Transcript
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e
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hello everybody
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2024 to order and Ariana if you'd read the instructions
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please Welcome to our virtual meeting we're going to cover a few basic items before beginning if you lose connection
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at any point during the meeting you can reconnect by clicking the link or calling the number in your original email to members and City staff members
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if you able please activate your video and keep it on for the duration of the meeting staff if you are able please
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activate your video when you are speaking use the raised hand feature when you'd like to be recognized to speak or ask questions staff click raise
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hand when you are asked a question the chair will do their best to call on committee members in the order in which hands are raised lowering your hand will
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take you out of the queue members of the public who have registered to speak the name you entered in Zoom must match the
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name you entered in registration you will remain muted until called upon the clerk will tell you when your time is up
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after speaking a member of the body may ask you a question if you need to share documentation with the commission please send it to the email listed on today's
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agenda chair the floor is yours uh thanks Ariana before we call the rooll
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um Eric Finch I'm gonna call on you I just got off the phone with Eric and and
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Kaylee apparently there was some confusion about whether the mayor had actually signed the council proceedings
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from last night um and I'm not exactly sure why you showed up in legistar as a
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member if in fact you aren't a member um hang on one second um could you please
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move Denise uh from attendees to uh panelist Ariana uh yeah it looks like
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she accepted it so it should be any second now okay thank you um so Eric do
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you wanna uh apparently Eric talked to Mike H and and has an update unless Tom
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you have some different update Eric you want to yeah so the late yeah the latest
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information I have is that uh the mayor has not signed the full proceedings from last night uh just the older
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appointments so the resident appointments uh have not been signed yet so um the the new members are not yet
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members for this meeting they they obviously will be by by the time the next meeting comes around um so because
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of that uh the the new members um are not eligible to participate in the
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conversation uh other than as members of the public and uh they're not able to uh Vote or or if for alternates you know be
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become uh voters uh bill I think would still be you you would still retain your
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old position so if you're all to vote uh and then finally if if uh the commission
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wanted to it could uh make a special rule for this meeting allowing uh
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particular individuals to participate in the discussion throughout the meeting in this case uh that being the the new
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members um something like that's been done before and that may help facilitate their uh you know getting their feet
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under them uh as we welcome them to the uh Transportation Commission sir um Tom did you have a
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comment before we move on yeah actually I just want to uh first welcome Kaylee
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and then apologize for all this confusion the council meeting got done
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like at 12:30 last night and the the mayor has been out of town I think in Washington today um so then I just want
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to do that and then the the body of the TC can decide if they want to allow Kaylee to participate in the discussion
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or not but but welcome Kaye thanks for being and I'm totally yeah and thanks
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thanks so much for your interest Kaye and uh the emails that I've seen and I'll be sending you one um myself
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welcoming you and uh offering you a link to the handbook and etc etc so let's
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call the role of the TC without and Lynn for
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right now Aiden and then um we'll uh we'll move on from there so welcome
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Kaylee and Aiden when to call roll sure uh so Juliana
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Bennett who would count as excused yeah yeah MGR govinder
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Rajan see yeah I don't see him you uh I don't okay at this time uh Dena Nina
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Martinez Rutherford I am present Barbara Harrington
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mckenny I don't see her an kovich here Robbie
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Weber here Denise Jeffs I'm here Pepe
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baros here Chris Mill here Bill Brer
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here and Harold cams pres okay well bill um you can vote this
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evening because we have two two folks not here um and we still have vacancies
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technically according to um where we're at in the process um since Kaye was kind
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enough to come and we have a lot of misconceptions about what's going on Harold
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for that reason I would like to make a motion for a special role uh rule
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allowing kayy to participate in discussion okay so basically Eric I
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think we're gonna suspend the rules and allow Kaylee to participate in in the discussion would that be
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correct uh yeah I think yeah I think you can do a um Motion in a second then uh I
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would assume you could do an unanimous consent right but suspend the rules is that the correct way to say it uh yes it would be
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suspend the rule uh and introduce a Special Rule to uh allow uh Kaye to
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participate in the conversation are you okay with that wording har it's exactly what I wanted to
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say okay thank you excuse me Al Martinez Rutherford I would be happy to second
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that oh thank you so much any did you wish to speak to your motion at all Harold
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just want to say welcome kayy yes thank you um I am going to assume unanimous
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consent vote unless anybody wishes to vote no or abstain or a roll Co vote
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I'll watch for hands okay seeing No Hands kayy What U
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welcome again and this means that you can participate in the discussion ask questions make comments um sadly you
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just can't vote this evening um and we can explain your alternate role unless that's already been explained to you um
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at a later time um outside of the meeting um so uh we appreciate you being
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willing to serve and we look forward to uh to your feedback um you I'm just
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gonna um just gonna ask you you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself Kaye
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as long as you're here and we're welcome in you sure thanks everybody I feel like I'm getting a lot of special attention
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today um my name is Kaye Jameson I live um on the near East Side um first in
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East Maine area um I have lived in Madison since undergrad love it here um
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I am a public health uh person um and my
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focus is in health policy Health Equity I did my Master's thesis on the ability of
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public transit and act active transit to help people find Social connection um
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and feel a sense of place and so that's those are some of my interests um in my day job I work in child care policy for
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the Department of Children and Families um and I'm really happy to be here so thanks for having me okay thank you so
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much so just raise your hand when you wish to speak and you'll end up in the queue um so did everybody have an opport
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and again welcome Kaye every body have an opportunity to review the minutes from the last
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meeting Chris approval of the minutes okay there's a motion um Bill second
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okay there's a motion in the second any discussion Alder Martinez
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ruford you're muted Alder I just wanted to
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um recuse myself for not abstain thank you okay all right that's what I would
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like to do on this okay all right we'll show you as OB staining um any
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discussion okay I'm going to assume a unanimous consent vote unless anybody wishes to vote no or abstain if so
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please raise your hand okay
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see no hand move on public comment there was one email public comment um and
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didn't we have anybody registered to speak this evening under item one we do not not for item one
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okay uh any disclosures or recusals this
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evening okay see no hands we have one item on the consent agenda which is item
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number two do we have anybody registered to speak on item two Aiden nope we do not okay uh did anybody
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wish that to be separated from the consent
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agenda okay seeing no hands can we have a motion to approve the consent
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agenda Harold move approval okay there's a motion Chris second
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there's a motion in a second I'm assuming no
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discussion and I'm also going to assume a unanimous consent vote unless anybody wishes to vote no or
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abstain okay seeing no hands that passes
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unanimously all right so we move on to item number three do we have anybody
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registered to speak on item three we do have one
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person okay all right so we'll hear from Mike uh and possibly Tom who's ever
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going to handle a presentation and then we'll hear from the public and then we'll have comments and
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discussion so Mike go ahead yeah uh thanks thank you chair thanks every everybody I'm going to try to share my
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screen here bear with me for a
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second so my check follow with Metro Transit uh this is a a little part of
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the bus Rapid Transit uh system that uh we've been kind of uh it's it's taken
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quite a quite a while to get to building this um I'll kind of start from the top
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is uh this is University Avenue at where Campus Drive splits off uh Babcock Drive
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is over here as you can see Breeze Terrace is just to the West So currently
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the westbound bus lane on University Avenue ends at Babcock Drive it becomes
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basically right only for cars onto Babcock Drive uh buses continue West
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from that bus lane they merge into the the general purpose lane and then there's kind of a bike lane that crosses
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the railroad tracks and then that bike lane kind of Peters into a shoulder so our goal with the bus rapid transit
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system was to extend that bus lane past Babcock Drive get it across the railroad
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tracks across this crosswalk that uh connects with old
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University and then that bus lane would kind of Peter out into a shoulder at that point buses would get really past
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all of the congestion on campus they would get past that last traffic signal
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in theory we could set up a q jump here to get them back into traffic but realistically we'd probably just let
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them merge back and and it it wouldn't be a big deal um but we we'd get them through the congestion of the last
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couple traffic signals on uh campus it's about 500 feet of additional bus lane
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but it's extremely valuable bus lane because it's really uh there where we need it um the complicating part of it
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was that it goes through this railroad crossing and so our our concept was to
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just kind of piece it into the railroad crossing that turned out to be uh way more complicated than we were hoping
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that it would be and so basically the city was uh ordered by the office of
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Commissioner of railroads to fix a lot of long-standing problems with this
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Crossing uh they did give us the ability to add uh add the bus lane um but they
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also made us do a whole bunch of other stuff so um I'm going to kind of go into it but before I do um our initial time
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frame here was we were hoping to do some construction over the
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winter before we start conflicting with some other things um that time frame has uh kind of
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kind of has has is not going to work out this will be a 2025 project uh so well
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we do need to comply with the orders of the office of Commissioners of of railroads the OCR uh but there this is a
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really complicated intersection there's a lot going on a lot of moving pieces
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and you know there's always some details that we can uh we can work on and and
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and try to do so I thought it would be good to get this on your Radars I get some comments if you have any or
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thoughts uh to to make this as as best as we can make out of it um so with that
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I'll I'll kind of go into some of the details here first of all this Crossing will get railroad Gates uh they they
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ordered gates to be installed uh to protect the crossing that would replace the existing
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warning lights which are the the flashing the flashing red lights would be replaced
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with Gates bells and and warning lights associated with the gates um
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there'll be some other signal changes that they ordered but the biggest thing I think is these two Crossings here so
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uh I'm just going to use kind of their language and then kind of I'm going to intersperse it with our language uh they
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call this Crossing on the west side of Babcock they call that the West Babcock
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Crossing and then this pedestrian Crossing along the north side of University univ Avenue crossing the
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tracks They call that the East Babcock Crossing now I would just call that the University Avenue sidewalk but that's
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what it is in the record so if you read through the materials you'll see that referred to as the East Babcock Crossing
