ONLINE: Let's Talk Streets
media release: The city of Madison wants to know what you think about the streets you use to work, live and play in the city of Madison. What do you value about our city streets, what worries you and what type of streets user are you? Also, going forward, how can the city best design streets around people?
City staff invites the public to attend one of the upcoming, Let's Talk Streets Launch Events, which will be online sessions:
Tuesday, June 15, 5-6:30 pm (Central Time)
Click here to register
Wednesday, June 16, 12-1:30 pm (Central Time)
Click here to register
The information gathered through the Let's Talk Streets events will help inform Vision Zero moving forward along with other City transportation initiatives.
Registration for the event is also available through Facebook.
About the Project
The city of Madison is currently working on multiple interrelated initiatives in 2021 related to street design and operation. Each of these studies will influence Madison’s streets in the years and decades to come. With significant growth and development, rising concerns about safety, and increased awareness of disparities, we need public input to help us define our community’s transportation values and priorities, in order to ensure that these studies reflect those values.
Streets in Madison move people, but are also our largest public spaces. Neighbors, business owners, bicyclists, transit users, and the health of our streams and lakes all have a stake in how that public space is allocated. Should valuable street space go towards parking or bike lanes? Bus lanes or street trees? Rain gardens or sidewalks with café dining? The answer likely varies in different situations, but how do we make those decisions? The Complete Green Streets project will develop a decision process and tools to help consistently achieve community goals and streamline the decision-making process.
Madison has set a goal of achieving zero traffic deaths by 2030 under the Vision Zero campaign. Vision Zero is an approach—successfully implemented in multiple European countries—that reduces and ultimately eliminates traffic deaths through proven safety strategies. Under Madison’s Vision Zero plan, the City is looking at the street segments with the most severe and fatal crashes. The City will invest in re-engineering those segments to slow vehicle speeds and making intersections safer for people walking, biking and driving. The strategies and actions in the Vision Zero campaign will include ways to eliminate disproportionate impacts of unsafe streets on low income people and people of color.
Traffic Calming and Pedestrian / Bicycle Enhancements
The City’s Transportation Policy and Planning Board and Transportation Commission is looking at combining several funding programs that aim to reduce traffic speeds (think: speed humps and traffic circles) and improve safety and convenience for people walking and biking (think: improved crosswalks with rapid flashing lights, adding green markings and driver speed feedback boards). The current programs are being reviewed to improve equitable project distribution, and to ensure that projects align with the most pressing safety needs.