For almost every trip I need to make in Madison, the infrastructure is in place, and my ride is safe and pleasant.
There is one big exception, as far as I'm concerned. Occasionally, I need to go from the campus area to north Fitchburg/South Madison, near Greenway Cross and the Beltline. To make that trip, I usually go along Fish Hatchery Road -- which is bike-able, but not for the faint of heart. The Cannonball Trail will be an important and useful connection for a lot of people; but if you need to ride from Monroe St. to Greenway Cross, it won't help all that much. I think we also need improvements to the Fish Hatchery corridor to make it less scary, especially on the stretches that border the Arboretum and cross over the Beltline. Larry D. Nelson wrote: > With the important exceptions of a stronger connection to the North side > and > the Northeast side of the City of Madison, the infrastructure is largely > in > place to offer those in SOV to bike. > > The emphasis now is to connect the system to other municipalities and > there > are three major projects on the boards to do just that: > > 1. The Lower Yahara Trail, which will connect the Village of McFarland to > Madison; > > 2. The Cannonball Trail, which will connect Fitchburg and Verona to > Madison > (and the residents of Madison south of the Beltline Highway to Madison); > and, > > 3. The paving of the Badger Trail, which will connect Paoli and Bellville > to Madison. > > In addition to expanding the system, we need to maintain the current > system, > which was initially laid out in the early 1970s. When the pavement is > replaced or resurfaced, the corridors are brought up to current standards > for safety and traffic projections...just like roads. > > What is the range that we can expect most users to consider for commuter > biking? Perhaps the maximum is 10-miles, one way. The SW Trail was > measured > last year with 2500 users, which is equivalent to a collector street. > > Planners for biking infrastructure need to be cognizant that, while > Madison > may enjoy a growth in population, jobs within Madison may not be growing. > We, unfortunately, need to await the results of the decadal census, which > we > will not have the results until 2012 but it is likely that these corridors > will be used by Madisonians to commute to jobs outside of the City. > > Fortunately, funding for bike paths has been available since the 1990 > ISTEA > Act. But, a good plan and public support is required to obtain funding. > Frankly, one of the challenges of constructing biking infrastructure is > that > veteran bikers often want to compete with cars on roadways and the people > we want to offer an alternative to the SOV are not aware of the potential. > > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org > > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