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and then we have this really long big major Crossing which I believe is called the University Avenue Crossing or
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University at Babcock or something uh so from the railroads perspective this is three
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Crossings uh but from all practical perspectives it's one um it's one one
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area and so the main uh thing that was ordered here is we were ordered to
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consolidate these two Babcock Crossings East Babcock and West Babcock with with
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one pedestrian Crossing that that serves uh
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both uh both both movements here or wherever it is people are going uh these
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these two pedestrian Crossings would be closed and then one would be opened in
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the middle and that would connect back to uh back to the sidewalks on Babcock
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Drive and on the west side it would connect back to the traffic signal between Campus Drive University and old
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University uh so you know you're seeing here the the the yellow would be new
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pavement that would be removed and replaced uh with a slight
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widening so again the bike Lanes widened uh 5 ft or whatever it is to to convert
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it from a a bike lane to a a bus lane um
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and then there's a there's some work uh going on at the University in Babcock
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Crossing as well so there's a a lot a lot going on here and we'd really have to zoom in on it but I'm I'm going to
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focus on the highlights right now there's a crosswalk across Babcock Drive
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just west of the splitter Island uh so that would be removed and replaced
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with a crosswalk that's a little bit more parallel to University Avenue to
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serve people walking east and west across uh on University
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Avenue and put that crosswalk a little bit more where people would expect it
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and then use the splitter Island as a refuge as well um this southbound
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movement is is just bikes but uh it you know it it it still would perform that that that
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function uh there's also a a ramp on the
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gore here which is the the nose of the curb between Babcock Drive and Campus
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Drive it was fairly important to remove that I think what's going on now is that
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was kind of a way for bikes to get up onto the sidewalk and then use this this
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sidewalk Crossing um but it's not it's not really up in any kind of official
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way and so that would be replaced by this more normal curb ramp um and then
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pedestrians and bikes if they wanted to could could could go up along this this new sidewalk along the southside of
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Babcock Drive cross the railroad tracks at a 45 degree angle or sorry at a 90
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degree angle and then continue West along University Avenue and to wherever they're going and obviously the same in
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the other direction um so you know we've there are a lot of players that are interested in this
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obviously the city has a huge stake in it obviously the railroad we've also been working with the UW um I'll just
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share some of their comments I think you know they've they they've been good good partners and and helping us work through
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some of the uh some of the very many moving Parts on this uh I'll say that
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you know they are concerned about losing this uh West Babcock Crossing I think we
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totally understand understand that uh that's there's obviously kind of a desire path to go up north along Babcock
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Drive uh I and I think I think there's a a pretty
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uh well I think there's a a pretty U pretty consistent U agreement between
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the city and the U that that this Crossing along University Avenue on the
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north side of University Avenue is is probably the most problematic part of what's there right now it's at an
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extremely acute skew and so there's a a
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high chance of somebody with their bike tires or wheelchair uh tires or or scooter or whatever they have getting
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loot getting caught in the the flangeway of the railroad tracks um just because
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they're they're so close to being parallel to each other and then and then the chance that somebody could could go
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down or get kind of directed along the railroad tracks as opposed to along the sidewalk so I think that's that's kind
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of the main thing there um you know thinking about desire paths
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here I think there's there's kind of two main desire paths one is people walking
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East West along the north side of University Avenue going from say the heart of w Campus West towards Breeze
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Terrace old University camp randville or wherever they're going and then one is
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uh people going north south so people coming from Babcock coming south and
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then going crossing the tracks Crossing University Avenue and then going you
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know either West towards uh Breeze Terrace old University Avenue Camp
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Randle wherever or then you know going south to East uh so that that's kind of
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those are kind of the desire paths north south and east west and and obviously the different permutations of that you
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know from the from the north to the East and and whatever so again just wanted to
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kind of get this on your radar and open it up for discuss to see uh what um what thoughts you
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might have on this I see Tom we're g I'll I'll go to Tom for presentation but
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we want to wait for discussion until after we hear from the public Mike oh oh great okay so okay I just want to
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augment What U Mike said in that you know the U the OCR decision actually has
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the full force of law um it's something that we we can't
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not do as much as we would like to not do sometimes um and um the OCR is a it's
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not like other agencies like the DNR other thing where you can kind of get in
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a room and and discuss different issues the OCR is more of a has a a court type
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of proceedings where you submit petitions and testimonies and and then there there's counter testim monies and
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the like and so I I've seen some of the comments on this and I've heard a lot of
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the comments saying well I don't like this or that and um you know we have
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small Avenues um or maybe small modifications but um we we can't really
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not comply with this order and so I just want you know that to be kind of a a
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base so that um you know those testify maybe understand our position and and
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the Transportation Commission understand our situation so thank you yeah very
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helpful uh both Mike and Tom um Aiden who do we have to speak this evening on
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this topic so we have Dan pensinger of for
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cyia Place opposes and wishes to speak okay Dan go
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ahead hi thanks for me speak today uh I have have worked or gone to school on
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campus for about 17 years and I um primarily use my bike as my main mode of
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transportation so when I was looking at uh this agenda item uh I was alarmed to
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see that there was a proposal to remove the southbound bike lanane on Babcock
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and also the signalized intersection um to cross University uh and uh from
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language I guess I wasn't completely sure whether that was proposed to be a permanent or just during construction
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phase um of this uh but in actuality I think it would be um much better to
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actually take the southbound bike lane that's currently just uh designated by
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paint and actually make that a protected Lane uh because I think that's a pretty important Cross Point for people on
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bikes and micro Mobility devices which are very popular on campus um also uh I yes just thinking
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about this intersection in general uh it would be nice to see some thought about
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just the crossing of university for pedestrians uh that Crossing is pretty
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dangerous because of car speed and the number of lanes I've seen many near misses and also cars that end up
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stopping the crosswalk uh so I think um you know I would I would ask I guess the
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Transportation Commission to consider what options are available to make that Crossing more visible and safer for
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pedestrians and perhaps increase the priority uh so that there's less um you
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know if there's less of a wait time at the signalized intersection you might have fewer people trying to cross on the
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other East West um crosswalks there and have it be safer for
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pedestrians thank you that was it thank you Dan does anybody have a question for
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the registrant uh Harold go ahead yeah thank you for testifying then I just want to
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make sure I understood what you said I think you said the South bike lane and that's referring to
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the one on the south side of Babcock going west I
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suppose like the counterflow bike lane along
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backcock Dan go ahead
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can you hear us
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Dan Dan should have permission to talk um
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let me just double check yeah Dan should be able to to
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F if I could just quickly address one issue while we're trying to get Dan back on uh one one question was about the
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bike and pedestrian access so I did have some notes on that drawing that were referenced to during construction so uh
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that that area would still be open to to bikes and pedestrians after the work is
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done but that was just during construction that was a tempor that would be a temporary okay Dan it
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looks like Dan whoops where'd he go Dan it looks like you might be there now can are you able to unmute yourself there
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you go hear me okay I'm sorry I uh there was a h Zoom request to become a
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panelist and then I clipped it and it it kicked me out for a second um so I'm sorry I missed I think some of what
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Harold uh was asking me um to clarify there's a there's uh on Babcock there's
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a bike lane um on the right side going north and there's also a bike only lane
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going south and my understanding from uh the diagram and the um text uh of The
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Proposal was that the that southbound bike lane might be removed and so I was
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concerned uh if that was planned to be a permanent removal along with the signalized intersection I think that
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would be very bad for um people who are cycling or using micro Mobility devices
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um on campus and the suggestion was to have them uh you know go onto the
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sidewalk but that leads to uh you know a lot of conflicts with um pedestrians and
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at certain times of day like between class it's a really really um crowded
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area because there's all kinds of people trying to get to the next class and so I just think that's a bad idea to remove
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the separate um cyclist infrastructure there and in fact I think it should be improved and not taken away thank you
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thank you for clarifying okay anybody else have a question for the
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registrant okay thanks very much Dan do we have anybody else registered Aiden we do know okay comments or
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questions for Mike and Tom bill go ahead thanks again um I I think in all my
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years of looking at OCR orders this is the most complic ated yeah
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uh difficult location to resolve for safety of all users
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including railroad gr Crossing uh which we have to keep in mind and that's the response of primary responsibility gocr
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and they're they're they're looking at trying to look at everybody and to make sure that nobody gets uh involved with a
30:53
h great CR Crossing crash so um I guess to Mike or or or Tom is the Order
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final yes it is okay all right so in other words the
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only way to change anything is is uh
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they're not open to any more appeals I guess or maybe there is but I I doubt that that would re do any good but but
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the only way to circumvent or go against the OCR is to take them to court and that's not desirable at all um I don't
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have very good luck with that so and as well as time and so forth so is is the
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all of as far as the railroad grid Crossing uh is all the equipment on order now and and and when is that going
31:44
to be installed is that this 2025 we're hoping 2025 it's not it's not on order
31:50
yet we're still working through agreements with OCR and W or sorry with wsor and and yeah okay
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okay yeah yeah this is this is a this is an extremely challenging and I understand pedestrians uh changing
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pedestrian movements is uh as far as moving them I there will be
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quite a bit of fencing correct so that people will not be able to cut across the tracks correct that is that true
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yeah I kind of skipped that part um but this this pink dotted line here is is
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the existing fence it's a it's a pretty standard black metal fence with some
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more ornate brick uh pillars in between and so it would be closed off here where
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the existing Crossing is and opened up where the new Crossing is we're also looking uh to see if it could be
32:50
extended on the East End a little bit here to prevent people from walking yeah
32:56
around it think we were to keep trying to keep pedestrians from doing U bad
33:02
things I think we have to have fence I don't see any way around it yeah yeah
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okay thank you Tom did you Tom and Eric both raised their hand bill they may have some um answers for you with regard
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to the um OCR decision go first
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yeah we had a we have about a I can't remember if
