I have bussed up and down State Street a couple hundred times over the last 15 years and rarely have seen people get on at one block of State Street and ride a few blocks before departing. Most people seem to walk the length of the street once they get there. But people do board generally at every stop on State to travel out of the area.
So, taking bus routes off State could be very inconvenient for people who want to bus there or need to bus to another destination., especially using east-bound busses. Presumably passengers would have to use stops on Johnson and West Washington, but maybe Metro has looked into better ways to accommodate such route changes. A frequent-service trolley system might be able to reduce some of this inconvenience. And certainly, natural gas or other much cleaner fuels would make busses much more tolerable along the narrow and poorly ventilated State Street Canyon. We have to keep in mind, though, that a mayor often has little involvement in bus route decisions. Also, the issue of busses on State seemed well addressed during the long public input period. I don't know what the final decision has been on that, but it should certainly be given a lot of weight. Perhaps it is on the city State Street Redesign website. The much bigger issue, I feel, is what either candidate would do for Madison overall. I perceive that former Mayor Soglin is not terribly fired up to help shape future development in ways that will appreciably slow future increases in traffic, large-lot/big box sprawl, and other energy-wasting city-wreckers. His willingness to rely on the voluntary provision of affordable housing would not produce much success, judging by other reports. During his terms as mayor, wasteful huge-lot McMansion subdivisions, big boxes, and enormous parking lots blossomed all over the edges of the city. Traffic increased enormously. Dealing with these real-life issues was so boring to him that he left mid-term. He did at least sign-on to great improvements to our bike system, but I can't recall that anything of that nature was initiated by him. I have no desire to provide Mr. Soglin another opportunity to resume the business-as-usual, traffic-generating development patterns he presided over. Mr. Cieslewicz, on the other hand, is fired up to try some new approaches that have worked elsewhere to help minimize many of the negative impacts of urban growth. I urge Bikies to give him your votes. -----Original Message----- From: Kathryn Kingsbury [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 3:22 PM To: bike list Subject: [Bikies] Cieslewicz and buses on State Street I am one of those crazies that supports having buses run on State Street. So, will I have to vote for Soglin? Who's up for defending Cieslewicz? Kathryn Kingsbury _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
