Mind the gap...the City replies

Two days after I started this blog and posted about the Ruskin Street bike boulevard proposal, City Traffic Engineer David Dryer replied to the email I sent his office over a week ago. I appreciate the reply, but I don't think it really answered the questions that were asked.

In my email I asked three questions about the proposal:

1. Why, specifically, was Ruskin Street chosen?
2. Is there an overall plan in place for north side bike improvements?
3. What are the City's future plans for bike boulevards?

For the most part, Mr. Dryer's reply reiterates the points he raised at the neighborhood meeting two weeks ago. His answer to the first question is that a Ruskin bike boulevard "fills the gap" in a bike corridor along Sherman Avenue between Aberg Avenue and Trailsway.

This is a detail of our neighborhood from the official City of Madison bike map. Yellow lines indicate a posted bike route, and red lines show roads with bike lanes.

As you can see, Ruskin Street is already posted and mapped as an official City bike route. It already connects to Aberg on its south end. In fact, the only "gap" between there and Sherman & Trailsway is one block of Windom Way - and the proposal says nothing about signing or marking that block.

There is no "gap" that a Ruskin Street bike boulevard would fill. If that's the official justification for the proposal, then there is no real reason for it.

As for the lack of an overall plan, Mr. Dryer states that his department has "general concepts that [it tries] to follow" but there is no official plan for bike improvements on the north side. He does list a number of aspects of a plan, including additional bike boulevards north to Lake View Elementary and west of Sherman to connect Steensland Drive and Warner Park (residents along those streets might be interested to know that!). It's not clear who was involved in shaping those projects or fitting them together.

Mr. Dryer's answer on the City's long-term plan for bike boulevards is frustrating, but honest. He's right to say that his department can do nothing on its own but post signs and mark pavement; policy changes and substantive improvements require bigger processes.

But the fact is that the City of Madison has a document defining bike boulevards as more than just blue signs and bike stencils, and a policy-making committee charged with making that document a reality. Until the City adopts a clear policy on what bike boulevards are and where they're going, my neighbors and I can't assess what this proposal means for Ruskin Street.