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it's 45 days to either request a rehearing or um I then a little bit
33:34
longer to file an appeal um in this particular instance this order was
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issued right when we were trying to execute our construction agreement with FTA and FTA was already um quite
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concerned about this issue and so um I think it we had concerns if we
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filed an appeal it would have jeopardized some of our funding and so we just yeah chose not to um so it's
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it's kind of set in stone we actually are having to file an extension I don't
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know if Mike mentioned that or not because we supposed to some of this stuff done it looked like the order said
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you were supposed to have it done by the end of this year so I know that's possible so and I I I saw a lot of
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discussion about funding and OCR was not happy with with the
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you know you got the 160 million you you take care of
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it yeah it's of looking for additional funds from other sources and that was not successful I
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assumed we actually had to pull uh all of these
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improvements fully from the project and so all of them we're ordered to do them but they're all being paid for the
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Madison taxpayers the federal government's not paying any because yeah that's what I suspected yeah we had to
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do that just to keep things moving forward right yeah okay thank you Eric
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did you have any other comments about this yeah uh I was just going to say in in terms of suing the OCR uh the city
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did last Sue OCR in 2012 and we got a favorable
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decision um the OCR is restricted to considering primarily safety and then
35:24
secondarily considering convenience uh in their proceeding and uh in that case they were not uh
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found to have uh sufficiently uh focused on safety and and instead they took an
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arbitrary action so um when considering these things and and the Transportation
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Commission uh considering you know uh what what commission members recommend
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um just wanted to put that uh context in there yeah thanks thanks uh I I
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appreciate that because I think Eric you know is the challenge to work with the with them and they have a little bit
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different role than many other uh regulatory bodies in the state it's kind of unique say but challenge to work with
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so this isn't the only location we may disagree with OCR is fting on so
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thanks okay thanks Bill um that's all you had
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then yep uh go ahead Harold yeah thanks um starting with a question Mike you
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said there's going to be additional Gates or a gate can you just point that I I couldn't quite figure out where
36:35
exactly those will be yeah um
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so uh so this this this will become a gated Crossing and so here's here's the
36:46
railroad tracks here we'll have Gates uh eastbound approaching the railroad
36:52
tracks and then also Gates westbound approaching the railroad tracks and then
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also gate uh southbound for Babcock Drive because this crosswalk for bikes that go
37:04
southbound to eastbound uh that that movement is too close to the railroad track so they will
37:10
need to get gated as well um I I do think I have a drawing here if you want to see more I could I'd have to find it
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though no I think yeah that's okay um then the other question
37:24
so from my reading of the order is yes the consolidation of the two East and West
37:31
backcock Crossings that's part of the order what I didn't quite figure out did
37:37
they say which one you have to consolidate like because we have to
37:44
consolidating both of the the both so we closed two and open one so we have to close both West and
37:50
East and then we're able to open one new one okay and they ordered you to close
37:56
the West one like there was not an option to only keep the West one and close the other two correct basically
38:03
yeah there was there was basically a few sketches that has been been that had gone around and they had said that you
38:10
have to design it like this sketch and um uh that that sketch basically showed
38:18
these this one Crossing open and this other Crossing closing I think you know it it there there could be a
38:26
a you know how how we interpret that is could we don't know exactly how Loosely or how
38:33
tightly we can we can interpret that I know for sure we can't have two
38:38
Crossings um you know if we were to have one and it were to be closer to the west or even at the West bcot Crossing it's
38:46
possible that they may be open to that I think we'd have to we'd have to go back to them and and see what they would say
38:53
uh we'd have to confer with the with the railroad again um but that was that was basically the the
39:00
order to to conform to a a very loose sketch that was submitted at one point
39:07
um that had these two Crossings closing and one one new Crossing
39:13
opening okay I think that might be worth pursuing based on what you said the
39:20
university pointing out that that West Crossing I mean it shortens those design
39:27
pass going north south north west and all that I guess you'd have to have a
39:36
longer crosswalk longer sidewalk on Babcock side but then you could skip
39:42
that section along University Drive so I think in terms of cost it might I guess
39:47
I'm not sure if there's enough right away Along back BC drive to extend That Sidewalk all the
39:54
way seeing what looks like Tom has yeah Harold looks like Tom has his hand up go ahead Tom yeah I'm not sure the how
40:02
major this change is but if it's if it's a relatively large change we we actually
40:10
have to repetition and and go through the whole it's a year-long process it's kind of um
40:16
burdensome Mike were you tracking on Harold and how different uh yeah I I
40:23
think I think Harold what you're saying is to is to it's similar to what what we talked about with WS keeping this
40:30
Crossing open uh and then going ahead and closing that one but just having this one here and I think that would we
40:38
would not have the sidewalk along the fence along south of Babcock Drive I
40:43
think we would instead direct people up up towards this sidewalk I think staff's
40:48
concerned with that would be uh would be jeopardizing the desire path along the
40:53
east west route along the University Avenue but I think we're open to looking at that uh I think those are kind of the
40:59
two major questions that we've asked ourselves internally is how would that
41:05
jeopardize the East West movement for example would it would it uh cause people to walk in the in the road uh
41:13
particularly they'd be walking in the bus lane which would be which would be uh of of concern to Metro from a safety
41:20
perspective uh and then uh secondarily what would what would be the outcome
41:25
with the OCR would it require a new petition or would they consider to be a
41:31
minor minor adjustment to what to their order I mean with regard to the desire
41:37
path I'm kind of thinking this is I think what bill you had pointed out with you are you going to be able to extend
41:43
that fence I feel right now it's a relatively small Gap from where Babcock
41:48
and University meet and where that new sidewalk would start so that seems like something where like oh I'll just walk
41:53
through the grass or the bus lane but if that sidewalk along universities all
42:01
gone I feel like that's at that point and it's not much longer to walk along Babcock and then make the crossing at
42:08
the west side I would be less concerned about that and I get the point about
42:13
repetition but maybe that's something yeah I mean if you need to do that then obviously that's out of the question but
42:19
if there is flexibility to that I think I mean I'm curious to hear what other people think but that seems the better
42:26
solution
42:32
that's what I had okay thanks Harold uh Chris go ahead thanks um I have some
42:39
thoughts about uh bike paths biking routes that is probably going to be hard
42:45
to communicate but I will do my best um so I think part of the thinking here is that if someone is biking uh from the
42:51
East basically in the bus lane um that they might
42:57
follow this new sidewalk and new train
43:03
crossing um my my thought is that if someone is heading W westbound on
43:11
University they will either be heading down Babcock drive so they will turn onto
43:17
the the existing bike lane on Babcock Drive or they will want to head up
43:24
Campus Drive and I'm thinking in that case the
43:29
ideal option would be for them to continue down Babcock Drive um until that point of the the
43:38
track crossing so and then turn left toward Campus
43:46
Drive so what I'm getting at is I would think that that the new train crossing
43:53
should be fairly wide uh to the extent that you can make it a
43:59
pretty wide Crossing and then that path to Campus
44:06
Drive uh west of that that point where it crosses the track should be large
44:12
enough to handle people walking and biking did that make any sense at all Mike I yeah I think I I think you got it
44:19
and I think you basically got it right I think our so for bikes heading
44:24
west there'd be kind of old University or wherever there'd be kind of two paths
44:30
the more all ages and abilities type of route would be turning right onto P Babcock Drive biking up Babcock Drive
44:37
turning left at the new crosswalk of Babcock Drive using the new railroad
44:43
crossing going along that wide sidewalk uh along University Avenue and then
44:49
using this this crosswalk to get to this wide sidewalk and then going wherever uh
44:56
some cyclist would would probably just stay in the bus lane up until the old
45:02
University uh intersection and then turn left or whatever one other thing I probably should have mentioned earlier
45:08
is that the U is planning on extending their Campus Drive path and so uh when
45:14
that's completed there should be a a route up Babcock Drive and then turning
45:20
to the West up by the curve here that will get people all the way to the West
45:26
basically parallel Babcock dri so that will be a completely separate option
45:31
compared to this um but otherwise I think you understand it the way we do I think we're on the same page I I guess
45:37
just to clarify I would I'm suggesting there is only one place to Veer right
45:44
off of University and that would be onto the right hand side of Babcock Lane and I'll send you a sketch okay
45:51
great all right thanks Chris uh bill go ahead uh thanks thanks
45:57
again um I I I like uh what Harold has said and I I kind of like to endorse
46:04
that also I I think from OCR standpoint what they're interested in is closing
46:10
Crossings and and I think uh as long as you're you know if you they're looking
46:16
at only having one and I think the the one on the west is more valuable I think to U and to to the city and I I think if
46:24
you make that a a wide uh for bikes and pedestrians I think that would be would
46:30
be highly desirable and I think OCR would would maybe a go along with that without any significant objections at
46:38
all as long as they can get the the East one closed I think is what they're really trying to accomplish so um I
46:45
think that's I think that would be what Harold ising would would uh would be worth
46:51
looking at thanks
46:59
thanks Bill um Robbie go ahead yeah um I I guess I'll third that
47:07
um and the other the other reason that having the
47:14
existing uh Crossing slash crosswalk um
47:21
across um Campus Drive to the Energy
47:27
building and old University Avenue um and also the Engineering campus um in in
47:36
its current location is that it avoids bicyclists who are going to go down bad
47:42
po Babcock make a left make a right and then make a left again to get across to
47:49
Old University Avenue or the breeze Terrace the energy building in that
47:55
wedge or for the Engineering campus I mean it just seems like a little bit of a awkward movement to have to do a
48:03
zigzag instead of just going down Babcock and making one left and having a
48:09
straight shot all the way across so I I understand that if we can't you know if
48:16
it's going if the OCR is going to make a big deal out of this that we may not be able to do it
48:23
but that the Western access I think is a more
48:30
natural path for people to use so I I I
48:36
know that to get to Old University Avenue that is a huge connection for
48:44
people who live in the Regent neighborhood or are going down Breeze Terrace or anywhere in that area the the
48:54
stadium the Engineering campus or anything like that that's really the only way to do it um I mean I used to
49:00
Veer across three lanes to get into the to get onto Old University Avenue but um
49:06
you know I'm one of those bicyclists who who's willing to do that I think most people don't and it doesn't feel
49:13
particularly comfortable or safe so I think going down Babcock and then Crossing is is a much more natural
49:20
um option for people so if if possible I I would
49:27
support keeping that one thank you thanks Rie Harold go ahead yeah sorry
49:33
one more inspired by what Chris said and sorry Chris I'm just repeating what you were saying so for the people who
49:41
go Westbound and decide to take the bus lane to the crossing and then make that
49:48
left turn I guess accommodating that with one of those ramps to get off out
49:55
of the bus lane um no matter if you keep the west or the
50:02
the middle Crossing I think that would be good to incorporate that into the into the design because otherwise it'll be
50:08
awkward to like only have the curb cut right at the Crossing because you have
50:14
to make that duck handle turn that makes
50:22
sense other comments or questions
50:28
Mike Tom did you get the feedback you needed think we got
50:34
it thank you okay sounds like we might see this back again at some
50:41
point right thanks much uh so let's move on to item
50:47
four which is the Safe Streets Madison Badger Road sidewalk project do we have anybody registered to speak on this
50:55
Aiden oh we do not I'm sorry we do not no okay um so Mario
51:03
are you g to handle this yeah I'll take this one uh so this uh project let me go
51:10
ahead and share my screen
51:20
here this is a Safe Streets project uh the Badger Road sidewalk uh sort of Park
51:27
Street and Badger Road there's a there's a Burger King uh at this corner uh to
51:33
the to the West is that Park Street and Badger Road intersection to the east is the New Black Excellence uh Center
51:40
that's being constructed right now along Badger Road uh by the Belt Line and so
51:47
this project is to connect these two you know that new sidewalk with this intersection uh through the Burger King
51:55
and we uh initially you know this was this was budgeted around 60k you know it
52:02
is just a sidewalk uh but looking into the design a little bit more we ran into a couple couple of issues with it uh
52:10
number one is that this is that entire Terrace is Mo most of the Terrace is in
52:17
private property where we need to go so we're drafting up an easement uh and you
52:23
know real estate folks said you know we got to buy the land for this easement so it's going to be about based on the bank
52:30
across the street that's sold a few years back uh it's going to be around 74,000 for that easement uh if those
52:39
rates hold um could be less but we want to you know budget for the worst case
52:45
scenario and then uh the estimate did come a little high as well just because
52:52
uh there were some grade issues in here uh the Highway of the Burger King is
52:58
quite steep going away from the sidewalk so we need to actually cut into Badger
53:03
Road and make some grade changes there so that came in at around uh around
53:09
88,000 uh so our new estim our new estimate is $162,000 for this project uh and that's
53:16
why I'm here sort of seeking a motion to just sort of re-approve this project with the understanding that it will be
53:23
at a at a much higher cost uh than initially uh thought we
53:29
thought okay thanks Mario before we go to comments or questions Renee do you want to talk about the importance of the
53:35
connection here yeah absolutely so um you know a lot of times a project might
53:41
be over under a little bit but obviously as Mario said this one's pretty significant but we still think it's a
53:48
critical project the um Center for black Excellence will be building a sidewalk
53:53
connection on their property but without this it isn't going to connect down to
53:59
Park Street uh because there is just a little bit of sidewalk um and then there'll be this Gap and um obviously a
54:08
lot of people are going to walk through that Burger King parking lot if we don't get a sidewalk in but that's parking lot
54:15
crashes aren't something that we talk about a lot here but they are um not
54:21
insignificant safety issues as well so we feel like the time to do this is is
54:26
now um to get this built even with that additional
54:32
cost thanks Rene um Carl go ahead yeah thanks I wonder in the big picture how
54:41
did we end up with this situation where we have this sidewalk
54:46
stub and clearly the property line it looks like maybe Bader Road was widened
54:53
at some point and so I guess it was dedicated to another travel Lane and is
54:58
that something that we can consider
55:04
undoing so that is a good question about the history of how this developed and I
55:11
don't know if anyone on this call can answer that or not I don't know the
55:18
history but I can tell you that there is a stra there's like a through Lane a right turn lane and a left turn lane at
55:23
this intersection right which seems like a
55:28
lot Tom has his hand up maybe he can help with that yeah I I I can't help
55:34
with absolute certainty right but this is town of Madison area you know what I
55:40
mean and so it's likely that the initial U approach was built with the belt line
55:46
while this was part of the town of Madison I I suspect and Mario could confirm that while perhaps we could
55:54
narrow the approach and change the curve that
55:59
would probably just add cost you know right now if we're we're trying to retrofit something into what's what's
56:05
there but so that's uh that's it it would had
56:11
cost okay okay thanks uh bill go ahead could you just
56:19
point out where the uh B Burger King's lat line is onto on the east side is it
