Ideas for Downtown Madison

The Downtown Plan contains great goals and big ideas. I am not suggesting that anything be changed, but am offering some additional ideas that either are big and not ready to be accepted yet or small and as such not rising to the level of a planning document.

The big ideas are to recreate a grid of streets downtown and to improve Law Park along Lake Monona, without filling any more of the lake. By continuing to discuss these ideas, my hope is that over time the ideas will be accepted and implemented, and our city will be the better for it. Someone else can take the credit.

James Doty’s plat of Madison laid out the downtown as a grid of streets. In recent history the grid was broken up. The goal of traffic engineers was to move traffic efficiently through the downtown. While this has been accomplished, it makes it much more difficult to get from one place to another within the downtown.

I thought about this one night when I picked up someone near West Main St on Proudfit St to go to play music at the Argus on East Main St. The direct route would have been to go on Main St, but Main St doesn’t go through any more, and I had to take a less direct route.

Try it yourself on a map of downtown. Pick any two spots and see how you would get there by car. For example, start at the Madison Municipal Building on Martin Luther King Jr Blvd and try to get to the Madison Public Library on W Mifflin St. The direct route, if the grid of streets were complete, would be five blocks. However, with our layout of one-way streets and closed streets, you will have to go seven blocks (taking Wilson St to Henry St) or eight blocks (around the Capital Square). As you can see, the maze-like arrangement of our downtown streets makes getting around within the downtown difficult and results in more vehicle miles travelled.

The grid of streets in downtown Madison can be recreated by returning one-way streets to two-way operation, and opening up closed streets. At the same time, efforts should be made to slow traffic and make downtown more pedestrian friendly.

The recommendation in the Downtown Plan of allowing bikers to ride through places such as Mifflin St at the Capital Square is good (and people are already riding through there already anyway). Recreating the grid of streets downtown will help bikers as well as drivers.

I am opposed to any more filling of Lake Monona. Large areas of the lake have already been filled in. The railroad tracks were at the original shoreline of Lake Monona, the rest has been fill. While in the past people didn’t know any better and filled in marshes and lake shores all over the place, now we do know better.

Law Park doesn’t need to be increased in size, it needs to be improved. A small space can be a wonderful place. The parking lot could be reduced in size or eliminated. The park can become an attractive destination by offering boating, food vendors, a playground, and other attractions.

The Downtown Plan is correct in proposing better pedestrian connections to Lake Monona. It is interesting to note that John Nolan’s plan for Madison included covering the railroad tracks where Monona Terrace is now. I support the grand visions that have been suggested for covering the railroad tracks and John Nolan Drive to create a park and better connection to the lake.

However, the cost of covering the tracks and roadway will be huge and may not happen for a long time. In the meantime, we can think of lower cost ways to make the connection between downtown and Lake Monona better, for example making John Nolan Drive more of a city street and less of a highway.

To move forward with a grand vision for the Lake Monona shoreline, I suggest that we collect the many ideas and visions from the community and develop a collective vision. First identify what our goals and priorities are, and the design will follow. For example, goals that we could agree on are pedestrian and bike access to the lake from downtown, a park covering the tracks and roadway, buildings that frame the entrances to the park while allowing views to and from the park and lake, a parking garage underneath the park, and construction of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed boat house.

Many of the successes of downtown Madison have not been bricks and mortar building projects but arts, activities and events such as the Farmer’s Market, Art Fair on the Square, Concerts on the Square, Food Vendors, and so on. We can continue and celebrate these but also come up with creative new ideas to enliven the downtown.

Three ideas that I suggest are tables and chairs, temporary art, and storefront displays. These ideas won’t cost much but will increase enjoyment of the downtown.

Tables and chairs could be put out at selected locations downtown, such as Mifflin St at the Capital Square and the Library Mall. The success of the Memorial Union Terrace is a good example why we should try this.

William H. Whyte wrote about this idea in his book, “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces:” “Now, a wonderful invention – the movable chair. Having a back, it is comfortable; more so, if it has an armrest as well. Chairs enlarge choice: to move into the sun, out of it, to make room for groups, move away from them. The possibility of choice is as important as the exercise of it. If you know you can move if you want to, you feel more comfortable staying put. This is why, perhaps, people so often move a chair a few inches this way and that before sitting on it, with the chair ending up about where it was in the first place. The moves are functional, however. They are a declaration of autonomy, to oneself, and rather satisfying.”

We can continue to allow and encourage temporary art. This art can take many forms. There is the spontaneous type such as street musicians, sidewalk chalk, and “yarn bombing” (covering things with cloth and yarn). There are grants for temporary art through the Madison Arts Commission. The city or others could put up colorful banners, flags, and fabric art.

Better storefront displays will make the downtown more inviting for people. Perhaps there could be a contest for best storefront display.

The worst examples of storefronts in the downtown are Walgreens and CVS pharmacies, who completely cover their windows. Their storefronts are uninviting, don’t draw people into their stores, and don’t allow views in and out of the store (“eyes on the street,” which increases security of the street). Perhaps they could be convinced to improve their storefronts on their own, persuaded that by allowing people to see in, they will be encouraged to come in and shop. If they can’t be persuaded, then they can be forced through city ordinance to improve their storefronts. In fact, when I was on the Plan Commission, we tried to require the new CVS store on West Washington Ave to keep their windows uncovered by attaching a condition of approval to that effect, but they got around the condition by instead covering the windows a small distance away from the windows.

I encourage us to continue to think of creative ideas for more arts, events, and activities downtown. One idea that was suggested to me recently was a “drums on State Street” day. Another idea I thought of was a downtown maze, a race with people having to find their way through downtown on foot or on bike, with many of the streets “blocked off” (maybe blocked by GPS). I am sure there are many great ideas out there waiting to be hatched.

I am hopeful about the future of downtown Madison, despite the setbacks of the scuttling of the high speed rail line to downtown Madison by Walker and the scuttling of the Edgewater and Madison Public Market projects by Soglin. I am hopeful that these projects will again move forward in the future. But I am also hopeful that the downtown will continue to improve incrementally through increased arts, events, and activities and small infill development projects.