Mineral Point Road Tree Removal will be on the Transportation Commission Agenda for November 8 at 5:00 pm
postedTransportation Commission - November 8, 2023 at 5:00 pm
Items to be Considered:
Legistar 80605: Approving geometry, plans, and specifications and authorizing the Board of Public Works to advertise and receive bids for Mineral Point Road Widened Sidewalk. (District 9, District 11, District 19)
Public Information Meeting on Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Title: BRT Meeting - Mineral Point Rd. Sidewalk Widening
Date & Time: Tuesday, October 24, 2023 - 5:30pm to 7:30pm
Location: Vel Phillips Memorial High School - Wisconsin Neighborhood Center
Meeting Materials:
Audio excerpt from the October 24, 2023 Public Information meeting at Vel Vel Phillips Memorial High School
Renee Callaway, City of Madison Pedestrian Bicycle Administrator: [43:50 minutes] So our next online question is, is a five foot sidewalk as a multi use path, prioritizing vehicle throughput over all other modes consistent with complete green streets and the modal hierarchy? I'll just stick with that one for those who don't know complete and green streets is a guide that we have to help us with designing streets, setting priorities, and thinking about the various trade offs like what we're talking about here tonight. With that has what we call our modal hierarchy, which is basically how do we want to think about the different modes. We have pedestrians at the top follow transit bikes and then moving motor vehicles and parked motor vehicles. What I would say is even with a guide like that, you have a street like Mineral Point Road.. it's transit priority. It's on the all ages and ability bike network. We looked some areas are within the tree priority area. It's also a truck route, so it has a lot of competing issues and even with complete green streets, there isn't one easy answer to how to make these tradeoffs. So that's part of why we're here tonight and we're talking about them and really trying to get some community input as we move forward to finalizing the tradeoffs on this project real quick. And now I'm handing it to Ian.
Ian Brown, City of Madison Forester: [45:21 minutes] Thank you Renee. I think weighing into the complete green streets model as well is that hierarchy does address tree canopy and the preservation of tree planting space. So in this case, specifically next to the quick trip, the growth of that bike corridor, pedestrian corridor would come at the expense of trees. So, like Renee was talking about, growing the use of that path. If there is no tree canopy there and that green strip were to be narrowed, we could not plant a large canopy tree. As the forester, and I will admit that I'm biased on this, but I would argue that recreating along or transiting along that path in 95 degree beating sun is not all that pleasurable and we have existing live canopy there. Stormwater interception, a lot of those mature canopy benefits are already in place. That's where I appreciate the partnership of the team in identifying ways that we can actually preserve that canopy that took decades to grow rather than talking about, let's remove it and replace it and we'll wait another 40 years. Well after I'm long and gone to hopefully have something like that similar in the future. It's a gamble that we don't really want to take, so we want to try and preserve what we have.
IN THE NEWS:
City reducing number of trees slated for removal for bus rapid transit in Madison
Evan Bolin, WKOW Channel 27, October 24, 2023
" The City of Madison is working to reduce the number of trees that will be taken down on Madison's west side as part of the bus rapid transit (BRT) project."
15% of some Mineral Point Road trees would be cut down, replaced by BRT sidewalk project
Lucas Robinson, Wisconsin State Journal, Oct 25, 2023
"All the trees would be replaced and eventually improve the road’s canopy cover thanks to soil improvements over the next 10 to 15 years, city officials told a public meeting at Vel Phillips Memorial High School on Tuesday night."
Fewer Trees To Be Removed On Mineral Point Road For BRT Expansion
Sara Gabler, WORT 89.9 FM, October 26, 2023
"At a public meeting on Tuesday at Vel Phillips Memorial High School, city officials explained their goal of retaining as many mature trees with large canopies as possible. In response to public input, the city reevaluated how many trees need to be removed. Now, between 28 and 36 trees could be removed, fewer than the 66 which were incorrectly marked. At that meeting, “City staff recognized that there was a miscommunication, an internal miscommunication. It’s a big project, a lot of departments were involved, and not all of them were keeping in communication” says Alder Tishler."
Alder William Tishler
District 11
Contact Alder Tishler