56:25
is that at the top of the drawing or it's a right right there yeah right there
56:32
that's their is that their property
56:39
line somebody's moving a cursor I guess and I Mario are you in charge of theor is is
56:47
it at station 23 plus Z or very close to that right there okay all right so yeah
56:55
you're the sideway is going to take up quite a bit of property
57:00
yeah thank you okay other comments or questions it
57:05
seems like this is um Al go go ahead thank you I might have missed this if
57:11
you guys mentioned it already but where does the funding come from is this a general fund for this so this would come
57:19
additional funding from Safe Streets Madison so we would just need more than the 60,000 that came out that was
57:26
approved last year for this project we would need to um allocate 100,000 is more and it would come from
57:34
the 2025 budget correct correct I you know well we have to do a full accounting for 2024 but it looks like
57:41
that that we that's all gone and so we would need 2025 budget okay thank you so
57:46
much capital capital budget right uh Harold go ahead yeah inspired by that
57:54
question would the project still have rated above the funding cut had the true
58:02
cost been known so I would say this would be a little bit more like a couple
58:08
of other big sidewalk projects like the one we have one that we're doing over on the S Sten Road Frontage Road um to
58:17
connect where the tiny house Village is going where the it did score lower because it's just the way the our
58:23
scoring metric works for these Pro projects once they get up over 120,000
58:29
they get a very low score even if they have a high value okay right
58:37
thanks uh bill go ahead yeah thanks and I I think uh I'm in favor of of doing
58:44
this project I think it's necessary particularly because of that we're having a significant uh Improvement of
58:53
with the uh the new center that's going in and I think it's it's absolutely critical that this sidewalk be uh in
58:59
place when that opens because I think we need to have the pedestrians uh that are
59:06
accessed both coming and going from that down to uh uh Park Street I think it's
59:11
it's critical but it's a a significant Gap that needs to be filled
59:18
thanks yeah thanks Bill I I agree it seems like a very important connection to me um so other comments or questions
59:27
uh Robbie so you'll have to excuse the fact that I have a lot of trouble reading um
59:33
engineering drawings but I was looking at Google Street View um for where this
59:38
is and is the sidewalk proposed so we're
59:44
going to be acquiring some property from Burger King is the sidewalk right now it
59:50
looks like there is parking lot and then a planted
59:56
Terrace that I'm not sure how wide it is and then the road correct correct yeah is the proposal
1:00:05
to acquire some of the parking lot or is
1:00:11
it or is the sidewalk going to be right next to Badger
1:00:16
Road the sidewalk is going to be about 3 and a half feet off of Badger Road
1:00:23
basically right behind the curb uh so we're still going to be within that uh
1:00:29
that planted Terrace it's all going to go away uh basically and just be a sidewalk but uh it will run through that
1:00:37
Terrace and we won't have to take any of their parking lots um well that's too bad
1:00:43
um the reason I say that is that putting the sidewalk right next to Badger Road I
1:00:50
mean it's better than what is there now but it's going to be incredibly uncom
1:00:56
fortable I think to walk so close to what can be a very busy
1:01:02
road and um I'm imagining the winter when
1:01:07
plowing comes in and snow and slush and salt and gross stuff gets thrown up on
1:01:16
the sidewalk or you get splashed walking along the sidewalk next to the road so
1:01:22
anyway I was just trying to figure out exactly where the sidewalk was going to to be um and it's really too bad that we
1:01:28
can't they've got such a gigantic parking lot it's too bad we can't get
1:01:34
some of their parking lot and move move it on the other side of the planted Terrace yeah if we could take all these
1:01:40
spots here that'd be great I will say that it does kind of slope back pretty steep here from the street uh so we'd
1:01:48
have to kind of we we really don't like to put sidewalk below the street level
1:01:53
and that's what we would have to do to do that so you know I don't know if it would necessarily work but in this case I
1:02:01
think the solution to the problem you're suggesting would be to bump out the curb
1:02:06
into Badger Road eliminate a lane and just build the sidewalk the right way but you know we're doing what we can I
1:02:13
think in this scenario unfortunately okay Chris Chris pakowski you had your hand
1:02:20
up yeah just real quick um we're we're we're trying to kind
1:02:27
of do the minimum here to get the sidewalk in now um if we if we you know
1:02:33
bought the full 8 foot Terrace um we would be looking at damages for the
1:02:38
parking lot and and that sort of thing so um I do believe that you know if if
1:02:45
this property redevelops then that would be the time when we would uh you know get our more standard Terrace and
1:02:52
cross-section in there typical section yeah yeah I was just thinking about that that this might be some future
1:02:59
Redevelopment and we might be able to get something a little bit better but thank you thanks Robbie uh Pepe go
1:03:10
ahead thanks chair um I have a couple of questions so
1:03:17
this just like Robbie this might be just me being really bad at reading this engineering um plans but um first
1:03:25
question is is is part of the same project making or building painting Etc
1:03:32
any kind of Crossing like Crossing across Badger Road or is it only for the
1:03:38
sidewalk on one side and connecting to the corner with Park and Badger it's only for the sidewalk on
1:03:45
this side uh there's a sidewalk already on the other side uh I think we had talked about a mid block Crossing if if
1:03:53
everything went through and and we you know you guys voted this down or something we could do a bid block
1:03:59
Crossing I guess at instead but that was only an or option I think is from what
1:04:06
we discussed um but it's worth looking into I think
1:04:12
mhm and this might be very close I mean if if we're talking about only the section that is next to the Burger King
1:04:18
land um or lot then it might be really close to the corn maybe it's not worth
1:04:24
it doing another mid Crossing there but I guess connecting to my second question is it looks like this plan specifically
1:04:31
is only for the section where the Burger King lot is what happens to everything
1:04:38
um up Badger Road so um maybe I'm wrong here with Direction sord that's like
1:04:43
East Northeast um to pointing to the right of the map like I'm guessing the rest of
1:04:49
the sidewalk will be will be the the the new development in charge of building the rest of the sidewalk there I'm kind
1:04:55
of like basing on looking at Google Maps and seeing how important it would be to expand expand this connection all the
1:05:02
way from the corner to the um High Crossing uh over the over the belt line
1:05:09
can you I know this probably not part of the same project but can you can you share a little bit of how that all
1:05:15
connects uh Chris has his hand
1:05:21
up yeah so I think kind of our long-term
1:05:26
Corridor view of Badger Road would be there would be a multi-use path on the
1:05:32
North side and a s sidewalk on the South Side all the way from from probably fish
1:05:38
hatch to um Rimrock and um we'll be kind of
1:05:45
implementing that through various projects you know this is like one little piece of the
1:05:51
sidewalk here um we have two tap projects to build a path uh along Rusk
1:05:58
avenue and Rimrock um and then we're working with uh the
1:06:04
fire department and their uh project uh to the west of Badger Road to make sure
1:06:10
that part is in so I think over the course of four or five different projects that would be kind of the plan
1:06:16
to kind of to build that cross-section through right I remember um couple
1:06:22
couple uh transation commissions ago we looked at the one at Rusk and badger in
1:06:29
that corner but I don't remember what remind me please Chris uh do we talk about south on the the sidewalk on the
1:06:36
south side or was that project focusing on the North side only that was the north side only okay
1:06:43
yeah okay and is there still like a missing link that there's no project accounting for that section or are we
1:06:50
hoping that that new development is is taking care of that new sidewalk on on the south side so there between the
1:06:57
Burger King and then the center for black Excellence would get sidewalk all the way to the railroad bridge and then
1:07:05
we would have to get it over I believe to our
1:07:10
overpass this is the site plan from that uh development this kind of helps
1:07:17
by yeah so ultimately we'd get the sidewalk over to the to the
1:07:23
overpass on the south
1:07:30
side sweet yep no this is
1:07:39
great awesome thank you thanks P other comments or
1:07:49
questions because of the increased cost we would need a motion to
1:07:54
approve the project at the increased cost Harold I would move to approve the
1:08:01
project at the increased cost and Bill I would second that okay
1:08:09
Harold did you wish to speak to your motion yeah it seems like an important Gap filling project especially with the
1:08:16
new development happening there and yeah it's unfortunate that past decisions
1:08:21
have made this more expensive but it's still worthwhile thanks thanks
1:08:33
discussion okay I'm seeing no hands I'm going to assume a unanimous consent vote unless anybody wishes to vote no or
1:08:39
abstain or wishes a roll call
1:08:47
vote okay I'm seeing no hand so the motion is carried thanks everybody
1:08:55
okay next item is review and approval of the TC annual work plan um and I want to
1:09:01
thank everybody for all the excellent suggestions we had back um in late June when we reviewed this last time and um
1:09:08
it took a while to get back here for a lot of different reasons but um as I
1:09:13
went back through my notes and watched the discussion again uh there was really
1:09:18
a lot of thoughtful comments and excellent suggestions which have been incorporated into the changes so what
1:09:26
you're seeing in this Redline version is just the changes from what you saw at the end
1:09:31
of June and there's a link to the June discussion so you can see what that what
1:09:37
that looked like back then which was a really busy document because it was a comparison of the old TC work plan uh so
1:09:45
we're looking at a work plan from um just through June of uh 2025 and we'll
1:09:52
look at it again before then um Bill did you have comment before I keep going I would like to make a a friendly uh
1:09:59
change to your red line that okay can I make my presentation first sure yeah
1:10:05
absolutely okay um I'll try and keep it brief um well I I could just say that
1:10:12
that the changes are pretty well um delineated in the redline version um and
1:10:18
I went back and I and I have all the conversations here in terms of what went
1:10:23
into those changes and I just want to say one interesting comment that I thought of um that I want to talk to
1:10:30
Eric about offline and maybe talk to Christy Kumar and and and Rebecca he offline as well was I had added
1:10:37
something in from the TC ordinance uh into the racial equity and social justice section last time and and Chris
1:10:44
brought this up and Christy chimed in and and it was noted that uh this
1:10:50
comment only listed two groups of people and it wasn't really wide enough to cover everybody so uh we're taking it
1:10:58
back out for that very reason so an interesting thing for us to think about going forward as we look at ordinance
1:11:05
changes is to make sure that the um the Civil Rights division has an opportunity
1:11:12
to look at these things and remind us of how inclusive we need to be as we're
1:11:17
looking at ordinances so that was a new thought that I wanted to bring forward so we can think about that going forward
1:11:24
so I think changes are are pretty well um outlined so bill um go ahead with
1:11:30
your comments I think uh one of the one of the changes was the addition of of
1:11:35
the transition plan of taking it the council uh yes you mentioned in there of
1:11:42
the proag and I'd like to add that before you say uh word proag is is from
1:11:49
the United States access board BR so it's it's clearly understood where that
1:11:56
what that document uh is what that document is it's not you know it's it's
1:12:02
kind of a interesting term so okay so in front of public right of way
1:12:08
accessibility guidelines say the United States access board public right of way
1:12:13
accessibility guidelines that that's the only change I just just to clarify and
1:12:18
this's sure all right um that's a very friendly friendly amendment to to our
1:12:24
work other comments or questions Carl yeah one question about the new
1:12:32
section at the bottom of page one major special projects for this work plan year
1:12:38
I was wondering would say the Safe Streets for all would that fall under one of these
1:12:45
because I think that work is hopefully all under progress right now and it
1:12:52
seems to fit into similar categories such as curb management plan and the reconnecting communities
1:12:59
Grant so I'm going to defer to Renee or to Tom because that Tom that's not what
1:13:07
I basically did Harold was I looked at Tom's director reports and I pulled out
1:13:12
the projects that he reports to us on periodically and and those are
1:13:17
government grants and I guess I didn't look at it as a project and it's not something that's I don't think Tommy
1:13:24
normally comment M on so um Renee or Tom your thoughts about adding Safe Streets
1:13:30
for all uh would they be safe streets for all uh
1:13:36
projects um I'll defer to to Renee first I kind of
1:13:42
uh um I'm kind of of the opinion of that this all really fits under Safe Streets
1:13:48
and our vision zero plan but but they are very distinct projects and I think
1:13:55
Rene's thought about it as well so Renee yeah I mean we have kind of four and a
1:14:02
halfish years um of project work with our Safe Streets for all Grand so it
1:14:07
definitely could be detailed out as its own thing in the work plan for periodic
1:14:12
reports on the various components because different components will be starting over the next several years
1:14:18
so yeah I'm I'm happy to add it so Safe Streets for all projects would that be
1:14:23
the right way to say it yeah I think that would be fair I'm not I'm not necessarily
1:14:30
suggesting adding it because I mean you know if there is a project where you're
1:14:35
rebuilding a street with under the guise of Safe Streets for all then that project is going to come to us but as
1:14:42
you said I feel like Safe Streets wall might have some other components it's it's not just specific projects so I
1:14:48
don't know I don't have strong opinions whether it should be on there I was just curious why it was not on there yeah
1:14:54
yeah I I mean I think as harl said there there are the more typical infrastructure parts that would just
1:15:01
kind of go through the normal like any other projects and then there's some other things you know like updating the
1:15:06
H and and doing some planning work and some demonstration projects so I think
1:15:13
it's fair to put it on there because obviously some of those types of things would likely be coming as they um you
1:15:21
know even if it's just the evaluation report or something
1:15:27
so yeah if you think so Renee if we if we call it safe streets for all projects yeah that sounds great okay
1:15:36
other comments okay so what I have is
1:15:44
um the um addition of United States access board just in front of uh public
1:15:51
right of way accessibility guidelines under the Ada transition plan and adding
1:15:57
Safe Streets for all projects to uh the specific major specific projects at the
1:16:04
bottom of page one anything
1:16:13
else are you comfortable making a motion with me making those changes and then
1:16:18
sending a aen to update that copy in uh
1:16:23
budar
1:16:29
Carl I'll make that motion okay so motion uh with the two
1:16:34
changes that were suggested Alder Martinez ruford I'll second okay there's a motion
1:16:41
in a second further
1:16:48
discussion okay I'm seeing no hands I'm going to assume a unanimous consent vote
1:16:53
unless anybody wishes to vote no of
1:16:59
Saint okay I'm seeing No Hands um thank you very much to everybody for the
1:17:06
thoughtful comments and the great participation in in putting this work plan together um I'll update it um later
1:17:15
on and and get it over to Aiden to to put into uh into listar both the redline
1:17:22
version and the clean version and then ask Aiden to uh send it over and and get
1:17:28
the clean version up on the TC website and then over the course of the next few
1:17:34
months we'll have an opportunity to look at it again as we plan for the next year so thanks thanks everybody very
1:17:45
much okay next we have update on Wisconsin Department of Transportation
1:17:50
project what that projects Tom yeah I'll go ahead and do this this will
1:17:57
actually be a little bit of a presentation um you know the Wisconsin DOT
1:18:04
has and is doing quite a bit in um the South Hast region over the last couple
1:18:11
years um so I'm going to start the
1:18:17
the slid show um did you all see that slight
1:18:25
Advance sometimes I share in yep okay yes okay so um these are
1:18:32
some of the major Madison area projects in the the coming years uh the ones that
1:18:37
are uh perhaps have a thinner line or or more
1:18:43
city-led and City sponsored and the ones with a thicker line are the ones that
1:18:48
are U sponsored by the Wisconsin do uh so actually there's you can see
1:18:55
there's a lot and um and so we'll be getting emails from
1:19:00
people who are complaining about construction for for the next 10 years right
1:19:07
um um ones I'm want to focus on right now are going to be the Wisconsin do
1:19:13
projects which are um the interstate nor ston Road and southst Ro
1:19:20
on the interstate I I want to kind of highlight things that are of interest in
1:19:27
that the north portion of the interstate project which will include the um the
1:19:32
151 interchange that'll be from 30 to 35 note that the badger
1:19:39
interchange and which includes kind of that Milwaukee Street bridge over the interstate is scheduled from 38 to 45
1:19:47
you know so that's like way far out there right so I don't know if it's a good thing that we're talking about it
1:19:52
now or a bad thing right but at least uh we can see pretty far down the pike of
1:19:58
what's happening and then um s North Sten road
1:20:04
is um from 28 to 33 and South Sten road is probably from 30 to who knows when um
1:20:12
let's start with the I 399 94 quarter study um they just issued a final Eis
1:20:21
for this project last week it went before the Transportation uh projects commission uh
1:20:29
Monday and it was recommended for approval it still has to be incorporated
1:20:35
in the state budget before they can begin implementing it um but that will occur this summer uh
1:20:44
key Madison area elements include heer Road interchange which um many
1:20:51
stakeholders in Madison particularly in the American Center really uh wanted uh
1:20:57
a revised 151 interchange which I I think I've shown you before and you can
