Call to Action
If you haven’t yet, take the City of Madison’s Lets Talk Streets Community Survey. This survey seeks to gather your community values and concerns about streets in Madison.
The goal is to help the City of Madison create a process to design and construct streets based on equity and shared community values. This is your opportunity to provide direct feedback to the city about your experiences with Madison streets. To learn the construction equipment that they need, you can try these out.
Last Week
Last week the Capital City State Trail reopened along Fish Hatchery Rd between Glacier Valley Rd to the Fish Hatchery Rd overpass. This represents an important milestone in the Fish Hatchery Rd project as this section had been closed since spring to accommodate the major construction project.
Governor Tony Evers on Thursday signed Wisconsin’s 2022-2023 biennial state budget into law. While the state budget covers many items, the Wisconsin Bike Fed posted a summary of the budget items likely to impact bicycling in Wisconsin. In short, the budget maintains funding for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship and the Transportation Alternatives Funding Programs. While the Governor’s proposed increases in funding for these programs were shut down by the state’s Republican legislature, funding levels were maintained.
This Week
Construction on the West Washington Ave project begins Monday. The primary goal of this project is to rehabilitate deteriorating pavement conditions. However, there are several improvements along this stretch that will benefit biking. The most impactful improvement for biking is what will change on Bassett St. I’ll try to cover the major changes from the perspective of a person on a bike traveling south on Bassett.
The first change you’ll notice once this project is complete is the elimination of the exclusive right turn lane from Bassett. In its place will be a concrete median and staging area for bicyclists waiting to cross West Washington. This configuration will stage bicyclists well in front of right turning drivers in a newly shared straight-right lane. This should eliminate the stressful crossing of through riding bicyclists with right turning drivers that exists presently.
The next change you’ll notice is the presence of green crossing paint. This paint is intended to highlight to drivers where a person on a bike is likely to be in the event someone is about to cross the intersection. It does not provide physical protection, but it does create a visual cue for drivers to expect people on bikes to be using that space.
Finally, you’ll notice the parking protected bike lane continuing to Main St. This is the result of the overwhelming success and positive reception of the pilot parking protected bike lane on Bassett from Dayton to West Wash.
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.