Next Tuesday, Streets division will present the following report to PBMVC: https://madison.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=3099619&GUID=CAFCCD72-D99C-4F27-A355-161FBCA0A358This report is being presented at the request of one of our alders.
I communicated my concerns over the current state of snow removal operations directly with George Dreckmann this past winter and his responses to me were very dismissive and condescending. This report is filled with excuses and obfuscations and no real proposal for increasing service levels. The only proposal put forward is to increase parking restrictions, which is something the Streets Division would like for their general plowing operations and not primarily to enhance bike lane maintenance. Many of the worst maintained on-street bike lanes are not adjacent to on-street parking. There are absolutely challenges to keeping a curb lane clear and there are absolutely challenges to clearing a bike lane adjacent to parked cars, but there is a lot of improvement that could be had at a low cost. The biggest issue today is that there is no directive to clear these lanes at all. Rather, the last pass on most of our busy salt routes pushes the sludge into the bike lane with no final pass through the bike lane. Having the final pass on these streets include the bike lanes instead of the center line would not require special equipment or new regulations; it would just require a commitment to do it. If you believe that the current state of on-street bike lane winter maintenance is inadequate, I'd urge you to consider writing to PBMVC and your alder and/or attending next Tuesday's meeting. Here is a link to some photos from this past winter: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mbiic/sets/72157642906036274/ And a link to our winter survey results where nearly 60% of respondents called out the poor snow removal from on-street bike lanes as their biggest frustration riding in the winter: http://mbiic.org/2014/03/24/winter-cycling-survey-results/ Grant
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