Month: August 2024

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E-Mail Weekly Update

Late August Update

Northeast and West Plans in Final Stages

Progress on the Wilson St cycletrack near the convention center 8/21/2024. Photo: Chris Collins

It’s not too late for your input on Northeast/West plans

The Northeast and West Area Plans will be considered for approval in the next two weeks. These plans will be reviewed by the Plan Commission (August 26). The Plan Commission recommendations will then be considered by the Common Council when they approve the final version on September 10.

Recent changes to the Northeast Area Plan include:

  • Recommendations to add additional bike connections including an off-street path on the east side of Highway 51 between East Washington Avenue and the planned Hiestand Path south of Highway 30
  • A grade separated crossing for pedestrians and cyclists on the south side of the Highway 30/Stoughton Road interchange.

Recent changes to the West Area Plan include keeping the east-west connection through the Sauk Greenway. However, there are changes to the specific language that include the requirement that all options for location of the crossing are evaluated for making the east-west connection across the greenway rather than specifying the site of the crossing. The north/south path through Sauk Creek is still not in the plan but protected bike lanes on Westfield and High Point roads should make travel safer.

See the Madison Bikes August 5th Update for more details on the current status of the plans. Also see Ben Varick’s excellent discussion of these plans as they relate to students and their families from a recent Bike Fed communication.

Despite some shortcomings, there is a lot of good in these plans. Overall, they will make bicycling and walking safer, and hopefully reduce carbon footprints by encouraging active transportation. Decision makers need to hear the good along with the bad from bicyclists. The plans are going before the Planning Commission on August 26th. Click here to submit comments to this committee. The Common Council meets on September 10th. Support the West and Northeast Area Plans by writing to your Alder or the all of the members of the Common Council.

A word from the mayor

Implementing Vision Zero is a major initiative for Madison and will make transportation safer and improve quality of life here.  However, it is not without financial costs. Check out this interview with the mayor about the rationale for Vision Zero and the role of federal funding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEzCFG2983g

September means caution

Be safe out there. There are more bike crashes in Madison in September than in any other month.

That’s all for this week. Enjoy the early fall weather.

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.

Categories
Bike News Newsletter Weekly Update

Housing Week; Board Elections; Advocacy Woes

Bicyclists cruise down John Nolen Drive at Ride The Drive

Welcome to this week’s newsletter. Here’s what you should know about in the Madison biking-for-transportation world this week.

Housing Week is Here

It’s Madison Housing Week! As the population in Madison continues to rise, Madison Housing Coalition is thinking about what can be done to increase access to housing for those who want to work and live here. Going on now, from August 17th-22nd, is a series of events to learn, discuss, and advocate for solutions to the housing shortage. Some events you may want to check out are:

  1. Housing on Tap on Monday, August 19th from 5:30pm – 7:00pm at Vintage Brewing Company
  2. Housing Environmentalism on Wednesday, August 21st from 6:00pm – 7:30pm at the Central Library, room 301
  3. Dane County Exec Debate & Social on Thursday August 22nd from 6:00pm – 9:45pm at The Tinsmith

To see the full list of events, their details, and to RSVP, check out the site at madisonhousingweek.com.

Madison Bikes Board Elections

Madison Bikes board elections are coming up this Fall, and we want to know if you are interested. Have you volunteered with Madison Bikes in the past and want to take your involvement to the next level? Are you interested in helping promote bike advocacy and put on awesome community events? Would you be interested in writing this newsletter? While you don’t need to be on the board to do any of those things, we always welcome and encourage anyone to let us know if they’d like to join. What is it like to be on the board? Well, that’s up to you. Some members focus mostly on planning events, some specialize in the website and social media, and some focus on educating the community on important bike advocacy issues. We all meet to discuss these topics with the goal of making Madison a better place to comfortably ride a bike. If that sounds like your jam, board elections are coming up soon and we would love if you reached out to us at info@madisonbikes.org.

Cannonball Extension Disappointment

In July, Wisconsin’s Commissioner of Railroads rejected a proposed extension to connect the Cannonball Path and Wingra Creek bike paths. On Friday, August 16th, Madison officials decided not to appeal the decision. The proposed route would have crossed Fish Hatchery Road and the Wisconsin and Southern railroad tracks, but was deemed unsafe by Commissioner Don Vruwink, who cited risks such as train derailment and potential bike accidents. The issue with the decision is that it overlooks the dangers of biking on the heavily trafficked Fish Hatchery Road. Despite the frustration of yet another bike infrastructure conflict with the railroad, the city is planning to explore alternatives, such as expanding sidewalks, to address the lack of safe connection from the Cannonball to Wingra Creek.

