Category: Weekly Update

I hope everyone has been able to get out and enjoy the (weirdly) warm weather recently. Although the riding has been very pleasant, it’s a bit unnerving that we have weather this warm in February.

The week ahead is somewhat slow, but we have a great community meeting coming up Monday (today, if you are receiving this by email.) In the fall, we invited our members and friends to brainstorm about what they would like to see as event, talks, rides, activities, and information in the future. This Monday’s topic came out of that meeting. See below for more details.

Monday

Our Community Meeting at 6:00 pm at the Central Library will be on the topic of “Know Your Rights: Biking and the Law” with Clayton Griessmeyer, Bicycle Injury Lawyer. If you have questions about what to do if you have a crash, or important aspects about biking on paths or roads, this will be an event you don’t want to miss. 

Also Monday, Fitchburg Bikes will meet at the Fitchburg Senior Center, 5510 Lacy Rd at 7:00 pm.

Wednesday

Transportation Commission will meet virtually at 5:00 pm. On the agenda are a number of projects scheduled for both this year and planned for in the future. (See items on 5, 6, and 9 on the agenda. Under item 9, items marked TAP are pedestrian/bicycle improvements.)

Also on the agenda is an item about safety, crowding, and speed concerns on the paths. There is a good presentation from city staff that lays out the issues with both crowding and any conflicts. We’ve had a discussion about this recently on our Facebook Community, and it comes up every couple of years, including in a recent letter to the media. Basically, we rely on everyone to be polite and aware of other path users, but that’s often a big ask.

Ongoing opportunities to comment:

The UW has a new master plan for the Lakeshore Natural Area. There was quite a bit of publicity about a new visitors center to be built near the entrance to Picnic Point. This would involve some changes to both University Bay Dr and the parallel Lakeshore Path, but mostly just relocating them closer to the marsh.

Much of the master plan involves landscaping, prairie and woodland restoration, and changes to some pedestrian paths within the area near Picnic Point, but the Lakeshore Natural Area also includes the Lakeshore Path all the way down to the Limnology Building near Memorial Union. There isn’t much information in the current master plan about the path in this area, but we have the chance to weigh in on future needs for this critical connector.

The intrepid may be able to navigate the path in all conditions, but winter makes the path quite treacherous, with rutted ice, repeated freezing and thawing, and most of the path completely dark during our short days. Thaws in the spring just mean huge puddles — with ice still present underneath — mud, sand, more ruts, and all users trying to navigate the dry areas, so moving side to side on the path to find dry ground.

If you would like to see changes to the path in the future (lighting, surface, width, improved maintenance, stabilizing areas near the path, etc.) you can comment by contacting the UW via the contact information here.

Dane County is accepting comments until March 15 about a proposed bridge across the Wisconsin River near Sauk City and a trail to Walking Iron County Park near Mazomanie. Information – including slides and a recording from a January public meeting – and a link to comment 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.

Nothing cuts the chill of winter quite like camaraderie. And a hot drink. And a fireplace. And getting the blood pumping by turning some pedals outdoors. And … you know, there are lots of ways to warm up your winter, especially if you’re willing to experiencing it on your bicycle.

Bring your bar mitts full of winter cycling joy and agony to a pair of Madison Bikes events on Feb. 9 to celebrate International Winter Bike Day:

• Hot coffee and doughnuts — donated by Cafe Domestique — just off the Capital City Trail from 7 to 9 a.m. in the Monona Terrace parking lot near the bike elevator

• A warm fire and happy hour hangout for winter biking commiserating from 4 to 6 p.m. at Working Draft Beer Company, 1129 E. Wilson St.

Bike Fitchburg will celebrate the slippery season earlier in the week, with bagels and coffee and light bike mechanical service at a commuter station from 7 to 9 a.m. at Velo UnderRound, the junction of the Capital City Trail, Badger and Military Ridge state trails and Cannonball and Southwest Commuter paths.

This Week

On Wednesday, Jan. 31, the Transportation Commission will meet virtually at 5 p.m. Their full agenda includes a long list of high-profile projects looming in the city’s near future, including adoption of the the Lake Monona Waterfront Master Plan — with its underpass routing cyclists and pedestrians beneath John Nolen Drive — and a presentation on the pilot project that would turn about three blocks of State Street into a pedestrian mall.

The Commission will also take up the state Department of Transportation’s planned study and reconstruction of Interstate 39/90/94 through the city’s east side, considering an endorsement of prioritizing safe connections for pedestrians and bicyclists across the rebuilt highway.

There are 17 crossings and potential new crossings of I-39/90/94 as it passes Madison, and the mayor and a group of city council members have proposed a list prioritizing the city’s concerns. Topping the charts are Milwaukee Street’s narrow and entirely sidewalk-less overpasses and a long-anticipated connection linking the Capital City and Glacial Drumlin state trails south of East Buckeye Road.

But wait, there’s more. The commission will peruse the annual report on Vision Zero Madison, the initiative to eliminate all fatal and serious injury crashes on city streets by 2035 (which just released its first quarterly newsletter of 2024), and the Northeast Area plan, which points out 10 sites for intersection improvements and planned infrastructure to address a “fragmented” bike network.

