Category: Weekly Update

The Transportation Policy and Planning Board is meeting tonight. On the agenda are a proposal for the City to build a new parking garage at Villager Mall to support the Urban League’s new Black Business Hub, a presentation on Metro’s future fare collection system (spoiler: staff doesn’t recommend going fare free), and a presentation by City Engineering on the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which lays out mayor road and path projects for the next 5 years. One new addition to the TIP is the plan for a new bike path connecting Old Sauk Rd across the Beltline to the employment and commercial centers in the Deming Way area.

Buffered Bike Lanes on Whitney Way

At their meeting last week, the Transportation Commission approved a slew of Vision Zero projects, including a new buffered bike lane on Whitney Way. Currently people on bikes have to share the curb lane with parked cars, and this new design will create a new low-stress bike connection on this important north-south corridor.

Mountain Biking for High Schoolers

Do you live on the west side of Madison or in Verona and have kids in 6th-12th grade? Are they riding mountain bikes, or are curious about riding? The Madison West Area MTB Teams are holding a virtual meeting on Tuesday, May 4 at 7pm. A Zoom link is available on the Facebook event page.

Come and discover the lifelong joy of mountain biking! Our co-ed teams serve 6th-12th grade students, beginner to advanced, casual riders to racers, in the west Madison and Verona area. Join us for an introductory meeting for parents and potential athletes and learn more about the fun, confidence and community that mountain biking can provide. We work with girls and boys riding at all levels. Some of our athletes ride only at practices and maybe an adventure outing or two. Others find that they love racing with their team. We welcome all interest and ability levels!

May Bike Month Challenge

Is it really May already? It must be, as the annual Madison May Bike Month Challenge has just started. Log your rides, join a workplace team or the Madison Bikes Love to Ride group, and have fun all month! More details at https://www.lovetoride.net/madison

Dane County 2021 Road Construction

Fellow Madison Bikes update writer Ben points out some upcoming road construction projects in Dane County that are on popular bike routes:

“[This is the] the 2021 Dane County road project list: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=5e28a536e6064ae99f3592c123621c6b&entry=8
Looks like the biggest highlight overall will be whatever the M changes are from Governor Nelson to 113 are. I clicked through some of the links and nothing super-recent.A few personal highlights that might be of interest for roadies headed out exploring west and south this summer.

• Repaving County Highway B north of Oregon (very commonly used on rustic road loops through Oregon, connecting from Cap City Trail)
• Repaving County Highway A SW of Oregon between D and MM (pretty useful road connecting some alternate quieter N/S roads)
• Repaving and widening County Highway G, adding 3ft paved shoulders, between Mt. Vernon and US 151
• Repaving KP between Kross [sic] Plains @ US 14 to WI 19, slightly widened to include 1ft paved shoulder
• Both F and J S/SW of Black Earth are going to be closed to through traffic due to bridge replacements. This will be annoying, particularly as they will be concurrent closures. Detours are long and everything is hilly out there.

I can personally vouch for the dire state of pavement on many of these repaving roads so overall I’m pretty happy to see the work being done!”

Thanks, Ben! Click on the map link above to get an overview of where the projects are located.

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.

Beautiful weather coming this week, including a very summery Tuesday. Hopefully you were able to join us at our Spring Bike Wash event to get your bike ready for some rides (or your winter bike ready for storage). Thank you to all of the volunteers for helping and to Board Member Peter Taglia for hosting and doing so much of the planning work to make this event a success!

Apply for Grants!

We’re excited to be part of this exciting new grants program, specifically for projects that are led by and benefit People of Color and/or people from Tribes/Native Nations. The JUST Bikes Coalition invites individuals and organizations that would like to contribute to local, neighborhood-based efforts to support equity in active transportation, with a special focus on safe and comfortable access to bicycling. Learn more, share with your networks, and apply soon!

