Most of this post lives in the past with a recap, but there’s a bit of a look into the future. It seems to be a quiet week on the calendar.
Bike-A-Thon
Whitehorse Middle School held their Bike-A-Thon, which was the culmination of a few weeks of safe biking instruction and practice. Here’s a nice piece of media on it.
Southwest Path Lighting
The City performed emergency repairs to the lighting system on the Southwest Path, which had been a bit unreliable over the last few years. The details seem to be poorly reported, with some low-information posts only to social platforms and nothing official that I could find on the City web site, but some more detailed internal communication was made available:
Previously, we had a wireless system to communicate with and manage all the lights along the path so that we can control when the lights are on and off and we can adjust the lighting intensity. However, that system stopped working and the manufacturer is no longer supporting it. To bring the lights back as quickly as possible for safety reasons, especially with the upcoming football games, our crew is responding to the situation immediately and replacing the system with simpler photocells on individual lights so that the lights will be on from dusk to dawn, like what we do for the vast majority of the streetlights in the City. Hope this will not have a significant impact on any nearby residences. We do understand the desire from some neighbors for the City being able to dynamically control over the lights. So, for a longer-term, we will look for a smarter solution to manage the lights in a more sophisticated and more dynamic way.
So there’s a change in how the lights will function for the time being, with the lights on all night, whereas previously they would turn off at 11pm. I think this is a great news and plan to email my alder to let them know. This is particularly important as the days are getting shorter so quickly, something that seems to be taking a lot of path users by surprise.
Budget
The Mayor released their initial 2026 City Operating Budget which details “money for running City departments and services… [and] pays for the day-to-day spending on employees and materials and supplies.” So not as sexy as the Capital Budget but important nonetheless. This will go through several stages of review, subject to Common Council review and revision but it’s a starting point. Expect to see some ongoing discussion over the next months as the council has public hearings.
A few highlights for cycling are that within Traffic Engineering there is largely no change in budget from prior years, and that includes Bicycle & Pedestrian services. Within Streets Division, there is continued full funding for snow removal on bicycle paths.
West Towne Path
This may be old news, but it was new to me! Phase 2a of ye-olde Weste Towne Pathe (better known as that stretch between High Point Rd and Zor Shrine Place) is finally completed and open for use. For cyclists, this removes an increasingly-busy crossing at High Point Rd and a congested stretch along D’onofrio Dr. If you’ve been eyeing the dead-end bicycle path loop ramp along High Point @ Beltline for the past decade (since 2017), wondering when it would finally go somewhere, well these are the moments you live for!
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.
Thanks to our sponsors who make our events possible!