The approximate location of the path extension that was rejected by the Railroad Commission

West Washington Crash

A cyclist was struck by a driver on West Washington on Saturday, August 17th at the Southwest path crossing. Not much is known about the crash at this time other than the motorist stayed at the scene and the bicyclist was taken to the hospital and is alive.

This intersection is notoriously dangerous and has seen several crashes involving drivers and cyclists this year alone. Despite having a Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacon (RRFB) there are multiple potential reasons for the level of danger at this intersection. Path users have to cross 4 motor traffic lanes to get across W. Washington, with a refuge island in the middle. In addition to the issue of crossing multiple lanes at once, often times the driver in the first lane will stop to yield for a pedestrian or cyclist and the driver in the next lane will not. Speeding and driver inattentiveness can also play roles in making this area more dangerous.

What could be done to reduce the risk? Some have suggested a pedestrian bridge. While that would help avoid conflict, it is still a car-centric design. It would be very costly and likely require cyclists to make a significant climb to clear the minimum height of a bridge. Pedestrians would also have to travel a much longer distance to get across, and would likely opt to cross the road directly instead. Another option would be to implement a road diet by narrowing it to one lane in each direction or create other traffic calming measures such as making the path a raised crossing. Personally I would love to see one or both of those changes implemented, as they would be much more cost-effective and have been proven to slow down drivers and make crossing the road safer, often without reducing traffic volumes. What kinds of changes would you like to see?

That it for this newsletter. Stay safe and thanks for being a part of the Madison Bikes community.

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.

Categories
E-Mail Weekly Update

Drive ridden. Housing Week around the corner.

Back in a big way

Ride the Drive returned Sunday to some of Madison’s busiest streets, clearing the lanes to give more than 10,000 cyclists and pedestrians an opportunity to experience open streets and move at a more human pace through spaces typically dominated by car traffic.

Madison Bikes at Ride the Drive. Photo courtesy Robbie Webber.

The 4-mile route mostly along Monona Bay and Lake Monona was anchored in six park “hubs” that played host to bike-related and Madison Parks activities like ice cream, games, movies, paddling, coffee, playgrounds, clean energy and environmental outreach, garden walks, bike checks and safety info, music, tacos, books, cool water and more — almost anything you’d want to bike to or watch a kid do. And it happened in partnership with a raft of local businesses and organizations like Public Health Madison & Dane County, Madison School & Community Recreation, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, transit and utility agencies, arts groups, fraternal organizations, and nonprofits dedicated to biking, active outdoor recreation, reading, cancer research, social justice and more.

That is to say … it was kind of a big deal for an event balanced on skinny tires and walking shoes. Large thanks go out to hundreds of volunteers who kept a safe route, as well as to Madison Parks for organizing a fun day with such broad appeal.

Did you have a good time? Did you miss RTD this year, but hope it has a future despite uncertain city finances? Wouldn’t hurt to let Madison Parks know how you feel.

People parking bicycles on grass around bushes and trees.
Parking in the park between Riding on the Drive. Photo courtesy Robbie Webber.

Housing (next) Week

Aug. 17 to 22 is Housing Week in Madison, putting a focus on the way population growth and development priorities are constricting access to homes for so many people in Madison and Dane County.

Housing Week logo

Presented by the Madison Housing Coalition — which includes Madison Bikes and many other groups working toward safe and livable cities — Housing Week offers and event or two each day covering aspects of problems in the Madison area and potential solutions.

Some highlights:

• Aug. 17, 3 p.m.: Missing Middle Walking Tour. Starting from Lapham Elementary, 1045 E. Dayton St., a 60-minute walk exploring “missing middle” (housing that falls between single-family and higher-density apartment buildings) in the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood.

Aug. 21, noon: Complete Neighborhoods, with the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission. Commission members address the importance of planning for a mix of housing in new and existing neighborhoods. On Zoom.

• Aug. 22, 6 p.m.: Dane County executive debate on housing issues, with general election candidates and Jason Joyce of Isthmus, at The Tinsmith, 828 E. Main St.

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.

Categories
Weekly Update

Area plans, Mifflin diverters, Cannonball Path extension; Give it a Whirl

Northeast and West Area Plans at TC

Two area plans were on the agenda for the Transportation Commission last week: The Northeast Area Plan and the West Area Plan.