This Week

Monday

Join the Madison Bikes Board of Directors for our Bike Week planning session on Monday (4/25) at 6 pm. Help us set goals, create a planning timeline and brainstorm new, fun events. Bike Week will take place September 12-18, 2021.

Wednesday: Transportation Commission!

This week at Transportation Commission, a number of important issues are up for discussion. First, Vilas Park Drive’s reconfiguration will be up for discussion. We support removing car traffic from the road entirely – a strategy already proven by the Shared Streets program last year. Second, Whitney Way is also up for some incredible improvements, including a buffered bike lane. We highly encourage you to write or speak in support of these efforts to get us closer to a city where people of all ages and abilities can bike to every destination they need, regardless of where they live.

(Note: you can get a sense of the kind of feedback you can give the Commission by clicking on the link in the agenda about this item [Vision Zero], which will lead you here. People write in with varying level of detail and certainly a lot of personality! Your vocal support really does matter.)

Sunday

Bombay Bicycle Club is hosting an open house at Garner Park.

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.

Spring is in full swing with trees budding and flowers blooming. To help emerge from the winter season, Madison Bikes is hosting a Spring Bike Wash and Safety Check. This event will take place Saturday, April 24, from 1 PM to 5 PM at Clark Ct, near Brittingham Park. Volunteers from Madison Bikes, Down With Bikes, Dream Bikes, BikEquity, and Wheels for Winners will be on site to assist with safety checks. Cleaning supplies, tools, and lube will also be available for use. Learn more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/785154002417389/

Also this week, the Madison Vision Zero Initiative is bringing a presentation on the 20 is Plenty campaign to two city committees: the Transportation Policy and Planning Board (TPPB), and the Board of Public Works (BPW). 20 is Plenty is a campaign to reduce the default speed limit on city streets from 25 mph to 20 mph. Injuries that result from a crash grow exponentially more severe with speed, so lowering speed limits should help save lives. The 20 is Plenty slides can be seen here. TPPB meets Monday at 5:00 PM, and BPW meets Wednesday at 4:30 PM. Both meetings are taking place virtually.

This Monday’s TPPB meeting also has a presentation on Complete Green Streets. Topics for this presentation include pre-design engagement and gap analysis approach. Pre-design engagement in projects is about reaching out to communities where a project is proposed to get a sense of what that community wants. The gap analysis approach is how to approach gaps in the low stress pedestrian and bicycle network.

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.

If you missed our Advocacy 101 event, you can catch a recording on Facebook. Thanks to all the folks that joined us, asked questions, and added to a great conversation about how decisions are made in Madison and how you can influence those decisions.

And speaking of advocacy, with the spring elections set for April 6 (note that we had a typo about the date in last week’s update), in-person absentee voting is now available around the city. Although far fewer people vote in local elections and the non-partisan statewide elections than big November elections, your vote actually counts more. For alder – your representation on the Madison City Council – your vote might be one of less than 2000. And we will also elect a new Superintendent of Public Instruction for Wisconsin. If you want to know how the alder candidates view bicycling issues, check out the answers to the Madison Bikes questions on our website. Need to know how and where to vote? The Madison City Clerk’s website has you covered.

The week ahead

It’s a pretty quiet this week. There are no city meetings of note. But there are a couple of opportunities to learn more about transportation issues in the county and trails outside of Madison.

Monday evening at 7:00 pm, the Madison Area Bus Advocates will host a Facebook meeting to discuss Vehicle Miles Traveled, transit, and the link to the Dane County Sustainability Plan. Although this will focus on transit, the idea of reducing VMT is one that bicyclists and anyone interested in sustainability and better transportation policy will find of interest. Sign up here.

Thursday there will be a Zoom meeting hosted by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) about the Southwest Savanna master plan, an area that covers the Sugar River and Badger Trails south of Madison. They are also taking comments on the master plan.

Although the master plan does not recommend allowing ATVs or other motorized uses to the trail, there is a vocal group that has been pushing for motorized access. It’s always useful to provide comment that you do NOT want to share the trail with motorized users. On the positive side of things, the plan does show a detour for the currently-closed Stewart Tunnel and mountain bike trails in New Glarus Woods.

