Steve,
I thought I did provide some examples of my involvement with bike
advocacy in the Madison area at the end of my e-mail. Mike highlighted
some more specific examples to which I add the following.
During the Monona Terrace Convention Center construction, the city
promised they would keep the law park path open and then announced a month
before construction was to start that they would not be able to keep the
path open after all. They said the path would have to be closed for the
entire 2.5 years of construction. I led Political Mass rides down John
Nolen Drive to protest this broken promise and attended meeting after
meeting of the old Ped/Bike Subcommittee and Transportation Commission to
get the city to honor their original promise. While the Bicycle
Transportation Alliance did not get the City to keep the path open during
the entire construction period, we did get the closure reduced from 2.5
years to 8 months. I think I had a lot to do with that partial victory.
When the convention center opened in July of 1997, the path around
the convention center along the lake was suppose to have lane markings to
tell bicyclists and pedestrians where they were suppose to be. The city
again was not going to follow through on this promise with the result that
tensions between bicyclists and pedestrians were fast rising on the path.
It was total confusion. As a new member of the new Ped./Bike/ Motor
Vehicle Commission (PBMVC), I persuaded City Transportation Engineering to
paint the lane markings as originally planned and that you now see on the
path. The conflicts on the path evaporated.
In January 1998, I was appointed to the Advisory Committee for the
Design of the SW Commuter Bike & Pedestrian Path. I was elected one of the
Co-chairs of this committee and along with Joe King (another bikie), was
instrumental in reaching compromises with adjacent neighborhoods that
provided them with the comfort level to support the path. I wrote a good
portion of the report the committee submitted to the City. Things Joe and
I helped get in as recommendations: paved path at least 10 feet wide and 12
feet east of Commonwealth, access points on public lands from as many
locations as possible (people were trying to eliminate a number of access
points from consideration such as Virginia Terrace), lighting where
required for safety, conduit for traffic signals at Odana Rd. and Midvale
Blvd. crossings in case signals were warranted in the future, and plowing
of the path in the winter. Once the SW Bike Path report was submitted to
the City, I helped get the report through the City committee process, the
PBMVC in particular.
One access point that wasn't constructed with the SW path was from
the Odana golf course parking lot. This was due to opposition from the
Parks Commission. I attended a Parks Commission meeting in a failed
attempt to get them to change their minds. My wife and I leafletted my
neighborhood before the public hearings on the final design of the SW Path
to let neighbors know that an Odana golf course access point was not
included in the design. This was a personal issue for me because this
access point served my neighborhood and the neighborhood assumed the access
would be built with the path. It wasn't. Instead, the Parks Dept. tried
to block the short mud stretch from the golf course maintenance road to the
SW path when the path was completed in June of 2001 with a chopped down
tree trunk. Neighbors moved the tree trunk. Parks moved it back.
Neighbors moved it again. Parks moved three huge tree trunks back right
before the grand opening of the path at the end of July, 2001. Neighbors
went around the tree trunks and created a new mud rut 50 feet from the
first. My wife and I e-mailed Mayor Bauman and our alder, Gary Poulson,
about this problem the Thursday before the Saturday grand opening. Turns
out that the mayor, who lived in our neighborhood at the time, was planning
on using this unofficial access point to get to the grand opening down by
the Cap. City Trail. As a result of my e-mail, she knew to detour around
on Midvale Blvd. As the mayor road by the tree trunks as part of the grand
opening, neighbors were sitting on the logs asking for their removal. The
mayor replied that she would take care of it. She called Parks head Jim
Morgan on Monday and ordered him to remove the logs. Monday evening the
logs were gone. In 2001, MG&E came up with a plan for a transmission line
to be buried along the SW Path. One option was to go down Hammersley to
the Whitney Way intersection with the Beltline and the other was to
continue down the SW path Corridor to Odana golf course and out to Odana
Rd. The latter offered the option for MG&E to build an official access
path through the Odana Golf Course parking lot at MG&E expense. My wife
and I attended meetings and advocated for the latter option. That path is
now complete and the Grand opening is September 26 at 8:30 am. Again, I
think I had a hand in making this happen.
On the PBMVC I have fought for the following projects/issues: a two
lane Old Sauk Rd. (lost that battle); an as yet unbuilt overpass of the
Beltline to the Junction Rd. neighborhood; a ped./bike friendly grid street
system in new developments that connects to the existing neighborhoods;
additional crossings of the west Beltline to provide a better
transportation grid for peds, bikes, & motor vehicles in west Madison;
plowing of the SW path to the full width of the path; the Blackhawk path
that Shorewood Hills was reluctant to build (completed in 2001); the soon
to be constructed missing link path; the Marsh Road overpass which will
soon be built; reinstatement of sending warning letters initiated by calls
to the speeders hotline; and bikes on busses which began operation in 2000.
I could go on in more detail about a number of other issues but I
think what is clear from Mike's e-mail and this one is that I get things
done. I attend the meetings and have the persistence to see a project
through. I will bring that same sort of energy and persistence to the Bike
Fed Board.
One of the reasons Bill Hauda was proposed as a board member was to
reach out to BFW members in the more rural (nonMadison) areas of Wisconsin
who didn't like the linking of bike issues to planning and transportation
issues. Rather than bring someone onto the board who would like to down
play this linking, I would advocate educating those in the rural areas as
to why it is important to make these links. First and foremost in my mind
is that funding for bike projects is linked to transportation funding.
Second, the relative bike friendliness of rural areas won't be maintained
if we don't plan to maintain it in major transportation and development
projects. This is especially true in rural areas next to fast developing
urban centers.
At 9:23 AM -0600 9/9/03, Steve Tudisco wrote:
>Mike,
>
>Thanks for your perspective on the situation. I've
>only been in Madison for 3 years so some of the
>history at the bike fed is news to me. I must say
>that the only thing I read in Mark's email is all the
>bad things that Bill has done. What I have not heard
>is what good things Mark has done. If the only
>information I have is that Mark has a negative
>campaign against Bill but has not stated anything that
>he (Mark that is) has done good or will do then why
>should I vote for Mark? All I have seen is a smear
>campaign from Mark; I would like to hear something
>positive from him before I would vote for him.
>
>Cheers,
Mark N. Shahan ------ __o
607 Piper Drive ------- _`\<,_
Madison, WI 53711-1338 ---- (*)/ (*)
(608) 274-9367
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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