For the Northeast Area Plan, the recommendations for the bike network largely remained unchanged from what was presented earlier in the year. City staff asked the commission to consider adding some additional bike connections in the context of WisDOT’s Stoughton Road study:

Most notably, as a result of City of Madison comments, WisDOT is considering an off-street path on the east side of Highway 51 between East Washington Avenue and the planned Hiestand Path south of Highway 30. Of particular concern is the grade separated crossing for pedestrians and cyclists on the south side of the Highway 30 interchange. Safe pedestrian and bicycle crossings are a basic part of interchange design.

The commission recommended adoption of the plan with these changes included. Here’s a map of the full bike network plan:

The plan will now go through various other city commissions and come before the Common Council for final adoption on September 10.

The West Area Plan was recommended for approval as well. In terms of biking, two changes from the previous draft were included in the recommendation: The east-west connection through the Sauk Greenway remained part of the recommendation, but with changes to the specific language:

Based on public feedback for the east-west path, this is
how the recommendation changed between the last two public feedback phases: Changed from “During the Sauk Creek Greenway Corridor Plan, use detailed engineering data to design West Area Plan July 31 st TC Meeting an All Ages and Abilities shared use path from Brule Circle to Walnut Grove Park through the greenway using environmentally sensitive best practices and minimizing impacts to trees” to “During the Sauk Creek Greenway Corridor Plan, use detailed engineering data to consider the impacts and benefits of adding an All Ages and Abilities shared-use path to make an east-west
connection across the greenway to Walnut Grove Park” and “Any All Ages and Abilities path should be designed using environmentally sensitive best practices and minimizing impacts to trees and other vegetation, wildlife habitat, and adjacent properties.”

In practical terms, staff explained that they would conduct a corridor study about the east/west connection that would evaluate various options for creating a connection in this area. The north/south path through Sauk Creek was not re-added to the plan.

The other change was about a crossing of the Beltline: The previous version of the plan had proposed a bike/ped connection across the Beltline between Tokay Blvd and Forward Dr (solid blue line). Based on more analysis, that connection was not shifted to the east (blue dashed line) because it was more feasible.

This motion passed, with two no votes, from Alder Harrington McKinney and resident appointee Denise Jess. Next in the process are other city commissions, and on September 10, the Common Council will vote on the plan.

Railroad Commissioner kills Cannonball Path extension

The project was funded and ready to be built this year. But because it involved new railroad crossings, the Cannonball Path extension between Fish Hatchery Road and the Wingra Creek Path needed the approval of the Office of the Commissioner of the Railroads. After many months, the office released their final verdict: The city is not allowed to go forward with the project. You can read the whole analysis here: https://apps.psc.wi.gov/ERF/ERFview/viewdoc.aspx?docid=509679 The city is now evaluating its options, but this is a major setback for the project.

Diverters on Mifflin: Test is coming

There have been many complaints about the E Mifflin Bike Boulevard: The road is wide; traffic volumes are high, and people in car often speed. One way to fix this: Diverters. These are pieces of infrastructure that let through people on bikes but limit access for motor vehicles in one or more directions. E Mifflin already has one diverter, at Blair St. This fall, the city will test another diverter, at Mifflin and Paterson, next to Reynolds Park. Westbound Mifflin at Paterson will get a “Do not enter. Except bikes” sign. The city will collect traffic volume, speed, and resident feedback data before, during, and after the test to inform a final design. The exact timing of the test is not determined yet.

One of the possible diverter designs. Source: City of Madison

Give it a Whirl Day in September

Do you now any girls interested in mountain biking? They may be interested in the Give it a Whirl Day on September 9.

This program is an all-girls, Give it a Whirl Day held at Quarry Ridge Recreation Area. With over 3 miles of spectacular trails, the park is a mountain bikers paradise! And better yet, it’s a Little Bellas paradise too!

Our Give it a Whirl day aims to get girls of all abilities either introduced to the sport or help them develop an already present interest. Based around having fun, we play lots of games (on and off the bike), explore and ride trails, and incorporate basic bike skills.

We also use the mountain bike experience to help the girls gain confidence, build camaraderie with other girls on bikes, seek out new adventures, and get outdoors! These are learning skills your daughter can take with her throughout life.

It is a great opportunity for girls looking to try out mountain biking as well as for those who are looking to explore some new trails in their area!

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.