Speak up or the Badger Bus depot comes down!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

From an email on the listserve of the Madison Peak Oil Group:

The city of Madison continues to slouch toward loss of its only bus depot, and letting "the market" decide haphazardly the future of any rail and intermodal connections with the buses. City officials, committees, and the UW seem to be equally passive. Meanwhile, Gov. Doyle was in Chicago yesterday to say we're all ready for trains from Chicago, Milwaukee to Madison, the money is there, and please come Olympics. Badger Bus Company is making decisions in its own interests and moving ahead with a rapid redevelopment/conversion of its depot to new apartment buildings on its site. Their plan will formally be submitted to the city on April 15th we expect, and all city approvals will be in place lickety-split by July. Our bus depot, and some big options for rail, will be gone by July unless the public begins to question it.

Please consider giving a short statement at the next Long Range meeting in the middle of this month. Members of the public get 3 minutes at the beginning of the meeting. Last week there was some useful testimony on the Badger Bus. This agenda will include time for the committee members to delve into more discussion on the topic. It's especially useful to come since there may be two new Alders on the committee (after the election today), so a refresh and expansion of our concerns is in order.

Long Range Transportation Planning Commission
Thursday, April 16
5:00 pm

Meets in the Madison Municipal Building (one with the post office) on 215 MLK Jr. Blvd. Usually meets in Lower Level, Room 110, but last time met on the 3rd floor, so if you don't find it on the lower level, ask around.

One cluster of issues to discuss include the Badger Bus and what are the options for intermodal transportation hub in Madison (particularly something downtown is needed)? FYI, there is NO plan for Greyhound buses, and UW says they don't have room for them to stop at Memorial Union...will there still be a bus to the Twin Cities, or can't you get there from here??

The other main cluster of issues is around the subject of Hi Speed Rail coming to the Airport (or to elsewhere in the city). The LRTPC seems to think it has no right to advise the Plan Commission on some of these subjects (?). We need to check in with the LRTPC on 4/16 also to see if they've gotten further information from
city traffic engineering, as they said they would, on all these plans to use Langdon outside the Union for all Badger Bus originations (as well as Van Galder, the campus buses, etc.) -- it's getting crowded!

Also look for an article on this subject this THURSDAY [April 9] in The Capital Times.