If you’re into paving, there are a pair of 2024 resurfacing projects ready for public information meetings:

Jan. 30, 5:30 p.m.: North Franklin and Stevens streets

Jan. 31, 6:30 p.m.: West Washington and Henry streets

Take this week with a conservative application of salt, and wheel into the next ready to celebrate cycling in the snow.

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 pag

What a week for getting around outside it’s been! With weather and road conditions like this, you’d think it was International Winter Bike to Work Day but it’s not — that’s still coming up in February. This is good practice though, if you want it. However you choose to get around this week, please do it safely and with respect and care for people around you.

It’s easy to forget how much progress we’ve made with regards to winter cycling in Madison. Policies that were relatively recently put in place (within the last five years or so) ensure that the paths are cleared even on weekends, which is particularly noticeable given the timing of this latest snowfall. It would have been made even worse by the MLK holiday on Monday, potentially delaying path cleanup to Tuesday morning.

This Week

On Wednesday, January 17 at 5 PM, the Transportation Commission will meet virtually. You can read the (relatively light) agenda here, which has a bit of bus-nerd stuff in it and some other tidbits.

On Thursday, January 18 at 7 PM, join an in-person discussion about the potential changes to Mineral Point Rd between Glenway and Midvale Blvd. The discussion will be hosted at the Midtown District Police Station, making it a border battle between districts 5 and 11. The proposed changes include safer pedestrian crossings, buffered bike lanes, reduced car travel lanes and removal of on-street parking (something already disallowed during rush hour in either direction). There was a virtual discussion about this last month and this is yet another opportunity to learn about the project.

On Friday, January 19 from 3-7 PM, drop by the first GearShift Gathering at the Bikes for Kids workshop on the south side. From the event description:

Stop by to meet your local bike organizations at this fun event! Local representatives will be available to talk with you about their work, talk about upcoming projects, and about their volunteer opportunities. Or just come and socialize with the bike community! We’ll also have door prizes?

On Saturday, January 20 from 9 AM to 1 PM, experience the legendary 2024 edition of the Brazen Dropouts Bike Swap. It’s always a fun time and a great way to connect with other cyclists in a warm setting during the coldest months of the year.

Abandoned Bikes PSA

There’s been a bit of discussion on our Facebook Community about what happens when the city collects abandoned bikes. First of all, you can report abandoned bikes to the city using this form and also to our aforementioned Facebook community and/or the Bike Index. According to Renee Callaway, City of Madison Pedestrian Bicycle Administrator:

Whenever [Madison Police Department] receives requests for bike donations they donate bikes and if they still have some after that that are in good/great shape they auction them off. The bikes that are heavily damaged or that are missing a lot of parts they do send off to city metals recycling.

Parting Gift

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.

Now that we’ve had our first real snowfall — with more to come — I hope that everyone has figured out or remembered how to bike in the winter.

The city Bike Madison page (as opposed to this Madison Bikes page…. confusing…) had a nice set of suggestions about biking in winter. It’s really great to have supportive partners at the city, even if we sometimes want them to do more or go faster. We also had a nice call out from the City Traffic and Parking Facebook account that linked back to Harald’s end-of-year roundup. And they even suggested that people subscribe or follow us to keep up to date.

By the way, subscribing to the city Bike Madison page helps you stay up to date about construction, detours, and other official information. That’s why we try to put a link at the bottom  of our update each week. 

Unfortunately, we also saw two examples of “bike lash” in the paper this past week. First was an article in the Cap Times about the loss of urban trees, but also took aim at both the new wider sidewalk along Mineral Point Rd and the proposed multiuse path through the Sauk Creek Greenway. Then later in the week, a letter to the editor claimed that bicyclists don’t pay for the new infrastructure we are seeing. (This is untrue in multiple ways, but it’s a common misconception.)

This week

Things are still pretty quiet this week, with no big public meetings and not a lot of rides scheduled. Madison Bikes has been planning some exciting topics for our community meetings in the coming months, but those will be featured in future updates. There are a few items of interest coming up this week.

Wednesday

At 5:30 pm, Board of Public Works will be discussing two projects of interest to bicyclists, although there doesn’t seem to be much controversy around the projects, so no need to testify. (Unless you want to.) Agenda and Zoom link here.

The reconstruction of E Wilson St and E Doty St will add a two-way cycle track to E Wilson and new buffered bike lanes to E Doty St. This will complete the two-way bike facility on Wilson that Madison Bikes pushed for as one of its first projects. 

The final piece of the Lake Mendota Dr project will be also before the board, but the plans were already approved last year. This stretch from Spring Harbor Dr to Epworth Ct will add sidewalks, some bumpouts, space for a rain garden, and a traffic circle.

The monthly Queer Bike Ride meets the second Wednesday of the month at 6:00 pm. You can follow on Instagram for more details. All bodies are welcome.

Thursday

Freecycle will hold another Zoom meeting about what may be in their future. It looks like they’ll be doing this monthly after they started the conversation before the holidays. If you would like to join the conversation at 6:00 pm, you can get more information and sign up 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.