Madison Area Bus Ways

                                                                           Road shoulder loading at stop 7658, Davies at Major. This area lacks sidewalks, curb, and gutter.  The state of our bus stops may not garner the kind of media attention that a $30 million price tag for a new storage facility does. Nor might a nicely endowed stop cost even half as much as one new off-street parking stall let alone a few yards of asphalted street. But bus stop conditions do  attract or turn off potential riders and speak volumes about what a community really thinks of its transit system, how it prioritizes transit in its budget, how it allots TIF(Tax Incremental Financing) funds and/or how it makes land use decisions. Is the stop a mere post in the ground where people must wait for the bus by standing in the wind, rain/snow and dark? Or can they wait by sitting in a sheltered and lighted, even heat-controlled area? Does the stop have schedule information that tells waiting clients when thei

In sharp contrast to two years ago when no winning candidate made public transportation a major issue in his or her race to be district alder in the city of Madison, expanding and improving the city's public transportation system now seems to be on the platform of almost every candidate. And whereas only five of the city's twenty aldermanic seats were even contested last time, this time (2019) eleven or more than half, of the Council seats are in contention. In fact, five of the seats needed to have primaries to narrow the final field down to two. That expanding and improving Madison's transit system is being touted as a common goal is the conclusion of a survey involving a simple read of campaign websites, newspaper articles and the League of Women Voters' informative and infamous Candidates’ Answers . We had expected our piece to be a simple scan of the situation in which candidates would be rated as pro-transit or not. But given that almost everyone would be