A recent Dane County Sheriff's department evaluation of Monona has added the entire length of Winnequah Road to the list of "Unusually Hazardous Traffic Areas". This designation is related to high traffic combined with a lack of sidewalks, crosswalks and controlled intersections. This means that the walk zone for Winnequah school will be limited on the west by Winnequah Road.
(A similar evaluation will be done in Cottage Grove after the road project is completed.)
One of the attractive attributes of a community like Monona is that its size makes walking and biking to destinations around town a viable option. I do wish that we had the infrastructure to make this option safer for pedestrians, particularly for kids. I think that safer walking/biking corridors through the city would make it a more attractive and livable place.
What can we do?
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Just so you know, a large majority of the tax payers who live on Winnequah Road, and who attended the series of road reconstruction meetings that occurred before the road was re-built three summers ago, absolutely DID NOT want sidewalks.
Since the tax payer would bear the financial brunt of a project like this I think that sidewalks will not happen here.
The other factor is that many of these people don't want sidewalks because of the maintenance responsibilities that come along with them.
Our city had the chance to re-build this road in a manner that would have encouraged safer, less hazardous driving, but opted not to. There are no round abouts, or other traffic-calming measures that are working.
While the flared "sidewalks" are intended to slow traffic and act as chokers, bikers and runners are merely confused by them, and seldom use them, causing them to veer out into traffic, causing many a near-miss situation with vehicular traffic.
Ah, what to do..........
Our city government doesn't have a clue how to plan anything, they just do whatever the people who scream the loudest at the time say. Getting public input on winnequah reconstruction is fine, but not having a strategic plan about how the city should look and building the road with that plan in mind is unforgivable.
I think we do have a comprehensive plan, but I think it is collecting dust.
But then how is that different than most plans?
"Our city government doesn't have a clue how to plan anything, they just do whatever the people who scream the loudest at the time say."
Maybe this should be moved over to Doug Wood's Monona blog, but you hit that nail on the head. No consistent, strong leadership, but maybe things are getting better. A city council should be responsive to the citizens, but they also need to lead the citizens. Not an easy tightrope to walk. . . but we need to remember that we get the leadership we deserve. We have nobody to blame except the person in the mirror.
Above poster, I get the sense that you think that higher taxes should be forced down our throats to get what you want? More sidewalks?
Is that where you are going with this when you make irresponsible comments about a lack of leadership?
Please remember that leadership includes being a responsible steward of tax dollars and understanding how tax rates affect home owners, saleability, marketability, etc.
Do you think that sidewalks are currently more important than addressing our aging streets and infrastructure?
I would argue that sidewalks won't mean anything when they are constantly being dug up to deal with broken water and/or sewer mains.
And if you think forcing sidewalks on taxpayers is a good idea, particularly when a high percentage of them are elderly (what did that housing study say? something like 60% of our residents are over age 60 or 65?) I think that you are barking up the wrong tree.
Someone told me that this will be a focus of Chad Speight's tenure on City Council. Could make his re-election quite difficult, especially since he only won by 100 votes over another candidate who didn't even campaign!
What is the answer.
What about a big city park on Winnequah drive with sidewalks?
Is that where you are going with this when you make irresponsible comments about a lack of leadership?
Well, no, I don't think sidewalks were mentioned in my post. I think sidewalks aren't worth debating, because they are not practical for the reasons you cite. What I mean is that I fully agree with the sentiment that the squeaky wheels, no matter how poorly informed or ill-advised, always get their way with the council, and that is poor leadership. I think that ridiculous stop sign at Winnequah Road and Monona Drive is a perfect example of a stupid action taken because of relentless neighborhood pressure. But maybe this should be on Wood's Blog?
Okay, I agree.
That stop sign is even more irresponsible than sidewalks would be.
But, that squeaky wheel got himself elected to City Council. So yes, we only have ourselves to blame.
Maybe there will be a different outcome in the spring election.
I live on Winnequah. I attended every public hearing and work session on the redesign. The whole process could only be described as cynical, because the planners and their consultants knew exactly what the outcome would be before we started. We citizens were carefully manipulated to produce the desired result. Every time we made a suggestion for slowing down traffic, such as more controlled intersections, we were told why it wouldn't work. Nor was I, as a property owner, EVER asked how I felt about sidewalks. When we bought our property, we knew that the city had 12-15 feet of right-of-way in our front yard. We would have accepted the city's decision to add a sidewalk, had it been made. I have seen very attractive sidewalks in other communities that wind around trees to protect the landscaping. But nobody asked us, and I doubt any of our neighbors were systematically polled, either. Instead the planners just kowtowed to the handful of sidewalk opponents who showed up at the meetings. The result is a road that nobody is happy with.
