On 5/8/15 12:13 AM, Melanie Foxcroft wrote:
I think this is another demonstration of why Madison doesn't receive a "platinum" award for bicycling. This disaster is simply not acceptable. The double standard of cars vs. bikes is too much. Hopefully city transportation people will learn from this disaster and do better next time.
The "city transportation people" are the traffic engineers who, after considering the alternatives, have been forced into this decision because nothing else meets minimum engineering standards. We all see the logic of Tony's deliberations and conclusions.
The problem is that an engineering-only approach doesn't solve this problem and that was the end of the discussion. If there were enough political pressure, the discussion could have started out with the *requirement* that the most heavily traveled bike route in the city remain passable during one of the peak months of biking. If that were the case, other alternatives might have been on the table --- for example, staging the project to enable access or closing lanes on John Nolen.
Many on this list will recall the activism opposing of the closing of the Law Park path during construction of the convention center achieved partial success. Tony's sensitivity to the issues shows some things have improved over the past twenty years, but this disaster shows we need more effective activism.
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