Month: September 2018

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Important things first: It’s the week of our Madison Bikes Party and Fundraiser! There will be food, there will be a photo booth, there will be beer — and most importantly: There will be lots of awesome people who care about biking in Madison! Please support us and get your tickets in advance! You can also just show up on the day of the event, but having your ticket in advance will make things go more smoothly. Big thanks to our sponsors American Family Insurance, Starting Block Madison, Jonny Hunter of Underground Food Collective fame, and Rockhound Brewing.

Also a reminder that you can join the Madison Bikes Board of Directors. The party on Saturday will be a great opportunity to meet current board members and ask questions. More details here.

Last week

El Tour de la Familia Latina celebrated their first birthday. Big shout out to the BiciClub Latino de Madison for putting together these rides! While the weather was great for the celebration, the ride was overshadowed by news that several immigrants had been detained in the Madison area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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Photo credit: Baltazar de Anda

This week

If you live in or ride through Monona, consider taking action on a stretch of bike path that would close a gap between the Cap City Trail and an already existing path along South Towne Drive. Madison Bike community member Bruce has written a draft email to Monona city officials that you can use. The meeting about the path is tonight at 6pm already, so please act quick.

Tonight, Monday, Bike Fitchburg has their monthly meeting. I imagine they may be celebrating the opening of the newly built shoulders on a stretch of Whalen Road — something the organization had been fighting for hard. 6:30pm at the Fitchburg Public Library.

On Wednesday, the Transportation Commission has their monthly meeting. On the agenda are the following items:

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There should be a livestream of the meeting, or you can subscribe to an audio podcast version here.

On Thursday, come to the Cargo Bike Shop for their workshop on the “Art of Bicycle Commuting.” Or, since this workshop is primarily aimed at people new to commuting by bike, send your friends who are interested in bike commuting but haven’t made the jump just yet. Yours truly and our board member Michael will both give brief presentations. Thursday, 6:30pm.

One bike advocacy fundraiser is good. Two is even better. Join Bike Fitchburg for their Pick Me Up at the Border Ride. It’s an annual event where you meet at the Capitol in Madison and ride all the way to the Illinois border (or however far you’d like to ride) on the Badger State Trail. Meet Friday at 7pm on the Capitol Square. $15 suggested donation.

Remember, if you have an event that you’d like us to include on the Community Calendar, send it to us.

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Don’t forget to secure your tickets for our party on 9/29!

Last Week:

The dry weather this past week has been quite a relief from the relentless rain we got at the end of August. Lake Monona’s level has gone down some, but not enough to clear the Isthmus Yahara River Trail or the Wingra Creek Path of flood water, so those paths remain closed until further notice.

One bit of good news is that the Longford Terrace underpass on the Capital City Trail has been repaired! The trail is now officially open between Verona Rd and Fish Hatchery Rd. Although the pavement has been laid between Nob Hill Road and Glacier Valley Drive, that section of the trail remains officially closed until crews can install gravel shoulders and add signage at road crossings. According to the county’s website for the trail pavement restoration, they are expecting that section to reopen very soon.

This Week:

Today, Monday September 17 is the monthly Madison Bikes Board Meeting. The meeting starts at 6:00 PM at the Madison Public Library, Central Branch at 201 W. Mifflin St. We are currently asking for applications for new members on our board of directors. Learn more.

Wednesday, September 19 is the monthly Madison Bikes Advocacy Committee. The meeting starts at 6:00 PM at Bendyworks at 106 E. Doty St. Suite 200 in downtown Madison. If you’re interested in getting more involved in advocacy please feel free to join us! This week we will be focusing on candidate questionnaires for local elections coming up next spring with a focus on active transportation. Read more about the planning meeting here.

Saturday, September 22 there are many events to choose from.

• At 9:00 AM there is the Cyclocross World Cup Waterloo. The event is hosted by Trek Bicycle and is the first UCI World Cup of the 2018-2019 season.
• At 10:00 AM the Tour de la Familia Latina, or the Tour of the Latino Family, departs from its usual location at Olin Park. This is a special ride because it is the one year anniversary of the ride, and they will be unveiling their logo at a picnic after the ride.
• Also at 10:00 AM is the Sun Prairie Slow Roll, hosted by Sun Prairie Moves. The ride is a slow-paced, family-friendly ride starting and ending in Orfan Community Park.

Want to become more involved in local bicycle advocacy? Consider joining the Madison Bikes board of directors.

Madison Bikes is looking for people who are dedicated, passionate, strong communicators, good compromisers, organized, and able to commit time and energy to promoting biking as a priority in the city of Madison. There are no paid staff and everything we do—from fundraising to advocacy to communications to events—is done by our volunteer board and volunteer committee members.

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Our current board of directors

We are currently accepting applications for up to seven seats on the Madison Bikes Board of Directors, with elections taking place in December.

Our organization is committed to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic board committed to equity in our work. We strongly encourage applications from people of color, women, and other groups who are underrepresented in bike advocacy.

The Madison Bikes board is an all-volunteer working board. At a minimum, we expect board members to:

• Attend our monthly board meetings (6-8pm every third Monday of the month)

• Participate in one or more of our committees, attend their monthly meetings, and work on tasks between meetings

• Have passion for our organization’s vision: Making Madison a city where anyone can ride a bicycle conveniently and comfortably to any place in the city and neighboring communities year round.

