Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

Driven in part by high inflation, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway on Tuesday proposed a record $368.4 million capital budget for 2023 that will build bus rapid transit, an “Imagination Center“ at Reindahl Park and support lower-cost housing but provide no new needed funds for the Madison Public Market.

For the $20 million Public Market, the mayor’s proposal continues the current, approved funding levels for the project but includes no additional money to help close a $5.2 million financing gap revealed last week that will, at minimum, delay construction from November until early spring and could threaten the project altogether.

After two-years of study and outreach, but with concerns about connecting to some communities, the Madison City Council early Wednesday pushed forward perhaps the largest changes ever to the city's bus system.

The council, at 12:42 a.m., voted 14-6 to approve a controversial Metro Transit network redesign plan and host of amendments promising to deliver more frequent and consistent service with fewer routes and transfers and better links to outlying areas, and eliminate transfer points and buses from lower State Street.

A redesign of Madison’s Metro Transit bus system is prompting officials in Fitchburg and Middleton to weigh major changes to their bus service, including providing supplemental transit services to fill in possible gaps caused by the redesign.

The dilemma posed by the redesign, which is coming in 2023, is whether those burgeoning suburbs south and west of Madison should gear their bus routes toward “ridership,” which stresses running buses on fewer routes but more often, or “coverage,” which delivers service to as wide an area as possible. Metro Transit provides the buses, but the cities pick the routes.

The Madison City Council adopted Thursday a 2022 budget that leans on millions in federal dollars to cover funding gaps, sets up the start of construction for bus rapid transit and adds about $51 to the average homeowner's tax bill.

On the final day of budget deliberations, council members backed an amendment to modestly expand halfway through next year a recently launched pilot program that dispatches a paramedic and mental health crisis worker to certain nonviolent 911 calls.

Madison’s coming makeover of Metro Transit — perhaps the biggest ever — promises a $166 million backbone of bus rapid transit that will focus service in high-density corridors, reduce service in other areas, eliminate transfer points and reduce traffic lanes on some city thoroughfares.

Although BRT has received widespread support, Downtown businesses and other interests strongly object to routes or stations on Capitol Square and State Street, while some bus advocates contend the city is offering “bogus” alternatives that may siphon money from regular bus routes and prevent the creation of a “first-rate system.”

Work on Madison’s coming Bus Rapid Transit system has been underway since spring, and the system’s bus stations are finally beginning to take shape this week as crews begin putting the steel shelters in place.

Using a crane, workers this week were picking up the pre-assembled tops of the shelters from a flatbed truck and delicately setting them in place on shelters on the West Side.

The city of Madison expects to cut down up to three dozen trees along Mineral Point Road to accommodate Bus Rapid Transit construction on the thoroughfare, providing concerned residents with hard numbers after dozens of trees were marked for removal in preliminary plans.

The city’s plan would preserve about 85% of the trees along a sidewalk widening project between the Beltline and Whitney Way.

President Joe Biden praised Madison on Friday for purchasing 46 electric buses to benefit the environment and public health.

Speaking at the White House to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Biden said that, in addition to large projects like highways and bridges, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been working with mayors to implement smaller climate-friendly projects as well.

Construction for bus rapid transit, the backbone of a complete reimagining of Madison’s transit system, has officially begun, with the earliest scenes of roadwork now dotting East Washington Avenue.

The upcoming months of roadwork will consist of removing curb bumpouts so parking lanes can be used for traffic control once major BRT construction begins next year, said Tom Lynch, Madison’s transportation director.