“The DNR will host a public meeting at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 1, 2021 via Zoom video conferencing. Pre-register for the meeting here. For those unable to attend, the meeting will be recorded and posted to the Southwest Savanna Draft Regional Master Plan webpage for viewing after the event.

“The meeting will include a brief presentation by DNR staff, followed by a public comment period. Those wishing to speak at the meeting are required to register online here by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31.”

More info, including the full master plan can be found here.

If you are looking for a job, the Wisconsin Bike Fed is hiring here in Madison. They have three positions posted: A Government Affairs Manager; an Education and Engagement Program Manager, who will spend 80 percent of the job working on a newly-revived Safe Routes to School program; and an Education and Engagement Program Assistant. More information, job descriptions, and deadlines to apply (April 15) can be found here.

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.

What a beautiful weekend we had. The bike paths were busier than ever, as evidences by the City’s bike counters: On the Cap City Trail, Saturday saw the highest ever daily March count, with 2262 people riding past the counter. The SW Path saw a count of 1209, which isn’t quite an all-time March record (March 16, 2015: 1480 riders) but still very respectable.

Advocacy 101 tonight

Tonight from 6-7pm is the Madison Bikes Advocacy 101 community meeting. We often get asked what one can do to advocate for biking in Madison, and so this 1-hour Zoom meeting will provide some answers to that question. Our board member and former Alder Robbie Webber is going to do a brief presentation and then there will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. For active participation, join the Zoom call, or you can watch the meeting on Facebook Live.

Common Council Candidate Questionnaire

Elections for the Madison Common Council are on April 16 April 6 (early voting has started already). Where do candidates stand on issues related to biking and transportation? We sent them a questionnaire to find out and now the answers are in! Don’t know which district you’re in? Enter your address here. Note that not all candidates responded to our questions, and Madison Bikes does not endorse or oppose any candidate. Independent from our questionnaire, you may also be interested in the one from 350 Madison.

• District 1 (Barbara Harrington-McKinney)
• District 2 (Patrick Heck, Benji Ramirez)
• District 3 (Lindsay Lemmer, Charly Rowe)
• District 4 (Mike Verveer)
• District 5 (Regina Vidaver)
• District 6 (Brian Benford)
• District 7 (Nasra Wehelie): no response
• District 8 (Juliana Bennett, Ayomi Obuseh)
• District 9 (Paul Skidmore, Nikki Conklin): no responses
• District 10 (Yannette Figueroa Cole, Mara Eisch)
• District 11 (Arvina Martin)
• District 12 (Syed Abbas, Tessa Wyllie de Echeverria)
• District 13 (Tag Evers)
• District 14 (Sheri Carter, Brandi Grayson-Tuck)
• District 15 (Grant Foster)
• District 16 (Jael Currie, Matt Tramel)
• District 17 (Gary Halverson)
• District 18 (Rebecca Kemble, Charles Myadze)
• District 19 (Keith Furman, Aisha Moe)
• District 20 (Christian Albouras, Erica Lee Janisch)

Cap City Yield Signs

If you’ve been riding the Capital City Trail between Blair and Dickinson lately, you may have noticed new yield signs on the path. This stretch of the path has always been a bit of a hodgepodge when it came to who had the right-of-way at the crossings, but over the years the City had installed more and more stop signs on the cross streets. Those are gone now, and you can thank the “Office of the Commissioners of Railroads.” This obscure-yet-powerful office has wide authority under state and federal law to regulate anything related to railroad crossings, and they didn’t like the stop signs — presumably out of a concern that cars on the cross streets would back up all the way into the railroad crossing, creating a safety issue. So watch out for the new configuration and be prepared for people in cars and on bikes to be confused by the changes.

