madison Bikes calendar. If you have an event that you’d like added, send the details to info@madisonbikes.org.
Makala: In Emmanuel Gras’s stunning new documentary, charcoal-maker Kabwi-ta Kasongo and his wife Lydie live in a southern Congolese town, and they need money for their child’s medicine. Immersive cinematography tracks Kabwita’s arduous journey as he creates charcoal, travels to the market, and attempts to sell it so he can afford his family’s needs. Gras balances an eye for expansive landscapes, with distant views of flickering fire in deep darkness, and granular details, like the texture of cooling charcoal or the contours of chopped wood. In sustained observational sequences, the film follows Kabwita’s back-breaking processes, including cutting down enormous trees and traveling with an impossibly overloaded bicycle through difficult terrain.
Not Without Us: Sigrid Klausmann’s moving documentary follows sixteen children from fifteen countries across five continents. Each child is interviewed while under-taking their unique journeys to school, including trips by foot, bike, bus, boat, subway, donkey, skateboard, and skis. Interesting, and maybe unforeseen, is that however different their living environments, however different their personalities, the fears, hopes, and dreams of these children seem to be the same.