1:21:04
see a picture of it here while it's bigger and um higher it it does
1:21:11
introduce a more urban ele element for East Washington Avenue so overall I
1:21:17
think there are some positive benefits to it a revised Badger interchange and then in Milwaukee Street interchange
1:21:25
which would be in the 2040s um while much of this is way in the
1:21:33
future uh wisot would like to negotiate a cost sharing agreement for the hepco road interchange in the first quarter of
1:21:40
2025 so that's um pretty soon so even though this construction is way in the
1:21:47
future um the heer road interchange probably could occur between 28 and 32
1:21:53
they would like to and negotiate that this is uh the
1:21:58
recommended alternative there at heer Road note that it just shows The Interchange and this project actually
1:22:05
ends up being a bigger deal than just that interchange right because you have Portage Road which is unimproved that
1:22:11
leads to the W hospital and you also have hepker road
1:22:17
which is unimproved which leads to Sun Prairie and all that commercial area so um while they have a concept for an
1:22:25
interchange there's a lot of supporting infrastructure that that goes on with that
1:22:31
um the Sten Road North study was they issued their release their environmental
1:22:39
document or it was signed last Friday actually I think Friday quite
1:22:44
late it also went before the transportation projects Commission on
1:22:50
Monday um it does not need
1:22:55
the budget approval um associate with the state
1:23:01
budget like the I9 3990 94 project does
1:23:07
because um it's it part of it's part of their Majors program and it has a separate uh
1:23:14
funding pot um there may be things in this project that you many perhaps might not like however
1:23:23
I'm going to say that probably this project went as well for Madison as it could have um it could have been much more
1:23:32
disruptive and had much higher impacts than it it will
1:23:39
um key elements of this uh on the North St road which is basically um basically
1:23:46
from Highway 30 to the north there's one added Lane each Direction it has an at
1:23:52
grade intersection at the Sten Road East Washington Avenue uh that was perhaps a major concession to
1:23:59
Madison for that they do have a separated shared use path on the east
1:24:04
side of the corridor except ad Json to the airport and they have a grade separated head bike over pass of East
1:24:13
Washington um what I've shown here these are Graphics that came from the
1:24:19
environmental assessment and they're not um um they're a little bit pixelated so
1:24:25
you can't really see the bicycle pedestrian infrastructure on it so
1:24:31
um I I'm showing the the bicycle pedestrian
1:24:37
infrastructure highlighted right here this is right at Highway 30 so you can see on Highway 30 they have a a grade
1:24:44
separated Crossing of St Road um notice that they also have a
1:24:51
path on the east side of Sten road that leads to East Washington um at East Washington you can
1:25:00
see that uh that that path that goes um to the East Washington St Road
1:25:06
intersection um there is a RAID separated Crossing this ones above East
1:25:12
Washington um it it curly kind of cues down over
1:25:18
where the the Subway sandwich shop is and then it goes to the to the north
1:25:25
uh while this has um um one added Lane in each Direction
1:25:31
and it's it's a rather large intersection like I said compared to
1:25:36
some of the other Alternatives such as diamond interchanges and the like this
1:25:41
one probably is has the greatest fits in
1:25:46
the best contextually to what Madison uh wants as I said this uh I'm not sure if
1:25:53
I have another slide I don't so I'm gonna go back up um Tom can
1:25:59
we can we stop for a second Tom alderfield has his hand up yes I can wait here if you prefer to
1:26:06
take questions at the end or I I I think I have a very small presentation on i39
1:26:13
and 94 and a very small presentation on stoen rot nor study my the presentation
1:26:19
on South study is quite long and detailed and so this would be a good time to take questions okay let me just
1:26:26
ask do we have anybody registered to speak on this Aiden we do have one person y okay so
1:26:35
our Alder our normal process would be to have the presentation then have um hear from the public and then have comments
1:26:42
and questions understood and happy to wait thank you chair does does that work yes
1:26:47
that works okay go ahead Tom okay write down your question because I I've got another 20 slides
1:26:55
um uh this is the typical section I I'm really not going to go through this uh
1:27:01
too much but it's available um
1:27:07
so as I said the um wiza has been very focused on Dane
1:27:14
County projects uh we were hoping that after they got approved for the norst road and the interstate that they
1:27:21
would there'd be a slow period um but there's not right they're um they're
1:27:27
moving moving forward with the South Sten Road they had a a public meeting
1:27:33
that was very well attended for a Wisconsin DOT public meeting I think two weeks ago at lafala High
1:27:41
School uh I'll give you some information from that um right now they'd like they
1:27:47
have about five or six conceptual Alternatives they would like to narrow
1:27:53
it down to three by this March okay and then they would like to select a
1:27:58
preferred alternative by August of 2025 and while that seems like oh that's
1:28:03
pretty far into the future that's really light speed and Dot time and that's that's
1:28:11
kind of light speed in educating the public of what's going on and how big these improvements could be
1:28:19
um we do not the city does not have to to comment but but uh the process will
1:28:26
not wait for our comments right the process will go forward and our opportunity to influence those
1:28:32
Alternatives is kind of now um the purpose of need is to improve
1:28:38
safety and Mobility for all modes of travel improve Community connectivity guide by local plans and goals
1:28:46
um just for context just so that we kind of understand um you know what are we
1:28:53
talking about kind of what's the heart of this project um right
1:28:58
now St Ro functions like a an
1:29:04
expressway uh with great intersections uh I don't know what the official speed limit is but I I I suspect that most
1:29:11
people drive 50 if you look this is um Sten Road looking South if you look to
1:29:17
the right we have commercial types of properties that are um kind of like the
1:29:23
blaines farm and fleet you know in the A1 Furniture and those types so it's on the right it's more
1:29:31
retail the type one story retail you know um to the left you find a lot of
1:29:36
light industrial like omatic pumps um there's another pump manufacturer uh you know you know light
1:29:45
industrial industry that's um you know it's things that all communities kind of
1:29:51
need um at the same time we look at this context right now uh the
1:29:57
planning department is also going through the southeast area plan and they just had their kickoff meeting for the
1:30:03
southeast area plant last week unfortunately you know they it's going to take them about probably two years to
1:30:11
go through their Southeast area plan and um the Wisconsin do is probably going to
1:30:17
make a preferred ter selection B
1:30:43
did we lose Tom Tom did you did you freeze up or something uh did we lose
1:30:51
time well I don't know AR um it looks like yeah it looks like
1:30:57
Tom's Frozen unfortunately so Tom might have to log out and log back
1:31:03
in can I don't know Tom if he can hear us or not looks like he just popped off
1:31:09
and he'll come back on again um yeah so what Tom is locking back in I
1:31:17
want to report that the the current speed limit for ston Road uh is 55 m per
1:31:23
hour that's the Point okay yeah Tom Tom okay Tom's back
1:31:29
all right you froze up on us there Tom we can't hear you though you're
1:31:35
gonna have to
1:31:45
unmute can you get yourself unmuted to yes now I okay there you go so I I
1:31:53
think my uh my computer uh froze up so I'm I'm
1:31:59
wondering if someone could perhaps present the PDF
1:32:05
that's in the lisar for this item can somebody either Aiden or Yang
1:32:14
or somebody u pull that up for Tom and share
1:32:20
it screen shared for him I'm happy to do that so let me bring
1:32:27
that up and uh yeah get to it thank you thank you so much
1:32:39
J apologize for this
1:32:46
technology well you know this is why I worry about self-driving cars you know if I'm in a self-driving car and it
1:32:53
does this what happens you know I don't know that was a side comment that one
1:32:59
was for free I happen to share those same
1:33:06
concerns about self-driving cars myself yeah
1:33:23
Yang are you able to share the PDF there he comes good
1:33:31
okay thank you Yang oh you're welcome let me get to the
1:33:38
the page under our enter full screen as
1:33:48
well go to the next slide y next slide yeah
1:33:55
okay so um I was going to progressively disclose this but there's really um five
1:34:02
main Alternatives that they're studying
1:34:10
um I'll wait for Yang to one of them is essentially the existing Corridor right
1:34:19
the way it is um and on the left you can see the schematic where we have have a
1:34:24
signal at Buckeye we have a signal at FL we have front edge rows on either side okay the signals have relatively
1:34:32
long signal Cycles like about two minutes um alternative one is that it's
1:34:39
at 45 miles hour alternative to um kind of a is at
1:34:46
35 miles an hour kind of giving a nod to some of the city of Madison's comments
1:34:53
collusion the judge also said it left a lot of
1:35:01
um the alternative three um basically would keep um the the
1:35:08
frontage Ro configuration on the west side which you know would serve
1:35:14
um blaes farming Fleet and the like but then some of the lower traffic
1:35:19
generators like lumatic pump um a rental and that kind of thing um might have
1:35:26
direct access onto on Sten Road alterner
1:35:33
four um basically would create I'm going to say somewhat of a Parkway but it
1:35:39
would eliminate the front Insurance um um so basically we would have direct
1:35:46
access um you know businesses like U farman
1:35:51
Fleet or um A1 Furniture or something to that effect would have direct access
1:35:57
onto Sten Road it would be 35 miles an hour and um basically the the area taken
1:36:04
up by the um front edge roads would become be
1:36:12
become open space an alternative five is H something that um we have kind of
1:36:19
asked them to consider and it it functions very similar to a one-way pair system in that U if
1:36:29
you put the the roadways on the outside um the distance between the Northbound
1:36:34
and the southbound is not that much different than the distance between Johnson and gour and so you could
1:36:41
actually have two one-way streets I think this is called uh W is calling this a a wide
1:36:51
Boulevard is it wide Boulevard I think it is uh just to provide a a little bit
1:36:59
more user friendly thing uh the thing about all five that's that's interesting
1:37:04
is that the Green Space would be in the center right we would have direct access on the Highway 51 but the um the
1:37:12
signals uh notice that instead of one signal at at Buckeye Road we would have
1:37:18
two signals right and the one signal that typically would be a six to8 phas
1:37:23
signal signal and would be 2 minutes like an all four is actually two
1:37:28
separate signals and they're two to three phases and they're maybe a minute and 20 second cycle length so it it
1:37:36
would function a little bit more efficiently for progression and the like a Yang next
1:37:46
slide uh this is a a handout this is actually when you want to try and figure
1:37:52
out what are the Alternatives uh this slide actually provides a very good
1:37:57
summary of of the um six Alters that are being considered right now uh you can
1:38:04
see all four and all five have um direct
1:38:10
access both have direct access onto Sten Road one places the green on the on the
1:38:15
outside one places the green on the inside okay next slide
1:38:25
um all four uh we we are trying to find
1:38:31
good existing examples of what all four would look like um there's a couple
1:38:38
of roads at service light industrial like in presentant Pleasant Prairie so
1:38:44
this is a picture of that it's not exactly like all four would look like
1:38:50
because we don't have as much direct access onto the street stre in this picture as perhaps there would be with
1:38:56
the Stone Road alternative next
1:39:02
slide uh this is um something that Liz Kalen found this is Highway 50 in
1:39:08
kosha again you know most of the the green space is placed on the outside of the roadway uh we have direct access on
1:39:16
onto it and not as many driveways as perhaps might occur next slide
1:39:26
this is a similar to all five okay and this one is in um in Bloomington
1:39:33
Indiana I think it's called Miller showers Park but you can see we have
1:39:39
kind of oneway streets on both sides uh with a a path on on the east side of the
1:39:45
park and then we have you know trees or something in the middle um next slide
1:39:57
um this one is something this is actually a project I worked on when I worked for a different employer did the
1:40:04
traffic analysis this is lick Ron Greenway and Cincinnati Ohio and so this
1:40:10
really functions kind of as one a oneway pair you can see that we have direct
1:40:16
access onto the oneway pair um with margin marginally spaced driveways um in
1:40:23
this particular feature um it's a um there's a drainage feature I want to um
1:40:31
kind of offer a taste of reality in that this is a beautiful picture right and probably we would not get something
1:40:40
um this attractive let's say for sod right is we're probably not going to have a drainageway and walkways and like
1:40:47
but we could have some type of green area that um you know that is
1:40:54
um more than than a gravel Sher uh next
1:41:05
slide generally all the Alternatives with front edge roads which includes
1:41:11
Alternatives one through three relocate them near the intersections and so this
1:41:17
shows what that might look like uh near Buckeye Road so there you could see you
1:41:23
know there's an auto parts store there in the southwest quadrant you could see
1:41:28
how you know that would be routed to address the problem of kind of where you
1:41:35
know the the confusion that occurs when fren R join a cross street directly adjacent
1:41:42
to the main intersection uh next
1:41:50
slide alternative three impossible possibly alternative four could include jug handles um so a Jug Handle is
1:42:01
um similar to what Junction Road has with Mineral Point Road right now where
1:42:06
the cross street has a bridge over the main roadway and then um
1:42:13
from the main roadway to get to the cross street you would uh take right turns onto these side
1:42:19
roads this is just a conceptual Jug Handle at Bucky
1:42:24
Road next
1:42:30
slide one thing that the um project team in the southwest region of wisot has
1:42:36
been very U amendable to is considering
1:42:42
additional um cross street connections here you have potential ones um
1:42:48
generally these cross streets I think um alternative three includes
1:42:53
Alice Avenue and then Alterna four and five could include all the
1:42:59
others um so that provides more Crossing opportunities uh note that what the
1:43:06
cross streets would do is you know they they would make this into more of an urban street right but if you're in a
1:43:12
neighborhood adjacent to St Road you may not want all these cross streets you can
1:43:18
see how they would say why would we want more cross streets um and so
1:43:23
so there's a little bit of tension in that there's a desire to make this into
1:43:29
more of an urban street but then a lot of um adjacent neighborhoods are used to
1:43:35
the way things are and wouldn't want to necessarily change um the
1:43:43
environment uh next
1:43:49
slide one thing that uh was not incl
1:43:54
uded at the um public information meeting and um we had hoped had been
1:44:03
dismissed was um the concept of a super Street um a super Street um uses a a
1:44:12
series of kind of left in and um u-turns to
1:44:21
eliminate um the need to serve cross streets so for for motor vehicle
1:44:28
operations it's very um effective at um reducing
1:44:35
delay on the main volume I think they can be um
1:44:42
confusing um I can provide a little bit more um summary there with the next
1:44:51
slide
1:44:56
so let's say if you were on um I believe this is a flam
1:45:02
Road um if you were heading south on Sten Road and you needed to go to flam Road
1:45:09
you would just um go south and take a left right if you needed if you're
1:45:16
heading south on on Sten Road and you need to go to the west side of FL you
1:45:21
would go down and take a r so you see how from Sten Road the access
1:45:27
to the two side roads is um pretty straight forward however if you're on
1:45:32
flam Road and you need to cross flam Road um it's it's more difficult you
1:45:38
would actually have to take a ride at Stone Road and then take a U-turn as you
1:45:44
can see in that top box and then travel back down and take a right
1:45:50
turn so uh this is a Wisconsin do2 slide you know it would maintain the frontage
1:45:58
roads um you know they say it's there's safety and operational benefits um there's also indirection
1:46:06
benefits or indirection considerations why don't you do the next
1:46:13
slide y so I'll give you an example you know
1:46:19
I'm I'm the father of four kids and they're they're all out of the house and
1:46:24
paying taxes and leading productive lives and I'm glad for it but I always think
1:46:29
about you know what was it like when they were in high school and so this is
1:46:36
U the the attendance shed for a lafalot high school student
1:46:44
right you can see it in Orange on on the right and so a student um going if let's
1:46:53
say they were driving to school at lealo which is that orange kind of rectangle
1:46:59
thing um they would travel West on flam Road they would take a
1:47:07
right they would then make a uturn and then they would take a right
1:47:14
again so so you can see that um it it doesn't doesn't cross it
1:47:23
it's and so in in some ways there's a you know I want wiiz to be fair to us and
1:47:32
things we're asking them to consider so I want to be fair to them as well so this does
1:47:38
provide operational benefits but in in essence it it almost separates the west
1:47:44
side and the east side of Stone Road more because you can't go across any um next slide
1:47:54
um there is a way to cross as a pedestrian you you typically in these I
1:47:59
guess you cross um diagonally so to the
1:48:04
um on the illustration on the left this was an illustration by Kon you know you
1:48:11
would in order to cross Sten Road you would you'd have to be on the the left
1:48:16
side of the intersection cross there travel across this median then cross
1:48:21
again uh it's the the one on the left is a little
1:48:28
bit more um it's probably showing it a little bit
1:48:33
better than it actually would be because uh that illustration shows only two
1:48:39
lanes in both directions instead of three lanes in both directions and then you can see the curb radii at Corners
1:48:45
are very uh tight which would we would like to see in a downtown but on the
1:48:51
design vehicle for the these intersections would be a semi and so the radi would be much higher so the
1:48:57
