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Transportation Commission approves updates to Complete Green Streets Guide
Summary
The Transportation Commission voted unanimously to adopt staff-recommended updates to Madison's Complete Green Streets Guide, including expanded equity priority areas, clarifications on street-zone measurements, and a new section addressing how narrow neighborhood streets can meet fire-code requirements.
The Madison Transportation Commission on a unanimous vote approved staff-recommended updates to the Complete Green Streets Guide, a city design and policy document that directs how streets are sized and treated to support walking, biking, transit and greener infrastructure.
The guide changes include adding two neighborhood resource team areas to the equity priority areas, clarifying how travelway and parking widths are measured, adding buffered bike lanes to the list of preferred bikeway options where space allows, and a new section describing design options that allow narrower neighborhood and mixed-use streets to meet applicable fire-code access for larger apparatus while maintaining traffic calming.
Renee Callaway, assistant director of traffic engineering, who led the update, told the commission the update was timed as the first formal review called for in the original approving resolution and reflected experience from five reconstruction projects carried out in the first 18 months since adoption. Staff also recommended minor editorial and map updates to reflect area plan changes and the late-July subdivision ordinance update.
During public comment, Nicholas Davies of Richard Street urged inclusion of options that incorporate dedicated bike facilities on low-volume streets, saying adding bike facilities “can be a powerful technique to meet that minimum width requirement while discouraging reckless driving.” Callaway and commissioners discussed technical clarifications, including whether pavement measurements exclude gutter pan and how parking width is accounted for in the flex zone.
The guide adds a clarifying footnote about neighborhood yield streets with few or no driveways and a footnote clarifying space needs for transit buses on constrained streets. The new fire-code alignment section describes several options staff developed to allow taller buildings and mixed-use neighborhood streets to achieve the guide’s narrow travelway goals while providing emergency apparatus access; staff proposed a small adjustment to option 5 to widen the sidewalk where cars may be backing into parking spaces.
A motion to approve the staff-recommended changes was moved by Robbie Weber and seconded by Alder Martinez Rutherford. Seeing no hands to oppose or abstain, the chair declared the motion carried.
Staff indicated next steps include graphic cleanups, posting the revised document to the city website, notifying staff users, and returning with a finalized all-ages-and-abilities bikeway network later this year or early next year. Callaway also noted the commission and Board of Public Works will continue to receive periodic implementation updates as the guide remains a living document.
