Tony and the gang will have an opportunity to show sensitivity and safety by providing a well-marked/signed detour when the Capitol City Path is closed between the Goodman Center and Starkweather Creek (Olbrich gardens) this August. The SASY Neighborhood Association Transportation Committee have offered suggestions to the planned detour to help the City efforts. Let's see how that works.
Lance Green Biker and serves on SASY NA Transpo Committee -----Original Message----- From: bikies-request <[email protected]> To: bikies <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, May 7, 2015 5:05 pm Subject: Bikies Digest, Vol 79, Issue 7 Send Bikies mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Bikies digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Notice of closure of John Nolen Path in Law Park (Fernandez, Anthony) 2. Re: Notice of closure of John Nolen Path in Law Park (Robbie Webber) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 21:49:32 +0000 From: "Fernandez, Anthony" <[email protected]> To: 'Robbie Webber' <[email protected]>, Michael Lemberger <[email protected]> Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "Langer, Scott" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Bikies] Notice of closure of John Nolen Path in Law Park Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Friends, This explanation will probably not satisfy many people, but I think the many questions and considerable inconvenience deserve a reply. First, the lack of public advance notice. We planned the schedule for this project many months ago, based on avoiding important events which use the path or stage in Law park. We hoped to do a lot of advance notice when the start date drew near. As it turns out, a major event (Bike Week) had a different date than we originally planned for, which forced us into last minute discussions with the Contractor on advancing the start date to avoid it. With excellent cooperation from the Contractor we were able to advance the date so that we can re-open the path for Bike Week. But we only knew that a few days ahead of the actual start. We posted a notice (plus emails, Twitter, etc) on BikeMadison website, to the Bikies listserve, and to the Bike Fed, asking them to spread the word however they could. But we realize that many people were not aware, and we sincerely apologize for the lack of notice. The bigger issue, or course, is the lack of a designated alternate route. Our only real alternative in this regard was to close a lane of John Nolen Drive to create a temporary two-way bike path in the street, accommodating bikes and pedestrians. We did not feel we could create a safe situation without installing temporary concrete barrier between the street and the temporary path. This would narrow John Nolen to one lane inbound at North Shore and would make it very difficult or impossible to safely accommodate right turns into the Convention Center. Given the great expense, the relatively short duration of the path project, the major impact on many thousands of vehicles and possible loss of access to the Terrace we chose not to do this. But only after considerable discussion involving both City Engineering and Traffic Engineering. Many will not agree with this decision, but we feel it was the correct one. Next we considered a temporary path through the Park. Because of several ?pinch points? and the fact that we are reconstructing ramps at both Broom and North Shore, there simply is not a continuous corridor that could be made even close to meeting reasonable path safety standards, let alone ADA handicap accessibility standards. We wrote our contract specifications requiring the Contractor to maintain pedestrian access to the park, knowing that some would choose to walk, walk bikes or even ride bikes on the grass. But there was no way to provide a continuous, safe, hard surface that would safely accommodate the higher speeds of bikes. It would be irresponsible for us to create something unsafe and then direct bikes to use it. Finally, the question of providing a marked detour. Since the ?official? alternate route is the street network, and we have to accommodate both bikes and pedestrians, we did not see a practical way to create a marked detour. There is plainly no simple, direct alternative which would serve the majority of users. Depending on the type of user and their confidence level, some would want to use the bike elevator and others would use Wilson Street / King Street (from/to the East). And depending on destination people would use different streets west of MLK Street. No matter what route we marked, a large percentage of people would choose a different route, including walking through the park to avoid the detour altogether. Again after discussion we decided it best to allow users to choose the alternate route that best suited them. This, by the way, is quite normal for street closures, and the great majority of the time we close a street for reconstruction we do not provide a mark ed detour. Other times there is a marked detour, though often for jurisdictional reasons it is not the route that most people would actually use. Marked detours are not a panacea, and would have served very little purpose in this case. We realize how much inconvenience this project is causing, and also that mistakes were made in implementing the closure. But I wanted to let people know that we try to make these decisions thoughtfully and with a strong commitment on the part of the City staff to all modes of transportation, including biking and walking. The good news is that the work is progressing well and people will probably be pleased with the improvement. Meantime, please use a lot of caution in the vicinity of the construction and make sure if using the Park to not impede the Contractor and delay the completion. Thanks for your patience and cooperation. Tony Fernandez [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> voice: 608-266-9219 fax: 608-264-9275 From: Bikies [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robbie Webber Sent: ************************
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