Photo courtesy of Matt DeBlass
Just when the less hardy bicyclists were thinking they could finally ride in comfort, Sprinter (as my friend in Minnesota calls the endless combination of spring and winter) hit us with a last, ugly hit of horrible weather. As I write this on Sunday night, the main roads are wet and slushy, with questionable riding in the bike lanes or outer edges. Local streets were never plowed, so they are just piles of semi-frozen mess. Yuck. (I haven’t checked any of the bike paths, so maybe someone can post the conditions as they come in on Monday morning.)
Last week, when things were looking better, Matt DeBlass from Revolution Cycles took the above photo of the path being swept behind their shop.
Besides a short burst of pleasant weather to give us hope, there was one big meeting last week. A public meeting was held to discuss how Atwood Ave from Fair Oaks to Cottage Grove Road will be reconstructed. There’s a big gap in the bicycle network there, if you don’t want to detour over to the Cap City Trail. We mentioned this as an upcoming meeting last week. We’ll try to get an update out on how the discussion went.
Coming up this week
The Winnebago rebuild project that we’ve been talking about will be before the Board of Public Works on Wednesday (see time and location below). A group supporting canopy trees in Madison has sent out an alert for this meeting. Option #2 would allow more space for trees as well as more space for bikes.
Also this week:
Monday is the Madison Bikes board meeting at 6:00 pm at the Central Library. As with all Madison Bikes committees, the board meetings are open to everyone. So if you want to know more about us or see how we work, feel free to drop by.
Wednesday is the Board of Public Works, 5:30 pm in Room 108 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Blvd. All city files on the project can be found here. They will be considering options for rebuilding Winnebago. The BPW is the “lead” committee for this item, meaning they will be making a recommendation to the Council. How the BPW votes would be the default option if the Council decides not to discuss it further. (This is called being on the consent agenda, because the Council only discusses a handful of items at each meeting. All the other recommendations by cit committees are accepted and passed by the Council in one big vote. That’s why city committee meetings and their recommendations are VERY important.
If you read this far, you’ve now had a lesson on how things work at the city.
Also Wednesday is the Madison Bikes Advocacy Committee, meeting at 6:00 pm at Bendy Works, 106 E Doty St, 2nd floor. All are welcome.
Saturday is the next Tour de la Familia Latina/Tour of the Latin Family, a casual and friendly ride at the pace where kids and inexperienced bicyclists can enjoy the day and the sights of Madison. All are welcome. Ride leaves from Olin Park at 1:00 pm. They’ve been riding all winter!
That’s about it for this week on the Madison Bikes calendar. If you have an event you would like included, send it our way.
In Case You Missed It
There are always great contributions, opinions, comments, and updates from our members and on the Madison Bikes Facebook group, so if you aren’t checking that out, here’s what you might have missed:
Kierstin Kloeckner urges people to write to Capital Brewery and the Middleton City Council in support of extending bike lanes on High Point Rd from Greenway to Terrace Ave (those are the two local roads that go under the Betline
News comes that the Capital City Trail south of the Beltline — through the E-way — will get the first renovations since it opened in 2001. Look how long bike trails last! But some parts of the Cap City Trail are getting sort of rough, so despite the detours we’ll have to endure, this is a good thing.
And a great article about how a Northern Virginia parking garage is used as a bike park after hours. Glad someone is using at empty structure at night!
Plus discussions about Atwood, the best bike racks for apartments, and lots of other fun and info.