Madison Area Bus Ways

Entering through the back door April 7, 2020 - Courtesy Devesh Sullivan This is being written on April 22, 2020 when there are 4,845 positive cases and 246 deaths from COVID-19 in Wisconsin, 387 and 20 respectively in Dane County . The numbers will be higher tomorrow. Metro's administrative offices are closed to the public but its buses continue to operate.  Buses provide an essential service. Essential travel includes going to work, medical appointments and grocery stores. Passengers who can, enter and exit the bus through the back door. Physical distancing limits passengers to a maximum of 15 at any one time. Extra buses may be employed if there is a need for them.  Buses run on a modified Saturday schedule. There is no fare collection, and buses are cleaned extensively on at least a daily basis. Even with such precaution, at least one operator has tested positive for having the virus although some think it unlikely that it was contracted from a passenger. ...

Taking the Bus to Work in July/Courtesy Jonathan Mertzig In the Spring of this and other even-numbered years, Dane County elects Supervisors for the next two years.  All 37 of them. Does that matter for public transportation? Not so far, but things could and should change. Almost half the seats on the County Board will be occupied by someone new. Successful candidates will help shepherd the development of the fastest growing county in the state. Doing so intelligently means that we cannot just continue to do what was done in the past. Rather, a recent survey of residents throughout the county found that they want the county to Obtain a regional high-capacity multi-modal transit system that connects Madison and surrounding communities and increases people's access to jobs, services, and resources. Current state law makes it difficult to achieve that goal but there is still a lot that can be done on the local level to move us in the desired direction. Unfortunately, as a re...

Campus Dr. & Farley Ave. is 4th most dangerous intersection in Madison (1/20/2020) COURTESY Gabriella Hilliard Most people agree that public safety is a basic governmental concern. For city government, you might think in terms of police, fire and maybe public health. Madison's Director of Transportation Tom Lynch outlined a strong case for including transportation as well. He thinks Madison should adopt the Vision Zero goal of having no traffic fatalities or severe injuries, "while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all."  Lynch shows for instance, that between 2013 and 2017 Madison experienced 44 traffic fatalities compared to 38 homicides. It had almost 3,100 non-incapacitating injuries due to traffic crashes compared to a little under 2,700 reported assaults. In 2018 alone, severe crashes involved 100 disabling injuries and 8 fatalities.   The Vision Zero stance does not simply shrug off such abysmal crash figures as the inevitable pr...

Starting in 2020, Metro's Commute Card for Business will be capped every month at the cost of the regular Unlimited Ride Pass. What is a Commute Card for Business and why is it capped? The Commute Card for Business The Commute Card for Business is a special annual   unlimited ride pass  that is only available through area organizations and businesses. A generic Commute Card program started about fifteen years ago as a mutually beneficial way to support and increase bus ridership, worker benefits and/or lessen transportation costs and the demand for parking in land-locked areas. It involved such large educational and health organizations as the UW-Madison's Associated Students of Madison (ASM) and the UW Hospitals and Clinics a well as some businesses. The original organizations still have special pass programs, but the Commute Card for Business is now its own program. It is designed to enable employees, employers or both to benefit from the pre-tax payroll deduc...

City of Madison VRF Information Sheet In the long run, what we are doing here is fighting to reduce traffic congestion Mayor Rhodes-Conway at the Oct. 29 Special Session on the proposed Vehicle Registration Fee  Cottage Grove Road ... will be ... expanded from a two-lane road to a four-lane boulevard. ... City funds will total $1,990,000 and County funds total $1,210,000 .  - Oct. 29, 2019 News Release of City of Madison Maybe there is a long-term strategy to the madness that is difficult to see unless one is a master at chess and can see moves ahead. But it seems reasonable to ask how expanding a stretch of county road to/from the city of Madison from two to four lanes is "fighting to reduce traffic congestion" rather than just encouraging more car driving, congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions. Or to wonder about the progressive nature of committing almost $2 million of city money for work on a county road at the same time as seeking millions in r...

Metro experienced a 3.2% ridership increase in 2018. With 13.2 million rides, this is the first ridership increase since 2014. For the people of Madison and its suburban transit partners (Fitchburg, Middleton, Town of Madison and now Sun Prairie) it might seem obvious that the primary purpose of a locally-owned and operated public bus system is to address the transit needs of the people in the service area. They pay extra property tax to support it, whether indirectly through their rent or lease, or directly on an owned home or business.  Presumably, that would mean that before allocating TIF (tax incremental financing) or other money to facilitate the travel and parking of suburbanites from neighboring communities into downtown or other parts of Madison, city funds would first be oriented toward the transit needs of people who live 24 hours a day every day of the week in the service area itself. Buses would run frequently. Routes and stops would stay constant with ra...

US 12/18 (Madison Beltline), Whitney Way to I-39/90 - Dane County (Wisconsin Department of Transportation) A counter-intuitive way to reduce congestion is to go on a road diet or, in this case, belt tightening.  On July 24, 2019 Wisconsin Department of Transportation officials held a well-publicized public involvement meeting about a plan called “ US 12/18 Madison Beltline Improvement Alternatives ” dealing with a ten mile stretch between Whitney Way and I- 39/90 (see graphic). The stretch is in need of repairs, a perfect time to consider modifications and “upgrades” to the current arrangement. The two alternatives presented were: 1) Resurfacing the median area with drainage improvements and replacing deteriorated sections of the existing barrier wall; or 2) Performing #1 with slight modification to enable the use of the inner median as an additional traffic lane during peak commute times, a practice referred to as "dynamic part-time shoulder use" (DPTSU). ...