crossing distances would be quite High um the picture on the right is a a
1:49:03
picture I took I think a year ago while I was down on flam road and it was a
1:49:10
parent with some kids trying to cross it so you know these are these are the users that we're trying to get you know
1:49:16
across so Road and then on the left is kind of what the super Street would
1:49:23
would would do uh next slide
1:49:32
um uh Wisconsin and the public positions are are really quite varied uh some can accept a lower speed
1:49:39
facility uh some are advocating for maintaining Mobility um I I'd like to say you know
1:49:47
wisot is a well first I want to say that wisot has a given us unprecedented
1:49:54
access into their process we've probably been invited to you know anywhere from
1:50:00
15 to 20 design meetings for this project which is quite a bit um wisot
1:50:06
does not it's not a single body it's it's a it's a group of people right and I'm going to say that the the people in
1:50:12
the southwest region are very um accepting of um some of our suggestions
1:50:19
and responses to that and I'm going to say that there's some people in central offic that are more responsible for the
1:50:25
full Statewide that have stronger reservations about what Madison is is
1:50:30
asking for uh next
1:50:36
Slide the um wi one thing that they do do is they
1:50:41
they place a strong emphasis on what they get on these these little Survey Monkey surveys right and so we think oh
1:50:49
so you got a survey monkey and you got this that doesn't necessarily reflect the the city's position but um I think
1:50:58
wizard believes it it it really does kind of reflect um what many people in the city
1:51:05
think so uh this is a survey that they conducted post uh
1:51:13
Pim the um the blue bars represent the the TAC
1:51:18
loak and CAC but basically what you you know are fancy
1:51:24
acronyms for basically City staff and officials and and so the blue represents
1:51:30
kind of a group of up to 16 right whereas the yellow is more the public
1:51:36
the average public person right and so um that I think right now that's at 300
1:51:43
or a little bit more so you can see where most of the
1:51:50
the public officials or say staff on the left greatly favor reducing the speed
1:51:57
you know greatly favor reducing the speed 75% uh however you can see that the
1:52:02
public is 5050 uh why would we want to reduce the speed right it's just going to take us
1:52:09
longer to get places and so the neighborhoods don't necessarily um can't necessarily
1:52:15
Envision why speed reduction would be a big thing right um
1:52:26
if you look at the front edge roads uh I think a lot of City staff are saying why do we need the frontage roads right
1:52:31
because if if you count the the frontage roads and then the mainline Lanes you
1:52:36
have 10 lanes of traffic 10 Lane traffic Lanes to
1:52:43
um serve 50,000 Vehicles that's a lot of pavement to Ser 50,000 vehicles and so a
1:52:49
lot of the the city officials and representatives feel like we should maybe investigate something
1:52:54
other than those fren roads but um if you look at the yellow you could say
1:52:59
which is the you know the neighborhoods they say why would we want to get rid of the fren roads they've done us well for
1:53:06
40 years you see what I'm saying um and then the same thing with the the new
1:53:12
intersections um you know City uh staff and officials think yeah it would
1:53:20
be good to to have some intersections between these this mile spacing which is in blue
1:53:27
but you can see in the yellow where some neighbors hoods to say why would we want a street that connects to that freeway
1:53:36
over there we we we kind of like our neighborhood blocked
1:53:41
off um so this is a a survey that they've done this is interim results
1:53:46
it's not the the final survey um then next slide yeah
1:53:55
the survey is still open uh you can take this
1:54:02
um and I think that QR code will work I I I developed that last night um like
1:54:09
the Transportation Commission you guys have a voice and what happens in Madison Transportation right and so if you if
1:54:17
you feel like there's value in having a slower stro and road I would encourage you to take the survey you know uh
1:54:23
because uh you perhap you know as a Transportation Commission you probably
1:54:29
understand the transportation issues facing Madison more broadly than someone who um is just used to seeing
1:54:36
transportation from a small portion of the city so um like I'm I'm gonna
1:54:41
say you know we will probably respond to wisd on these Alternatives in an
1:54:47
official capacity but they do place a lot of emphasis on what the survey
1:54:52
monkeys happen and so I would encourage you to um participate if you have feelings regarding
1:54:59
this um next
1:55:06
slide um the staff recommendations right now
1:55:11
is that we've been advocating for a slower more urban
1:55:17
facility uh we believe that Alternatives four and five probably have the greatest potential to meet this
1:55:24
objective um we we might have a slight preference for alternative five just because the um
1:55:32
having two Snappy signals you know that one-way pair
1:55:38
is it's kind of an attractive um operational concept that
1:55:44
we could see you know for as well you know
1:55:50
um we just saw the super Street maybe yesterday or two days ago I
1:55:57
think we have some strong reservations regarding the super Street in that we're concerned about pedestrian bike
1:56:03
Crossings but then also you know we're hoping that you know the West neighborhoods and
1:56:10
the East neighborhoods could be linked to a greater degree with a with
1:56:16
the with the project and and yet in essence it seems like the super street
1:56:21
is actually separating them perhaps a little bit further now that's that's my opinion so
1:56:27
I I don't want to be I mean you guys can determine if the right the U-turn and
1:56:33
the right is easier or not um next question
1:56:39
next slide some some considerations you know
1:56:46
some people um because these are questions that um come up
1:56:55
um in 2021 late 2021 wiot said um why
1:57:00
don't we just give this road to you right um we would like to
1:57:07
uh and if if they gave the road to us you know then we would perhaps have a a
1:57:13
little bit more influence on it um at that time we kind of said we're not sure
1:57:19
we really want this road um part of it was um then all of a sudden we have to
1:57:25
plow it right we have to sweep it it's about a half million dollars in annual Opera
1:57:31
expenditures um about $5 million in annual maintenance expenditures associated with patching and the like
1:57:37
and then at 2062 uh we would be responsible for reconstructing which would be100 million
1:57:44
right um then then there's maybe this you know
1:57:52
and I there's a little bit of a philosophical thought is that well you
1:57:58
know Wisconsin Department of Transportation provides transportation for the state but part of the
1:58:03
state is Urban Roads right in urban areas and you know shouldn't they
1:58:08
investment in solving Urban Transportation so there's a little bit
1:58:14
of philosophy in that um if we were to have it it it doesn't necessarily
1:58:20
guarantee we'd be able to reduce capacity or have full discretion over
1:58:25
what's happening because you know Stone Road will still be on the national highway system and
1:58:32
while we are we have some latitude on joh noan Drive there's many things that we can't do on joh noan drive that we
1:58:38
would like to um because it's still on the national highway
1:58:43
system and then a lot of people or some people have thought well if we did this
1:58:49
alternative five where we have a very large medium uh maybe maybe Wisconsin do
1:58:55
could give us that RightWay and we could build buildings in that RightWay and it
1:59:00
could be just like Jonathan B um and I you know that might be an
1:59:07
opportunity way in the future but I think initially we probably have to
1:59:13
um make decisions as if that's not a possibility um it's really
1:59:19
uncertain um first was would have to say that we they would never need that
1:59:24
median for future needs which um you know that's a that's a pretty strong commitment right um vacating that right
1:59:32
away would you know could be a 10year process um oftentimes we might have to
1:59:37
purchase it if it's gonna be um and so you think about well how much would it cost to purchase 30 acres and you know
1:59:45
it could be significant and and thought is if if we were to assume the
1:59:50
jurisdiction of this right why would we choose you know Sten Road over Park Street or East Washington you
1:59:57
know Park Street and East Washington are also state roads um and we probably have
2:00:02
a little bit greater interest in those than we might in St so those are just kind of a like an
2:00:08
aster sidebar um next
2:00:15
slide and then we have a bunch of exercise which we're not We're not gonna we're not going to go into the to the
2:00:20
exercise um so if we could go uh Yang to that one
2:00:27
slide that kind of is a schematic that shows all five Alternatives that's probably a good one just to have up on
2:00:33
the screen while we answer questions and have
2:00:39
discussion he why don't we hear from the public first Tom that'd be
2:00:45
fine Aiden who do we have registered to speak
2:00:52
Gabriel Hill of presidential Lane neither supports nor opposes and wishes to
2:01:00
speak hello can you hear me okay yes we can go ahead hi so my comment is mostly
2:01:06
in regards to this South sudden Road part from 18 to 30 and all the options seem pretty bad uh the no build option
2:01:14
option one and option two all don't address what I think the I don't want to put any words in the alers uh mouths but
2:01:20
I think they talked about more a desire of like connection across the uh the
2:01:26
road between districts um oh I had it pulled up uh 15 16 and 16 um I don't
2:01:35
know if those alers are here today but they they can comment more on that but uh the footprint remains ridiculously
2:01:40
large in those three options uh it's a 275 ft across both Frontage roads and
2:01:47
the main Highway this is more than the Belt Line and as we know it's too big for what the road needs uh my data is a
2:01:54
little bit out of date but I think the road gets uh 10,000 less cars per days
2:02:00
that cars per day than roads like East Washington or University Avenue so it just seems like overbuilt for what's
2:02:07
need for those options then alternates three and four just turn Sten Road into a design that is similar to the roads
2:02:13
that consistently appear on our high Injury Network and it would create way more conflict points both for turning
2:02:19
Vehicles pedestrians just in general options three and four just would turn it into kind of
2:02:24
another um I want to say like East Washington where you really it's it's prevalent on
2:02:31
our high high Injury Network um alternate five seems like the worst of all options it retains the large
2:02:37
footprint adds the most conflict points and is sure to appear on our high Injury Network if we build that uh the green
2:02:45
space that the document talks about creating would never really be used because it's it's frankly it's an island
2:02:51
um it's not like the image that's shown where it's like a nice like River I'm
2:02:57
getting Echo okay it's a nice River and it doesn't really like have it's not
2:03:03
like the the the other image where it's like kind of in a an area that has nice
2:03:10
things around it so it's just like it would just be this island of Green Space uh what I'd like to see as a goal for
2:03:16
this area is to try to bump any through traffic out to I90 where it really needs to be like if you're going from
2:03:23
um what is it like Sten or what McFarland and you're going uh north of
2:03:30
Madison you really shouldn't be taking this road um it doesn't make sense to
2:03:35
have it go through the city when we can when we already have a bigger better faster road that that is almost the same
2:03:42
time uh right nearby so um uh I'd also like a goal to be allow
2:03:49
the interconnectivity across the road and that the olders have asked for I think again I don't want to put words in their mouth keep the safe Street and
2:03:57
allow space for local trucks to still have access to businesses H and reduce the size of the road uh to a size that
2:04:03
fits the needs uh now I'm not a traffic engineer but I think like reducing the speed limit uh to 40 or less would be
2:04:09
great um this would make gmaps uh Google Maps route people up to I90 if they're
2:04:15
going through uh a reduction reduction to one lane in each direction would be great um and on Lam and Buckeye add
2:04:23
grade separation like I think was talked about in the project that would be excellent uh or if that's too expensive then the truck friendly roundabouts that
2:04:29
we see out near um out past the belt line on Mineral Point that they added I
2:04:35
don't know if that was I don't know whose District that falls under if that was ERS that's the state that added that but um also naring the frontage roads
2:04:43
could be done uh nobody really parks on those and the traffic is uh minimal for their size um I think Dutch style
2:04:50
Frontage roads could allow for better access to the businesses for both trucks and customers
2:04:57
um and oh sorry I have more but my time is up that is your time thank you so much
2:05:04
uh questions for the
2:05:11
registrant okay thank you very much uh so comments or questions for
2:05:16
Tom alderfield yes go ahead you're you're first on the list sure thank you
2:05:22
chair um thanks for the presentation Tom lots of good info I'm wondering about the timing of that bridge over ston road
2:05:29
just South of Highway 30 I know that it's in the transportation Improvement plan for I believe 2030 the year 2030
2:05:37
but to what extent is that timeline driven by potential construction along
2:05:43
the ston road Corridor that the state may be making decisions about yeah so I'm going to say uh two
2:05:51
things and I want one is if G Gabriel Hill stays
2:05:56
on uh I'll I'll answer some of his questions because I I think he had some
2:06:02
interesting things to say and then for you alderfield are you are you speaking
2:06:09
specifically of the 94 project because um there's so many projects it's easy to
2:06:17
get through the uh the Milwaukee Street bridge over
2:06:22
the interstate right now is um is scheduled for very late you know
2:06:30
2042 very long um yeah I understood that part no I mean the um pedestrian bridge
2:06:36
over ston Road South of Highway 30 as part of the Sten Road Corridor piece of all this so that would I I think that
2:06:44
would be in the 2030s I I'm not sure I think that's an that particular one I think is an
2:06:50
underpass so that would be an hon pass and
2:06:56
then um over East Washington it would be an
2:07:02
overpass um I believe that North St road is it's part of their major program I I
2:07:08
I believe it's planned for the 2030s but I haven't um seen a a sequencing
2:07:16
schedule for for that I think anodally I think I remember I a conversation from
2:07:23
talking with the do project manager saying that they might start at the North End because that's simple you know
2:07:30
the North End is is much simpler than uh the area by East Washington and Highway
2:07:35
30 but I I could go back and ask if they've developed a staging plan for
2:07:41
them so it is um the city's own transportation Improvement plan that
2:07:46
engineering maintains that currently shows I think a bridge uh crossing ston
2:07:52
under Highway 30 El I could totally be misinterpreting that if it's planned for
2:07:57
2030 but I guess it sounds like the state is going to be the one who makes a
2:08:02
decision about the timing of it even if the city prefers 2030 huh I think um I I
2:08:09
haven't looked at that but we've been in coordinating with you know Chris pakowski the
2:08:16
um I think the state is willing to put the underpass there but they are not
2:08:22
willing to um connect the underpass to our path system and so engineering has to put in
2:08:31
the Sip money so that we can pay for the path connections to the
2:08:37
underpass and and this underpass I don't know if it's an underpass or overpass I I really should
2:08:44
know that um we have been discussing this for about four
2:08:49
years um and so I think Chris pakowski put in their budget so that we have
2:08:55
funding available to make a commitment to the dot that we yes we will pay for
2:09:01
the connections to the son pass okay um I'm probably start an email
2:09:08
thread between Chris and yourself and I and talk through this more thank you
2:09:13
Tom thanks Alder um Alder Martinez Rutherford go ahead yeah Tom I I probably missed that
2:09:21
cuz ADHD and everything but uh the only place that I really saw
2:09:27
um pedestrian infrastructure was when you showed the um the super Street which
2:09:35
seems Terrible by the way um but I'm just I'm mostly concerned about getting
2:09:42
students across the street safely back and forth especially they
2:09:48
around flam are they taking that into
2:09:54
consideration um yeah so I'll I'll talk a little bit about all of the um
2:09:59
Alternatives will have much better longitudinal bike pet accommodations and
2:10:06
they will be protected uh I think they haven't developed them exactly but they would be be consistent with all ages and
2:10:13
abilities right um I think the cross streets what you say is uh correct
2:10:21
that's more challenging and
2:10:26
um I think um um when you have an AG grade
2:10:33
intersection um it's very difficult to get
2:10:42
um students across or or any pedestrians across right if you have a jug handle or
2:10:49
a grade separated intersection all of a sudden the the conflict exposure is
2:10:55
quite a bit less but then all of a sudden you have a different type of facility right you have something that
2:11:01
borders on an expressway not an urban Broadway and so uh I'm going to say kind
2:11:06
of the executive branch of the city has tended to prefer kind of more urban atg
2:11:15
grade um Solutions um you know both are kind of
2:11:21
that could be explored easier Crossing for pzs and
2:11:26
bikes if you have a Jug Handle but then all of a sudden then you have an expressway type of
2:11:33
facility hey um on that note and you mind if I just make um three comments
2:11:39
regarding Gabriel Hill's testimony sure that's fine he uh looks like he's still
2:11:45
listening there Tom okay good uh so one um I I feel like um what he said about
2:11:51
alternative five is correct um if we were to have a wide median um it's unlikely that that Medium
2:11:59
would be activated you know it just probably wouldn't be activated we would still have the advantage of U two
2:12:05
separate signals right um the width of the quter is kind of the width of the quter um they have 250 fet
2:12:14
and and they're probably not going to give back any more than 200 you know they're going to keep the 250 ft it's
2:12:19
just what where do we and how do we want the facilities to be in that 250
2:12:25
ft um and then many people say well why do we need
2:12:32
an expressway here and Expressway um on the interstate and um
2:12:38
you know initially I look at the maps and I say yes I I agree with that but the funny thing is is that no one in the
2:12:46
East Madison neighborhoods have have access to the interstate right so the Interstate basically might might serve
2:12:53
people from some prairie or a DeForest but our Madison neighborhoods don't have
2:12:59
