This mural, by local artist Taylor McAda, is one of several recently painted on the 400-600 block of State Street as part of the pedestrian mall experiment.
The slogan — “Flock to State” — and flamingo-filled art recently painted on the pavement leave little doubt about the high hopes city officials have for their plans to temporarily close the 400 through 600 blocks of State Street to vehicles.
“The biggest thing is, we want to see people down there,” city planner Dan McAuliffe tells Isthmus. “We have a limited number of really great public spaces, and we want to do what we can to make those places even better.”
The city’s pedestrian mall experiment, which launches May 8, prohibits all vehicles and opens this strip of State Street to allow pedestrians and bikes to roam freely, as they do on Library Mall.
The opening comes just in time for the visiting crowds of graduation weekend.
“We know that people are coming into town, and not everybody’s coming in on Friday. We’re trying to create a series of really cool opening events,” says McAuliffe. That also includes the Madison Central Business Improvement District’s first night market of the year on May 9, and UW commencement over the weekend.
The pedestrian mall will be in effect after 3 p.m. on weekdays and after 10 a.m. on weekends. McAuliffe says the city went door to door to State Street businesses to determine hours for the mall that wouldn’t interfere with deliveries.
The experiment will run into October, or until snow starts falling and plowing is needed. The city will be collecting data to measure the experiment’s success, and reporting back to the city council in the fall to determine whether to keep the pedestrian mall in future years.
“Part of it being an experiment is, you don’t know what you don’t know,” says McAuliffe. The city will use existing pedestrian counters on State Street and may use anonymized cell phone data to determine how many use the mall, how it compares to previous years, and when the most people visit.
The city will also survey businesses to determine whether they think the pedestrian mall experiment is translating into higher sales, and visitors to find out what people like or dislike about the experience.
Hundreds of Madisonians, including Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, participated in painting the street ahead of the pedestrian mall’s launch, with flamingos prominent throughout much of the artwork. City staff have been moving in new sculptures, benches and planters to the street and are planning performances and other programming throughout the summer. Buskers will also have a new place to perform where Frances Street intersects with the mall.
City buses previously ran on the 400 to 600 blocks of State Street, but the buses were re-routed when the Madison Metro system was redesigned last year.
