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Bike News

Weekly Update: A better bike challenge, Atwood, low-stress map

I want to start this week’s post off by promoting a short survey by some folks over at Bendyworks who formed a new group tentatively called “People for a New Bike Challenge”. They are seeking local input by people who are familiar with the National Bike Challenge to, as the name suggests, develop a new bike challenge to encourage people to get out and ride. The survey is short and took me less than five minutes to complete. If you haven’t participated in the National Bike Challenge before, you can still complete the survey and provide input.

Last Week

On Tuesday, the Madison Area Transportation Planning Board released its low stress mapping tool. The tool allows you to select from Low, Medium, and Unrestricted routing options which will give you a suggested route based on your preferred level of cycling stress. The tool is pretty straight forward to use so feel free to give it a shot.

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Screenshot of the bicycle stress map of Madison

Also announced last week was the first meeting of the new Transportation Commission (TC) and the new Transportation Policy and Planning Board (TPPB). The first meeting of the two committees that formally replaced the Pedestrian Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Commission, the Long Range Transportation Planning Committee, and the Transit and Parking Commission will be a joint meeting taking place on July 31 at 5:00 P.M. The location of the meeting has yet to be announced so stay tuned for that information.

There was also some discussion on the Facebook page about maintenance of a the bike path that runs between Madison and Sun Prairie along US-151 after pictures were posted of plants overgrown onto the path. Apparently that interjurisdictional path has neither jurisdiction it goes between maintaining it, so further discussions surrounding that path are warranted.

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Weeds trying to take over the bike path (Photo: Dalton Aeschlimann)

This Week

Monday, July 23, Bike Fitchburg is having its monthly meeting. As usual, the meeting starts at 6:30 P.M. at the Fitchburg Public Library located at 5530 Lacy Rd in Fitchburg.

The Bike Fitchburg meeting has been rescheduled to next Monday (7/30).

Tuesday, July 24, the Atwood Avenue reconstruction project goes before Madison’s Common Council for final approval of the roadway geometry. This project was recently considered as an alternative to the Buckeye and Cottage Grove Road projects as the city and the county had disagreements over the future roadway maintenance responsibilities for these streets, which are both county highways and in places are completely surrounded by the city. Last week, however, the city and the county managed to come to an agreement, so a resolution authorizing the city to enter into a funding agreement with the county over those two projects will be introduced to the Common Council on Tuesday, where it will then be sent to the relevant committees for review before going back to Council for final approval. What this all means for the eventual time line for construction of these road projects remains to be seen.

And on Saturday, the Madison Trek Stores are having a mountain bike demo at Quarry Ridge. This event had to be moved from last weekend because of wet conditions. Let’s hope the weather holds up this time around.