access to the interstate and they never will so what ends up happening is is St Road
2:13:05
um you know I but like we like to point fingers on the cars that are on St road
2:13:12
and it says it's those people that are causing the problem but those people are really our people you know I mean it's
2:13:18
us that are filling Stone Road which is why you know was not wanted to give us that room because they say it's your
2:13:24
people that are on this road why don't you just take it um and then the the volumes um the
2:13:31
volumes on St Road are are pretty much comparable to what we have on University
2:13:37
Avenue and right now on University Avenue we have three lanes in both directions and there's congestion and so
2:13:44
as much as we want to fight it you know we're probably going to end up with three lanes on S Road
2:13:51
particularly if it's if it remains in the Wisconsin Dot's jurisdiction um you know
2:13:59
we you know it it would be nice to have everything as a two-lane roadway like Sherman Sherman Avenue but uh it's
2:14:05
carrying you know close to 50,000 um cars a day um one one antidotal thing
2:14:15
is with the the introduction of the flex Lane um St world and the bell line are
2:14:22
actually carrying a little bit more traffic and East Washington is actually carrying a little bit less traffic um which I guess if we had our
2:14:33
our DRS that's not a bad thing for us um having less traffic Lo on East
2:14:38
Washington is probably um better because we have more urban concentration on East
2:14:44
Washington thank you for allowing me to just address those yeah no helpful information other
2:14:51
comments or questions for Tom and feedback on what you you prefer
2:14:57
um carold yeah thank you um yeah lots of
2:15:04
projects lots of materials for digest I'll start with the north Sten Road
2:15:10
study can you clarify the bike path so
2:15:15
you said there will be a bik path but there will not be one along the airport is there map of this to figure
2:15:23
out there is if if you email me I can perhaps provide you I think
2:15:33
um they um we have consistently said that we
2:15:38
wanted to provide a um a path
2:15:45
um adjacent to Stone Road similar to what occurs on Highway 12 to Sock City
2:15:52
you know that's I mean it's not a great place to bike but it's a safe place to
2:15:58
bike um the airport has consistently said that we can't have a
2:16:04
path um because it introduces a new youth you new youth
2:16:11
right um it's been our position right that says well no there are already
2:16:17
pedestrians and cyclists on Sten Road particularly in the runway clear areas um because um
2:16:25
you know UPS has a new um facility on northstone road and it has shift work
2:16:31
and people sometimes have to walk to that shift work which is terrible but
2:16:38
um I think uh you know federal agencies have deference to federal agencies and
2:16:43
so um the Federal Aviation FAA
2:16:52
you know has kind of said to fhwa that you can't do this right you it violates
2:16:59
our standards and so we are not going to allow that that's what the airport has
2:17:04
said uh we have not been able to push that because
2:17:10
um of kind of the current Dynamics with the airport the county the city and the
2:17:18
state uh we could add a comment to that um and try and try and get that it uh
2:17:28
there's a basically the Gap in the bike path goes from Kinsman I think to about hepker um to wiiz Do's credit from
2:17:37
hepker to the north they reintroduce or maybe it's from Hanson to the north they
2:17:43
reintroduce that path and um and goes
2:17:48
further north and so um if you'd like to talk more about that I
2:17:53
would we we've given our comments they've said no we have different County
2:17:59
leadership right now and they have an environmental document where we can comment on and we could actually push
2:18:06
that issue um a little bit more the the
2:18:12
FAA came out with new advisory circulars I think in 2019 or
2:18:18
2020 which um we're a little bit more
2:18:25
restrictive um so like you know basically I had people looking at
2:18:31
airports around the nation that had paths you know off the runways thinking well there we're going
2:18:37
to show them and um but there's there's new guidance out there that's a little bit more restrictive than what was
2:18:43
allowed and previously yeah that
2:18:49
seems inom rible to me you have like a six Lane Road and on the other side like
2:18:55
it's on the east side of the highway you have a bike path and that is somehow a problem that yeah I have a hard time
2:19:03
comprehending that so yeah maybe we can connect yeah so please do that please
2:19:09
please email me yeah po it up in my task
2:19:14
list yes okay um next so so Sten North is also adding
2:19:23
a lane a general travel Lane is that correct it it is yes even
2:19:30
though volumes are drastically lower and even with DOs often optimistic
2:19:37
projections for travel volumes even say like oh yeah it's going to be like 20 something thousand and there're still
2:19:44
adding a lane uh actually I I I think it's much more than 20,000 I think um
2:19:55
I'm writing this on I'm writing down airport my notes
2:20:01
just a b but I'll still forget so you still should email
2:20:08
me the um I I think
2:20:18
um wi Wisconsin do um first the traffic fall the traffic
2:20:26
forecast we like to blame it on Wisconsin D but really they're are traffic forecasts right they are
2:20:32
prepared by the Madison planning organization which is kind of a a separate but underneath
2:20:40
the city of Madison um the people that prepare those traffic forecasts are
2:20:45
like um they're competent they do their job well right I think what happens is
2:20:52
that um I think the city of Madison is willing to live with more congestion than what uh Wisconsin do is willing to
2:21:00
live with as well as fhwa is willing to live with like whereas we are saying
2:21:07
well you know if there's a roadway On the Border if we can reduce
2:21:15
capacity the city of mass will say well let's see if we can do it maybe maybe it's not that bad U the Wisconsin
2:21:23
DOT um is not that way and then the Federal Highway Administration is not that way we are
2:21:31
going to be undergoing a an Administration change which is probably going to be more traditional in their
2:21:38
view of Transportation more motor vehicle Dominator rather than not so I I
2:21:46
kind of anticipated to be that way again you know we could change all of this if we
2:21:52
were willing to accept jurisdiction of the roadway but then again if we're going to accept jurisdiction of roadway
2:21:59
let's let's do Park Street you know let's do something that's perhaps a little bit more important to the city
2:22:07
right yeah I mean I looked at I'm I'm reasonably sure that what they have in their Maps is like along the airport
2:22:13
it's like 13,000 Vehicles protected to go to like 15 oh you're talking about up there uh yes the yeah I I not sure we're
2:22:21
we're adding a lane up there we're adding a lane through this that you're seeing right here okay yeah yeah it's
2:22:30
more of the heart from 30 up to let's say Anderson you know that's kind of we're at in where that map has it at
2:22:37
like 28,000 projected in 2050 and currently
2:22:43
25,000 yeah really nor north of kinsman it's it's essentially a rural roadway
2:22:49
right and we will never really develop north of kenman because we have an
2:22:54
airport there right and so the characteristics north of
2:22:59
kinmen are going to be more similar to like what highway 12 is Sock City right
2:23:06
and and they probably won't change just because of the airport so the additional Lane would be
2:23:12
only up to East Wash then no I I I think it it extends you know the approaches
2:23:20
scen sections um will be important to them I suspect that it it
2:23:28
um probably pushes through Anderson and then they probably do some
2:23:34
geometric magic to bring it down to two lanes in East Direction north of kinman
2:23:40
um I'm not sure if I have a detailed PDF of the proposed Lane configuration you
2:23:47
can see even with this graphic right here that um came out of their
2:23:53
environmental document it's it's somewhat pixelated so it's it's difficult to to see exactly what's
2:23:58
happening but but right here you know if you zoomed in you could
2:24:04
you could see that we have three lanes in both directions uh not not two lanes in both
2:24:12
directions um yeah I guess feedback on the Alternatives like I think getting
2:24:19
rid of the fronted Road is a good thing we definitely don't want to have 45 M an hour 10 Lane like 6 plus
2:24:29
4 that seems bad it seems very unfortunate that we get all this new
2:24:34
green space but it will be wasted space and not really change
2:24:42
the feel I mean if there is any possibility that that green space could
2:24:47
be used for something it seems like it might be easier in alt four where like as you said the area plan is being
2:24:55
developed as those property redevelops if you suddenly have an additional I don't know how many feet that is that
2:25:02
could maybe be gradually that seems maybe slightly more realistic than having that island and doing something
2:25:07
with that but if that's not feasible anyway then yeah I'm not really sure if
2:25:13
I I find your argument about the signal phasing for the
2:25:19
Crossing pretty strong one even though yeah I don't like what it looks like in
2:25:24
alt five necessarily I have great concerns about the crossings I mean
2:25:30
wiard says it's about safety and Mobility but for whom really seems to be
2:25:35
for car occupants primarily and I just looking at those design Alternatives thinking about what it's like to C I
2:25:42
mean I know what it's like to cross there now and it's hard to imagine the new options making it much safer or more
2:25:50
comfortable for people going across as you said north south seems great Improvement but Crossings are not and
2:25:59
probably alt five might open up some possibilities more so but yeah it's not
2:26:06
great right I'll leave it at that for now
2:26:11
thanks thanks Harold other comments or questions for Tom or preferences
2:26:21
lot of information Tom uh Robbie go ahead yeah I'll just jump in um
2:26:30
with I guess an an opinion that um yeah
2:26:35
I'm I'm disappointed that there isn't a possibility for redevelopment
2:26:42
um all for what you end up getting is
2:26:52
um you know basically a roadway with
2:26:58
no I guess visual narrowing because the all the
2:27:05
uses are so far back from the roadway
2:27:10
yes you're going to have green space but it just is open space so you end up
2:27:16
feeling it feels like a big h way um with a bunch of green on the
2:27:23
sides kind of like an interstate feels
2:27:30
um all five the one advantage is that it looks
2:27:36
like we might be able to have more Crossings and
2:27:42
also you could if you were on a bicycle or on foot or anything else outside of a
2:27:49
car um you could take
2:27:55
those one-way streets one by one instead of needing to cross the
2:28:02
entire space in one big swoop
2:28:08
so you would start near where the land uses are that also provides a little bit more
2:28:17
I guess visual interest maybe Hues that there
2:28:23
are land uses there even though right now they're all pretty low
2:28:30
density um there's at least some cues that there are people
2:28:36
and uses next to you and then you would cross one a oneway street and then you
2:28:45
would be in a green zone and then you would cross another oneway
2:28:51
Street um and then you would be next to other uses so I
2:28:58
guess neither four or five are great but my understanding is that four gives you
2:29:04
the possibility of a few more Crossings and I think that
2:29:10
the options for people um using slower
2:29:15
speed Transportation will make it easier to cross the entire Corridor in all five
2:29:22
and in all four so that's I guess one advantage that I
2:29:28
would see of that one thanks Robbie you uh use the words I should maybe mention
2:29:36
that you know maybe to augment the um the survey monkey that they're
2:29:43
they're conducting I'm we will send a I will send a letter under my name kind of advocating
2:29:51
for certain things and you use the word visual narrowing and I think that's a good word I'm going to find a way to fit
2:29:59
that in the in the letter um probably being honest with the land uses that we
2:30:04
have there now they have such big parking lots in the front we may not get that right you know we just we just
2:30:12
um we we just might not guess you know farming Fleet um has great tools but
2:30:18
they have a big parking lot right and so they you know we just won't get there
2:30:24
um I think you do make an interesting point like even with a left turn lane
2:30:30
right al Five a pedestrian would cross four lanes right but um you know with
2:30:37
all four they would cross perhaps nine to 10 lanes so it's kind of the
2:30:42
difference between crossing Johnson Street versus Crossing East Washington right
2:30:48
and you know Johnson Street has its own problems but it's easier to cross in East Washington I think and so that's a
2:30:56
that's an interesting
2:31:02
thought okay other comments or
2:31:08
questions uh Pepe go ahead thank you chair um thanks Tom for
2:31:16
the presentation um just a quick question on alternative five I know you you mentioned it and and some other
2:31:23
people have mentioned it too but um can you elaborate on the fact that it's like it wouldn't be developed like what are
2:31:30
we meaning by like developed meaning like actual construction there but to
2:31:36
kind of further my question does that mean that no no path no like running
2:31:42
path slash trees or something can be built in that median to make it more
2:31:48
appealing for like people for going there or something like that to be utilized I I think it um when I mean not
2:31:55
developed meaning we would probably wouldn't get to put buildings there okay
2:32:00
so um I was a project manager for the
2:32:05
manona D drive project right and you may not know that but that used to be Highway 51 so the the rideway was held
2:32:13
under title the Wisconsin do and so we um
2:32:20
to kind of manage the parking spaces or whatever we actually gave a little bit of that rideway
2:32:26
to um some of the adjacent land owners so they could keep some parking and we
2:32:32
actually had to pay the the Wisconsin DOT like $300,000 or something like that it was not it was not inexpensive and
2:32:41
that's on a road that was not even their Road you know I mean Min drive wasn't
2:32:46
their road but and so um I think as much as we would like to you
2:32:54
know develop the medium of s and Road and perhaps it's a long-term
2:33:00
dream I don't know if it's I don't know if we should allow dreams to affect our
2:33:06
decision you know the reality is that probably in the near term it would have to have a transportation use which
2:33:13
couldn't include paths it could include trees it probably couldn't include
2:33:18
transferring own ship so that someone could build a building in the middle if you know what I
2:33:26
mean so then building a path or putting trees there would be considered development no I think those those would
2:33:33
be legitimate uses um putting a Starbucks coffee to proba
2:33:41
right right that kind of thing you know we probably couldn't do that yeah and and and you know I generally just to be clear I generally agree with what has
2:33:48
been said you know like it's like looking at like imperfect Solutions of course like none of them is like just
2:33:53
the ideal one trying to find ways around it um you know where where I come from
2:33:59
you can see um highways where people drive probably faster than 35 or 45 mes
2:34:06
an hour with medians like that where you would guess like oh who would like to go
2:34:12
running or for a jog in there and you would you would guess no one but the the fact is that
2:34:18
just opening those spaces and if you have enough safe Crossings people will go there and you
2:34:25
know spend spend some time over there and run in the median and and if you put benches people will sit there and read a
2:34:31
book um yeah I'm just trying to think around Alternatives if if we were to go with um alternative four or five you
2:34:37
know what I
2:34:45
mean that all you had then paye okay thanks Harold go ahead yeah along
2:34:53
those well somewhat similar lines um if you could maybe go to the next slide
2:34:59
that has the renderings of the four or five Alternatives
2:35:08
um yeah that one perfect thank you yeah I don't want to over interpret that or
2:35:14
maybe I'm squinting too much but I mean I am noticing that the paths
2:35:20
vary between the Alternatives and so I think when you provide feedback to wiart
2:35:26
making sure that for example if alt five happens and it seems like the only white path is the one in the middle which like
2:35:33
what happens at the intersection whereas on the side it looks like it's only regular sidewalks so I think making sure
2:35:41
that in any kind of configuration we have two-way bike paths
2:35:47
on both sides of the road I think I think is really important because yeah the crossings are going to be difficult
2:35:53
so we have to ensure two-way mobility and access on both sides there should be
2:36:00
plenty of space to make that happen unless you have even more rage roads I
2:36:09
suppose okay all good comments all great suggestions other comments or questions
2:36:17
for Tom
2:36:23
okay I'm seeing no more hands did you get what you needed time did you need
2:36:28
anything else tonight no um maybe just I'll alert the
2:36:37
the commission that I'll price will probably send a letter to influence the dot in the next
2:36:45
month you know to help them screen I um I would encourage the the Transportation
2:36:52
Commission that if you have opinions to do the survey because which
2:36:58
not takes those surveys seriously um and then maybe just a
2:37:05
foreshadowing that we will probably have to negotiate some type of cost sharing
2:37:10
agreement with the interstate okay any last comments or
2:37:18
questions before we move on
2:37:23
okay thanks Tom uh Renee East Madison
2:37:30
bikeways yes welcome and Sean is here too um okay hey Sean so we are just
2:37:36
coming back we um want to finalize um our plans for a smithin so that we can
2:37:44
get them designed and contracted out and Sean has taken the lead on probably the
2:37:49
biggest thing that we want to talk about which is the diverter test um that we
2:37:55
came and got your input on and now have concluded the test and Sean has some results so I'll just turn it over to him
2:38:02
for that
2:38:09
part first step is to unmute okay um uh yeah so here's our um kind of the
2:38:17
results and recap of the uh diverter test and
2:38:23
um some other options as well um in addition to the diverter that we wanted
2:38:29
to share so um little bit of background uh we have um
2:38:37
$125,000 available funding from a grant U we
2:38:43
contracted with tool design uh group um they did a study and came some recommendations for East smithin best
2:38:51
board to do some uh improvements um we
2:38:57
did uh hold a Pim on uh June 3rd this
2:39:03
year um we created a project website for this to keep uh people informed and up toate um the link is in there if uh you
2:39:11
want to check it out you can also just Google um East Smithland bike Boulevard City Madison it should pop
2:39:16
up um so here's kind of the timeline of the diver test that was kind of the main thing that
2:39:23
um I guess uh was was impactful from the
2:39:30
uh from the recommendation study from tulle so um we kind of first presented
