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Most of the Autumn Ridge Path will open by September. The pedestrian and bike bridge over Highway 30 is expected to be completed by 2025.
Construction on a new bike path that will connect northeast Madison to downtown will start this month, with the majority of the path expected to be open for use by September. The new path, called the Autumn Ridge Path, will run from Milwaukee Street to Commercial Avenue and include a roughly $5 million bike and pedestrian bridge over Highway 30 near Thompson Drive.
Project manager Aaron Canton tells Isthmus that residents will see the bridge over Highway 30 start to materialize in “late-summer, beginning in August.”
The new route will provide an alternative to riders who would otherwise have to ride near high-speed vehicle traffic on Stoughton Road or navigate a pair of roundabouts on Thompson Drive. The path will run through Hiestand Park and Stein Avenue before crossing Highway 30 and depositing riders on Commercial Avenue near Ziegler Road and Sycamore Park.
While most of the path will open by early fall, Canton says the highway bridge and its connection to Stein Avenue won’t be completed until January 2025. That could cause periodic lane closures on Highway 30.
“During the majority of construction, Highway 30 will remain open to traffic with at least one lane in each direction at all times, and along the ramps,” says Canton. “The lane closures will be timed to minimize impacts to the traveling public as much as possible, maintaining more than one lane of travel during peak hours when feasible.”
Near the end of construction, Highway 30 will have to close completely for two nights from midnight to 5 a.m. “in order to safely install the prefabricated bridge trusses on the piers,” says Canton.
Once the path is complete, riders south of East Towne Mall will be able to use it to connect to the overpass of Stoughton Road at Portland Parkway, then use Dawes Street to reach the Garver Path and Capital City Trail Path heading downtown. The new path will also connect to future paths envisioned for northeast Madison.
Canton adds that the crossing of Milwaukee Street at Portland Parkway will be improved with signals for bikes and pedestrians in 2025.