Other examples of things our board members do:

• Write for our blog

• Plan, organize, and promote events like our party, our presence at Ride the Drive, or the Winter Bike Fashion Show

• Attend city-held meetings (public input meetings, City Council meetings, local and regional transportation committee meetings)

• Mobilize the community to advocate for bike projects
• Meet and liaise with community partners (neighborhood associations, non-profits, other bike advocacy groups)

• Contribute to fundraising and organizational development efforts

If you are interested in joining our board, please complete this application form by October 4. If you would like to nominate someone other than yourself, please forward this post/email to them and ask them to apply.

A great opportunity to informally chat with current board members will be our party and fundraiser on September 29.

Our executive board will review all application submissions and follow up with all applicants with next steps.

Still have questions? Email Kate!

Bucky on Parade wraps up this Wednesday. If you haven’t gotten to see all of the Bucky statues yet, it’s time to plan out your route, and make it happen. Or perhaps you have a favorite Bucky you pass on your commute every day, make sure to grab a picture of your bike in front of Bucky before they are gone. The statues will be auctioned off later this month, and hopefully some will become permanent fixtures around the city.

Our annual party is almost here. It will be Saturday, September 29th from 4 to 7 pm. We will be in a new space this year, and the events team has a lot of cool stuff in store for you. We are asking that you please buy your tickets in advance. You can find out more information and a link to buy tickets here.

This week

Monday

Madison Bike Events Committee will be meeting at Bariques on Park Street tonight at 6 pm. They will be handling final preparations for the annual party. It is not too late to get involved to help make the party a great success.

Saturday

Tour de Latina Familia – More info will be available later this week.

Sunday

Back Lot Bike Swap – Hosted by The Cargo Bike Shop. Buy, sell, or trade bike stuff, drink coffee, test ride cargo bikes, hang out. It’ll be a good time. Admission is free. They will also be collecting donations for the WilMar Neighborhood Food Bank, so bring along some non-perishable food items to help them out. Every donation gets a raffle ticket. The more you bring, the more tickets you get!

Bike the Barns – A day of biking, farm tours and live music – all fueled by gourmet, local meals! This year’s route will be in the gorgeous Driftless area, starting and ending at Nishan Park in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. We’re biking to make healthy food accessible for all; every dollar raised by Fundraiser Riders supports our Partner Shares program.

The ride includes a short (26 miles) or long ride (56-61 miles) option. They will visit Wormfarm Institute, Orange Cat Community Farm, Jumping Jersey Dairy and Meadowlark Community Farm (Long Route Only). Perks include a gourmet lunch, event After Party, commemorative water bottle, and fundraising prizes!

Visit csacoalition.org/bike-the-barns for more details and to register!

SEND US YOUR EVENTS!

Remember, if you have an event that you’d like us to include on the Community Calendar, send it to us.

This time of year is always a little dicey for people on bikes. Lots of new people have just moved to town, parents are moving their kids into apartments, people are trying biking in a real city for the first time, and they are all confused by one-way streets and how we get around in Madison. Lots of the people driving have never seen bicyclists actual using the street, or they don’t expect paths to be so crowded. The only thing anyone has taught the freshmen about biking is, “Stay of the way of cars.”

Everyone is a little on edge. Now throw in flooded streets that redirect everyone to a few corridors on the east side, and it gets worse. My very-experienced and strong colleague, who commutes eight miles each way through the east side, told me that they worst part of his Madison Flood 2018 commute is that drivers are racing through the yellow (or red) light because they are so backed up and late.

Just take a breath, enjoy the ride, and be patient with all the confused newbies. Be happy that you are probably going the same speed as you normally do, and you can navigate around most of the flooding via side streets, sidewalks, and use of fenders.

And we should all give a big thanks to city staff for sandbagging the area around the Monona Terrace path so we could still use it. Not every city would care enough to do that. Everyone has probably seen this already, but just in case you’ve been away and wonder what’s open and closed, you can find maps of conditions–including a crowd-sourced map of bike path closures–on the city’s website.

The week ahead

Tuesday

The Madison Bikes Communications Committee will meet at Memorial Union at 5:30 pm. If the weather is nice, we be just outside the beer window of the Stiftskeller. If it’s raining, we’ll be inside the Stiftskeller. If you have enjoyed these updates and our Facebook group, consider joining us to talk about how we communicate with our members and friends. We now have over 1500 subscribers to the Facebook group!

Also on Tuesday, the Mayor will release his Capital Budget at the Council meeting, which will then go through all sorts of committees and hearing before being passed in October. There’s no link to the budget right now, but the capital budget is for financing large projects–things that are financed to pay off. This is where things like roads, paths, buildings, big equipment, construction, and other large projects are seen. Keep an eye on this to see what the city’s priorities are for transportation. Nothing else major on the Council agenda, but in case you’re interested, you can see the whole thing online.

Wednesday

The new Transportation Commission meeting has been cancelled, but the Madison Area Transportation Planning Board (the MPO) will meet at 6:30 pm at the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Room 357. The MPO, which is the body that plans and allocates federal money for all the transportation projects in the entire metropolitan area–not just the city– has been switching off its meetings between downtown and the Water Utility building on Olin Ave, so best to check their calendar to see where they are meeting. For this meeting, they will be holding a public hearing on the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for 2019-2023. That means they will be voting on what they plan to find for the next five years. This is revised every year, but gives you an idea what they are planning on doing. Want to see what’s in there? Here’s a link.

Saturday

The September MadTown Unity Ride will leave from the Villager Mall at 10 am. MadTown Unity Rides are organized by local groups to celebrate the unity and diversity of Madison Southside and to connect our communities together. More information can be found on their Facebook event linked above.