"The result is a road that nobody is happy with."
I have to admit-it is better then what we had.
Wow - that wasn't supposed to turn into a city council bash. In the future please take it somewhere else.
I didn't intend to recommend sidewalks as a particular solution, but I will stick with my original statement: finding a way to create strategically located safe walking and biking corridors would improve the desirability and livability of Monona- and done right the benefits would outweigh the costs.
We are a community of a size that you don’t have to drive everywhere, but how can we make the most of that? In a quiet moment we should first dispassionately decide the direction we should take, without linking it to any particular project. Then as projects come up we should make sure they are consistent with that strategic plan.
Has anyone seen any desirable infrastructure elsewhere that we could use as a model here?
P.S. I walk on Winnequah regularly and yes, it is much better than what we had before. I have observed that sometimes the best those in local government can hope for is to make everyone equally unhappy!
What if we painted walking/biking lanes on one side of our streets, and allowed street parking only on the other side of the street? Don't most streets in Monona allow parking on both sides, except for some parts of Winnequah, Dean and Nichols? (and Dean and Nichols already have sidewalks).
Take it somewhere else? Peter, you can't ask this question without examining whether we have the leadership to address a "big picture" issue such as this. We can quack quack about it in this setting, but if we don't have visionary leadership, then what good are these conversations amongst ourselves? The question really is whether or not our city leadership has the will to create a vision for our city where the needs of walkers and bikers are as important as car traffic and that this is taken into account in road design. Look at the Midmoor Road project. Next to Winnequah Rd, this is the main N/S route through Monona. It is the official bike trail, yet, the needs of the bikers and pedestrians on this route was never a consideration. In fact, most of the people who live on that street didn't even know this work was going to happen until this spring. There were no public hearings to gather ideas/input for the design. The public meeting that was held occurred after the design was complete, just weeks before the construction began. The residents were never asked what they wanted. So you can't ask your question without looking at the leadership void.
I disagree. The question of "What should our city look like?" is distinct from "Do we have the leadership or political will to get there?". Let's discuss the first question, not the second.
"What should our city look like?"
Peter, What should it look like?
Do you have a vision that you want to share OR have I grabbed a hold of a worm that does not exist.
You might have noticed that my question was a rhetorical device to distinguish the debate about actual infrastructure from the debate about our city's leadership. This topic is about walk zones in Monona and what might be done to improve them. If you check out the original post you will see that I think developing improved walking/biking corridors would be a benefit to the city.
I like the painting lanes idea from anonymous on 7/1. Paint is really cheep, and easy to remove if a section doesn't work. It also has an effect to slow drivers without cut-outs (like on Winequah).
My concern is that it might not be legal any more. It seems like when cities paint bike lanes now, they always do it on both sides of the street. Does anyone know if this is a law or insurance requirement?
Corridors.
Alright.
Create a trial from the Maywood Park to the pool and library.
I would do the same through Winnequah Park...starting on the other side of lagoon and running to the schools and down through Firemens Park..
The above post is a most excellent idea. Somebody tell Monona Doug.
Maybe someone should tell the new guy that's going to run for Mayor. I bet he would get something going!
And who would that be?
Someone told me that Peter is interested in running for mayor, but maybe this comment belongs in rumors.
However, I get so confused between rumors, myth and truth in this town.
The only other way to handle corridors is that all homeowners along the lake give-up part of their backyard.
It would make a nice corridor.
"Someone told me that Peter is interested in running for mayor,"
Not on your life.
I did live in Minneapolis for several years, and one of the biggest assets of the city was the fact that the lakefront of all the lakes was public park with greenspace, walking and biking paths. The lake front homes were across a boulevard surrounding each lake but were still the most desirable homes in the city.
These public areas are very much used and loved by the residents, its too bad that model wasn't followed here.
""Someone told me that Peter is interested in running for mayor,""
Folks, I heard this at a 4th Party, but heck it could have been someone else.
See, this is why it is very difficult to believe anything heard over the back fence. If you want to know what is happening, then go to the source! If you "hear" that somebody is going to do something, said something, did something, etc. of consequence, please don't repeat it unless you are willing to ring the person up and ask them directly. Otherwise, it's just gossip.
"Otherwise, it's just gossip."
Aggred, that is why I was thinking about posting in that other section that asks for gossip, but chose here.
That's why I started this blog. There is too much mistaken information, gossip and too many unanswered questions floating around. I really hope that people will ask questions here, even if they are unfounded so that we can all get on the same page.
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