Save the Date: Spring Bike Wash and Safety Checks

It’s still a bit out, but mark the date: On April 24, we’re partnering with BikEquity, Down With Bikes, Dream Bikes, and Wheels for Winners for a spring bike wash and safety checks events. We’ll have cleaning supplies to wash that dirt and salt off your winter bikes, and experienced volunteers to do basic safety checks on your bike to get you started into spring. The event will take place on Clark Court, right next to Brittingham Park. Stay tuned for more details and let us know if you’re going on the Facebook event page.

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.

I’m not a native Sconnie, but I’ve been around long enough to recognize that we just experienced false spring. A beautiful weekend, perfect for a relaxing ride on a cruiser; a day to bring out your bike from storage and remember the feeling of the sun on your face as you ride. Unfortunately, Monday has snow in the forecast, so don’t get too used to it. Still, beautiful riding weather is nearly here for keeps! (Although of course, all weather is riding weather with the right gear and safe infrastructure!)

Are you a member of our Madison Bikes Facebook community? If not, you’re missing out on great discussions like this one about the biking accessibility of the Alliant vaccine site.

This Week

BCycle returns! Madison’s electric bike share program returns today, March 15, with a special Art Bike program.

Thursday

Interested in spaces for recreational cycling for all ages and abilities? On March at 5:30 pm, there will be a meeting about the Aldo Leopold Pump Track. The proposed project would create an approximately 7000 square foot asphalt pump track near the shelter at Aldo Leopold Park. If you want to learn more and ask questions, this is a great meeting to attend.

Coming Up

Don’t miss Madison Bikes Community Meeting next Monday, March 22 at 6 pm for Bike Advocacy 101. Board member Robbie Webber will lead a presentation and discussion on advocating for biking in Madison. We’ll then dive into known (and unknown) bike problem areas in Madison. You can join by Zoom or watch the livestream on Facebook.

Are you voting in the April election? We will have answers from city alder candidates ready to view next week. Madison Bikes will not be endorsing candidates, but we look forward to educating candidates and the community through this process. Keep a lookout for more info on this blog and on the Madison Bikes Facebook group!

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.

As the days get longer the temperatures are starting to go up. We’re seeing that this week with at least one day with a high of 60 degrees. A stark contrast from the bitter cold we had but one month ago. As temperatures go up, so do the number of people on bikes. At the very least it’s looking like a good week for fair-weather riders! Remember to be kind to other path users and give plenty of room and warning when passing.

This Week

Wednesday

At 5:00 PM, there’s a meeting of the Transportation Commission. One item of interest is the issuance of requests for proposals for redevelopment of the Lake Street parking garage. This site has been of interest to transit advocates for a potential intercity bus terminal. The Draft RFP indeed calls this out as a project requirement, along with improvements to Lake St to benefit bicyclists and pedestrians.

Also at TC is a presentation on the 2021 Public Works Transportation Projects. These are usually smaller projects that are done on shorter time spans to improve transportation conditions in the city. A number of projects on this list will affect biking, so take a few minutes to check out the plans. One notable is the Gorham Street Resurfacing, which will give the city an opportunity to add bike lanes to the east end of the street where it branches off from Johnson. Another notable is West Washington, which has the opportunity to add bus/bike lanes. Wednesday’s TC meeting is an excellent opportunity for the public to provide feedback on any of these projects.

Thursday

There’s an online meeting on the redesign of University Avenue at 6:00 PM. This project has been important to follow as the stretch of University under consideration is not the most bike or pedestrian friendly. One part of the plan is to construct a new bridge on the Blackhawk Path over University Bay Drive. This will help people cross U Bay without having to contend with traffic. While this part of the plan is good, it has been a struggle getting bike facilities along the south side of University. The current proposal includes a 7-8 foot sidewalk to help accommodate pedestrian and bicycle traffic on the south side of University, which is good, but there’s still time to ask for better, and this Thursday’s meeting is a perfect time to ask. Registration is required for the meeting, which can be done here.

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.