It’s a busy week for meetings! With plenty of free content, who needs Netflix? You’ve got a real life Parks and Rec episode at your disposal.
Join us in congratulating Pepe Barros, who was awarded a Live Forward Award from Sustain Dane for his work with Down With Bikes, a free mobile bike repair non-profit! Pepe is the city’s Pedestrian Bicycle Outreach Specialist and a Madison Bikes board alumnus.
This Week
Starting today, a.k.a. Monday, a.k.a. December 7, the Cannonball Path and Military Ridge Path are closed between McKee Rd and Seminole Hwy. Sadly, this includes what we’ve crowned the best roundabout around, both southwest- and east-bound, but take the opportunity to look around at the detours that abound:
Hey, maybe explore the under-utilized Sprocket Drive option that passes by the Saris headquarters and give ’em a friendly wave!
While a closure of this length is never ideal, it’s evident that a lot of careful planning has gone into developing the alternatives for this popular section of path. Several major projects were completed in advance to help provide convenient and comfortable detour options:
- New Badger State Trail bridge over McKee Rd
- New trail segment linking Badger State Trail and Capital City Trail along Seminole Hwy
- Rebuilt Capital City Trail between roundabout and Seminole Hwy
- Widened sidewalk+multi-use trail along McKee Rd, connecting Badger State Trail and Military Ridge Trail
Also on Monday, the Transportation Policy and Planning Board (TPPB) will be considering the elimination of Madison’s mandatory bicycle registration program. It’s worth noting that this change is sponsored by Alder Grant Foster, who’s also on the Madison Bikes board. Check out the entire meeting agenda or just watch online at 5pm.
At this same TPPB meeting on Monday, an amendment to the plan for the development of the Triangle Monona Bay Neighborhood (bounded by S. Park St, W. Washington and Regent St.) will be discussed that changes a proposed new through-street for all traffic to just bikes + peds + emergency vehicles. If you’re interested, Tag Evers, the district’s alder, wrote an informative blog post discussing it.
On Wednesday, the Board of Park Commissioners will meet to discuss a variety of interesting items. Aside from the whether or not Madison Log Rolling LLC will continue to have permission to conduct their log rolling activities in Lake Wingra, the big issue is the Vilas Park Drive Winter Operational Plan: Will it be opened up to cars again after a successful summer closure? Register for the virtual meeting here and check out a related petition link.
Last Week
Last Thursday, there was a public meeting to discuss the West Side Roadway Refinements for the Bus Rapid Transit project. We covered this in detail in last week’s update and now you can watch the action-packed replay yourself (passcode: #xG*J8Gi). Gleaned from the meeting: The Mineral Point Road multi-use trail is slated to be on the North side of the road (CUNA, Garner Park, Memorial HS). One question we had was how wide would this new section of path be? The answer from Tom Lynch, the City’s Director of Transportation, was (paraphrasing): 10 ft where possible, as narrow as 8ft in certain areas where the right of way is restricted.
Next Week
We’re just a week away from the end of the BCycle bike share season on December 15. The good news is they will probably be around for at least another ten years because the city and BCycle have signed a new long-term operating agreement. After more than doubling in 2019 due to the introduction of e-bikes system-wide, ridership was pretty flat this year due to the pandemic. If you used the service, you might grace them with your end-of-season thoughts in their 2020 Rider Survey.
On December 16 at 6pm, there will be a virtual public meeting discussing phase 2 of the Demetral Park Path (registration required). “Phase 2 completes the off-street, shared-use path (bicycle & pedestrian) connection from the Yahara River Parkway Path to Commercial Ave, linking the surrounding Eastside neighborhood to downtown and the future Public Market.” It’s a small section of path, but it should make a big difference for the people in that neighborhood.
As always, you can find an overview of all bike events on our Community Bike Calendar. Email us at info@madisonbikes.org to add your events. And if you value our newsletter and other work, consider donating to Madison Bikes. For construction updates, check out the city’s Bike Madison page.