2:39:36
these options uh to this group um in July end of July um we collected some
2:39:44
data um in September before installing the test um we put the test um in
2:39:52
October um then we collected uh some data um you know so we can do before and after data and then um we removed the
2:40:02
test um about a week or so ago um for for the winter
2:40:07
season um just a reminder on what the test was um we chose um or this group
2:40:15
chose the option um with having the bikes go on the the right and kind of
2:40:20
doing an island um so we um set that uh the test up like so um in this
2:40:30
um uh in in the graphic here um the other option that we had contemplated
2:40:36
was uh having bikes uh kind of on the left side of the
2:40:41
island um but this uh this was the option that we we tested I think uh operation went pretty well um here's
2:40:49
pictures um that I took of the tests um and action so um set up uh delineators
2:40:57
and some temporary signs and uh yeah here are here are the results um
2:41:04
so we did some before and after data um I took um the Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday uh
2:41:14
volumes because those are what we consider our normal travel days so we took those days and kind of averaged out
2:41:22
um the trips um and kind of broke it down each hour um and uh you know we we did do um
2:41:31
the 800 and uh 800 blocks of Dayton and Mifflin um but we also did the 700 and
2:41:38
900 block I thought that might be too much information overload so I uh just
2:41:43
presented the 800 block which is where the diverter was um in this so
2:41:50
uh um you know our main concern you know was uh what you know was going to happen with these trips you know if we divert
2:41:57
all the trips going um westbound you know what was uh going to happen was
2:42:03
Dayton Street going to be um affected you know what were the impacts going to be and um we found that uh you know the
2:42:11
impacts to Dayton were actually um relatively minimal their volumes are uh
2:42:17
pretty low on Dayton Street um still below a th we saw that added about 200
2:42:23
more trips um per day and then um in General on myund we saw trips you know
2:42:30
decrease by about 700 um in this uh 800 block so uh that
2:42:38
means um 500 trips you know give or take were um diverted kind of out of the
2:42:44
neighborhood you know we assume to Johnson or East Washington which is um I think good getting the trips out of the
2:42:52
neighborhood um we did do some speed studies and
2:42:57
um found that the speeds did not change um too
2:43:02
much um it stayed relatively the same actually decreased in some cases um a
2:43:09
little skeptical about this uh value in the 700 block of East Dayton after um
2:43:15
that seems uh kind of to be an outlier but just wanted to show that um that's
2:43:20
that's what we got um and uh so that was kind of the data
2:43:26
um we also you know we had we had the survey um we had a um a little uh board
2:43:34
out there actually might go back to uh our graphic here um we we put out
2:43:41
actually a little sign um with a link to the survey so people that were biking
2:43:47
were able to um find the websites and go to the survey and uh a lot of people did uh you know
2:43:55
there was a QR code that worked for a while um that you know people were able to scan or they could type in the
2:44:00
website uh link so we put that out so it was kind of easier for people to fill out the
2:44:06
survey um we had about 136 people uh
2:44:11
fill out the survey um it's actually a pretty um
2:44:19
you know I guess it was about what we expected you know it was a little less than 50% were biking
2:44:26
um looks like about 35% were driving a motor vehicle um and then the rest we're
2:44:34
um walking um and uh you know the majority of
2:44:40
people traveling um was a by a boat was by a motor
2:44:45
vehicle as well um that was kind question to um the big one I want to draw the attention to is question three
2:44:52
where we just um kind of flat out asked um do you support the diverter um or
2:44:58
not um we got about 60% of the people uh voting to um support that diverter and
2:45:06
um about 35% posing and 5% um said they
2:45:12
could live with it so assume they were um you know they didn't really have a
2:45:19
too much of an opinion um and uh um we have some other
2:45:26
potential improvements that um you know we're looking to do you know like I mentioned earlier we have a
2:45:33
$125,000 um to work with so um we estimate you know the diverter would
2:45:39
maybe cost around 30 to 40,000 so that would leave us you know with some more
2:45:45
um you know some more money to do other improvements uh some other recommendations that were in the study
2:45:53
from to the tool Design Group was to create a mid mid block Crossing in the
2:46:00
uh the Thousand block um near lapam Elementary School um so um we kind of have a design
2:46:08
like this and maybe do a raised Crossing if possible uh depend on um you know
2:46:15
grades and the drainage but um if we can we certainly would like to and then um
2:46:22
bumping out ingr saw um shorting those Crossings into school improving those um was another
2:46:29
thing that was called out so those were um other improvements that we
2:46:35
um we're looking at and um I know actually Renee had a slide
2:46:42
that did not make it in here so sorry Renee um they had a couple other improvements I think um one of them was
2:46:49
a stop sign at uh um investigating stop signs at Dickinson Mifflin um we've
2:46:55
heard that um we we've had that request a few times
2:47:00
you know so looking into um that to see if that makes sense I think we were just
2:47:06
experiencing a lot of traffic being diverted um that way because there's no
2:47:13
longer um eastbound left turn at Balwin so I think people are using Dickinson to left turns so seeing a little more
2:47:20
traffic um so that was one of the things that uh um we were also going to look at
2:47:27
with the study um Renee I don't know if you had other um options as
2:47:33
well um looks like she left her desk so oh now she's
2:47:41
back sorry my battery was dying there um I just wanted to say yes the other thing
2:47:46
I wanted to mention was the bicycle wave finding w to also be a part of this project to help people navigate um when
2:47:53
they're not using they're choosing not to use East Washington or during the peak hour travel when the bike lane is
2:47:58
not available um the only other thing I would mention is these uh these
2:48:04
improvements were chosen during our public meeting we did ask people to kind of rate some of the potential
2:48:10
improvements and what they would prioritize since we would not be able to do all of the projects that um we might
2:48:18
ideally want to do in this Corridor and then of course we have already done um some changes to the stop sign adding the
2:48:25
stop signs for forway on Baldwin which were very popular
2:48:33
so um so I think um what we were looking for
2:48:38
um was a um a vote I guess to kind of to approve that
2:48:44
diverter um allowing us to implement that
2:48:50
um and uh oh yeah staff's recommendation I think is to or staff's recommendation is to approve the diverter um based on
2:48:59
the data we saw and the um results of the survey um I think it's a good change to
2:49:06
implement um on Mifflin Street so um we're just looking for a recommendation
2:49:13
from the body to for that let me just clarify what about the
2:49:19
rest of the um East smithin bike Boulevard improvements that you were talking about yeah I mean I think
2:49:26
ideally um also the installation of those two improvements um along with the
2:49:33
the way finding would be our ideal to include I think uh the
2:49:40
from the diverter was the the the bigger question but ideally we would have everything approved and then we would um
2:49:47
enter into final dis design work on all of those so that we can get them contracted out and
2:49:52
built so it would be the um you're asking for an approval of the East Mifflin bike Boulevard improvements
2:49:59
would that be the right way to say it yeah I think that would be fair and um I guess I to add on to I
2:50:07
think um the um because we had another option
2:50:12
before what last time we came here um I think you know maybe approving
2:50:19
this diverter option would also be what we're looking for or what we'd recommend
2:50:24
um I think from what we saw this this seemed to work pretty well um you know
2:50:30
because bikes didn't have to um know they were able to kind of stay you know on the right and go through instead of
2:50:37
having to kind of weave with cars a little bit um I I thought it worked out
2:50:43
um a lot better for that but um if there is a um
2:50:50
you know there is a preference for the other option um you know we we could that that would
2:50:56
be fine too but yeah just a preference on the option would be
2:51:02
good so um what I have let me just summarize and see if we have what you um
2:51:10
what you're looking for um you're asking for a motion to approve the East smithin bike Boulevard improvements which would
2:51:17
include everything you talked about the way finding um along with the recommended East Mifflin diverter design
2:51:25
would that be right I think that yeah that's it okay
2:51:32
Robie well I had a question first um sure did Sean did you say that or Renee
2:51:39
did you say that you um presented some other options
2:51:44
besides the diverter um and asked people which ones they liked but you would not be able to
2:51:51
do all of them did I misunderstand that no that's correct at the public meeting
2:51:56
we kind of talked about various you know kinds of improvements that could be made
2:52:02
but we also had people kind of think about which ones they thought would have
2:52:07
the most impact on their trips um and improve safety from what they're
2:52:13
experiencing themselves and so you know just saying like obviously there's a lot
2:52:20
of improvements that could be made along the stretch but we have a limited budget so okay so I guess my question is are
2:52:27
you presenting us tonight the ones that were most popular when we vote when we
2:52:33
make a recommendation do we need to specify anything
2:52:39
besides this package of improvements or have you already given us the ones that
2:52:46
were most popular and yeah these are ones that um we had considered and that
2:52:52
also that we thought as staff were important but also met you know with
2:52:57
what the public was thinking they were experiencing as well so these are the ones that we think we can do within that
2:53:04
$125,000 budget that we have and I think what the public was thinking aligned
2:53:09
pretty well with what the city was thinking we did have to rule some things out you know due to feasibility like the
2:53:15
entire Improvement would be more than our budget so I think this aligns with the public and with staff recommendations both this whole package
2:53:22
would be 125,000 okay I just wanted to be sure that we didn't have to make further
2:53:29
winwing in our motion nope okay um with that with that question answered if it's
2:53:36
all right I would um like to make a motion to recommend the package that um
2:53:46
has been presented to us tonight including the diverter and the staff
2:53:51
recommendations for additional um
2:53:58
improvements okay so
2:54:03
um sorry I had a cat on my lap and he was getting in the way of my writing um so you're recommending I'm
2:54:11
sorry I I did we have someone with a public comment I thought Aiden had told me May I'm so I'm so sorry Aiden was
2:54:19
there somebody that wanted to speak tonight on this we do we have one person
2:54:24
well then okay we should have we should have should have said that a long time ago so I will withdraw my motion until
2:54:30
we hear from the public thank you Robbie um let's go ahead so we have uh Dan P pensinger of
2:54:39
for cyia play supports and wishes to speak hi thank you yeah I'm still here
2:54:45
as well uh I just wanted to say that I've used East Mylin um quite a bit uh
2:54:52
this past fall and it's been very nice uh to have the diverter um I think it's
2:54:59
uh reduced uh some of the through traffic on East mithin and made the bike Boulevard more safe and comfortable for
2:55:04
me so I just want to reiterate support for it and thank you for uh doing the
2:55:10
test with it appreciate it thank you I'm sorry about that I I
2:55:15
didn't realize that there was someone waiting to speak on this um any questions for
2:55:25
Dan thanks for waiting with us Dan um okay Robbie did you
2:55:33
wanna sure I I will make a motion to recommend the package that uh traffic
2:55:40
engineering has uh presented to us tonight including the diverter and additional improvements
2:55:54
okay so what I have is your recommending approval of the uh package that t
2:55:59
traffic engineering presented including the diverter and additional improvements do we have a second for
2:56:13
that Chris yeah second did you wish to speak thanks
2:56:18
Chris did you wish to speak to your motion Robbie no I don't think so okay thanks
2:56:30
discussion okay I'm seeing no hands so we have the motion is recommend approval of um the package that traffic
2:56:37
engineering presented including the diverter and additional improvements any
2:56:43
further discussion okay I'm going to assume a unan consent vote unless anybody wishes
2:56:50
to vote no or
2:56:56
abstain okay thanks Renee thanks Sean the motion is carried and thanks again
2:57:02
Dan for waiting to have your opportunity to
2:57:07
speak okay next item eight we have a reminder uh to commission members of the
2:57:13
annual statement of Interest form and the reason this is so important is that
2:57:18
you are required to file a statement of interest every year filing deadline for this year is January 7th um my email
2:57:26
came on November 22nd I'm assuming everybody else's came on the same day but the key thing is that failure to
2:57:34
submit this statement of interest will ultimately lead to revocation of your committee appointments so everybody
2:57:41
please go ahead and fill that out and Kaye I don't know if you you have to
2:57:46
fill it out again but they do make a comment in the email that even if you filled one out earlier if you get an
2:57:53
email from the clerk asking you to fill it out again they apologize but you might have to do that so um just uh
2:58:01
watch your email for that Kaylee to see if you get anything from the the clerk asking for another uh statement of
2:58:08
Interest form does anybody have any question about it Eric is on as
2:58:14
well I have seen people kicked off bcc's because they didn't file our statement of Interest form so it's real important
2:58:21
that you do that uh hey B go ahead thanks chair uh yeah only a quick
2:58:29
reminder where where is who is this email coming from because my email just gets so much spam I I sure it came from
2:58:37
clerk cityofmadison.com cler gotcha that's was gonna help me find it thank you and it came it came to me on
2:58:44
November 22nd but Clerk cityofmadison.com sounds good okay uh
2:58:52
Eric well I just was going to say if anybody has uh particular questions or anything on that I'm always happy to
2:58:58
answer them so uh so you know if this needs to be on there or doesn't need to be on there um feel free to shoot me an
2:59:04
email okay thanks Eric Robbie go ahead Pepe I sympathize and I um just typed in
2:59:12
in quotes statement of interest and it came right up in my okay
2:59:19
good tip thank you good tip yeah I looked for cleric and I found it right away too so thanks both all right
2:59:26
excellent okay anybody anybody else have any questions okay
2:59:32
thanks all right uh item nine is uh updates from BCC members who are members
2:59:40
of other Transportation related bccs and I'll just add that Lynn Olen who is our other new commission member is also a
2:59:47
member of the Disability Rights Commission so we'll have that connection with her um on TC as well anybody have
2:59:55
any updates for us
3:00:00
tonight not see any hands give it another minute okay we'll
3:00:08
look for more updates in again in the future um only
3:00:14
announcement I had was the the three changes that were approved at the common Council last night with regard to
3:00:21
committee me um membership so bill was moved from the second alternate to a
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resident member um and Kaylee uh Jameson was appointed as the first alternate and
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Lynn Olsen was appointed as the second alternate so we look forward to um
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continuing Bill to have you um involved on TC and Kaylee and and Lynn we look
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forward to um having you involved and uh thanks again uh to Kaylee for coming
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tonight okay um no other announcements from
3:01:03
anybody okay uh terms of future agenda items we have some ordinance changes to
3:01:10
chapter 11 and 12 of Madison Municipal ordinances that might be coming our way
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paid parking for Wilson Street lot um um review and approval of some Metro
3:01:20
Transit bus stop changes um review and approval of updates to complete green streets uh
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safe routes to school planning project uh update on Transit equity for people
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with disabilities one of the new items in our work plan um and a couple other
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things we're working on uh three three different things that we're working on with um folks from the Department of
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Civil Rights and of course we have the list that's posted in legistar that um I
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track of suggestions that we've had from commission members over time and we've
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crossed up a couple of them and we're we're working on them as well so any
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other suggestions for future agenda topics
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tonight no okay we covered a lot of ground tonight a lot of good discussions
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as always so we need a motion to adjourn
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P um just just before my motion to adjourn um sh quick question I noticed
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that the TC placeholders in the calendar uh go only until the end of this year so
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I was wondering when the next TC meeting would be the next TC meeting is on
3:02:45
January 8th and Aiden and I just talked today and he's going to be sending out new placeholder uh sending out
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placeholder um calendar invitations for all of 2025 for you okay excellent
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appreciate that I motion to adjourn sure okay thank you um is there a second Al
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Alder Martino excuse me Alder Martinez retherford I will second thank you so
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much I'm going to assume a unanimous consent vote and thank you all so much
3:03:16
uh for hanging with us tonight lots of great discussion as usual so see you next time and happy holidays everybody