I attended the Downtown Madison Inc. monthly "What's Up" breakfast at the Madison Club to listen to the featured speakers, who were representatives from Madison's sister city, Kassel.
I am a firm believer that Madison, especially with its geographical limitations (e.g. isthmus), needs a comprehensive public transportation system that includes light rail, express buses and park-and-rides. Anyone who regularly takes the Beltline or East Washington knows how much more traffic is on those streets compared to just five years ago. Plus, gas prices will only continue to rise (in Kassel, one gallon cost $9.40!).
Kassel has a population of 195,000. It has an integrated transportation system that links intracity transportation to regional transportation via trams, regio-trams, trains ans buses. Thus, residents of Kassel and its suburbs are able to get anywhere within the city and outside of it using public transportation.
We must be forward-thinking. Gas prices will continue to soar. The population of Dane County will exceed 580,000 by 2030. We can't just keep building roads like the North Mendota Parkway.
It's funny that outlying communities like Waunakee and Sun Prairie are opposed to the light rail, since it's the residents of those suburbs who are clogging the roads now. True, the first line won't hit every 'burb, but they eventually will! It just takes a bit of patience and seeing the bigger picture.
Really, a half-cent sales tax in Dane County is not a big deal. And people who complain that they have to pay for something they won't use forget that our taxes pay for a lot of things that not everyone uses.
I could fill up pages and pages worth of benefits a regional transportation system would provide, but I won't. Hopefully, if everything goes well, we will have our light rail operational by 2013.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
As always, errors on madison.com
For those who read madison.com every day, you know that there are many problems with the site, including broken links, down time (esp. when the Cap Times stories are being uploaded), and generally lots of problems that a competent Webmaster could easily fix. Check out today's error.
Notice something? The headline should actually read "The Trail that Led to Adam Peterson." The word "lead" was mistakenly put in the headline.
I know from past experience that 1-2 copywriters read each story, then the section editor. That means that 2-3 people saw this headline and thought it was correct. Did any of you go to Journalism School? I'd like to see madison.com go one full week without any errors, either writing side or technical side.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Up yours California; Wisconsin still tops in dairy
I think it's a testament to Wisconsin that its cheesemakers won 27 out of a possible 77 best-in-class awards at this week's 27th biennial World Cheese Competition at the Monona Terrace. The 27 awards are more than any other state or country won.
How many awards did Wisconsin's so-called rival California win? Just three. And they are so bold as to proclaim that "Happy cows live in California." Well, the truth is that only abused, beaten cows live in that state.
How many awards did Wisconsin's so-called rival California win? Just three. And they are so bold as to proclaim that "Happy cows live in California." Well, the truth is that only abused, beaten cows live in that state.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Billboard Word Scramble Solved
Have you seen the billboard with the word scramble on Atwood Avenue? (I'm sure it's at other locations around the city.)
A while back it started as just blanks, but now it reads:
CAS PONC
SORNOKS TILC
The trick to solving these is to look for letters that are not commonly used, like "K," and pair them with another letter. Thus, I tried pairing the "K" with "C" and "R". Then, you have to figure out the longest word, which in this case is seven letters. I noticed an abundance of "S"s, so I thought maybe two of them would be next to each other. Eventually I got:
NON STOP
CLASSIC ROCK
A while back it started as just blanks, but now it reads:
CAS PONC
SORNOKS TILC
The trick to solving these is to look for letters that are not commonly used, like "K," and pair them with another letter. Thus, I tried pairing the "K" with "C" and "R". Then, you have to figure out the longest word, which in this case is seven letters. I noticed an abundance of "S"s, so I thought maybe two of them would be next to each other. Eventually I got:
NON STOP
CLASSIC ROCK
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Fog-related accidents on I-90
What a terrible series of accidents today on I-90 just east of Madison. If you didn't already know, two separate accidents (one eastbound, one westbound) led to pile-ups of 30+ vehicles and at least two deaths. It was reminiscent of about five years ago when there was a multi-car pile-up on I-43 between Beloit and Milwaukee. In this case, there were many other troubling factors that I think could've helped the situation.
1) Lack of communications. I was lucky to just catch a two-second blurb on the radio about the accident and the road closure at about 7 p.m. For a full hour afterward, I flipped through all the radio stations waiting to hear another announcement, but I didn't get anything until I was all the way home. In extreme situations like this, there should be radio announcements every 15 minutes to warn drivers to avoid the area.
2) No signage. I realize the state patrol was busy, but they should have put digital traffic signs before the area telling traffic to exit the Interstate early.
3) Bad drivers. I drove from Madison to Milwaukee at noon, and I cannot believe how many people either didn't have their lights on or used just their parking lights in the fog. Also, too many people were tailgating, and the over-cautious drivers were also screwing things up by breaking too often and fluxuating speeds too much. In fact, bad driving was what led to the accidents, as people were too eager to break, and then a semi that was following too close smashed into them.
4) Meteorologists. I know I always bash them, but jeez, they predicted the fog would end at noon (that's not even close!). Now, they have extended the dense fog advisory until Monday morning. So they were "only" off by 24 hours?!
I wish speedy recovery to all the people involved in the accidents.
1) Lack of communications. I was lucky to just catch a two-second blurb on the radio about the accident and the road closure at about 7 p.m. For a full hour afterward, I flipped through all the radio stations waiting to hear another announcement, but I didn't get anything until I was all the way home. In extreme situations like this, there should be radio announcements every 15 minutes to warn drivers to avoid the area.
2) No signage. I realize the state patrol was busy, but they should have put digital traffic signs before the area telling traffic to exit the Interstate early.
3) Bad drivers. I drove from Madison to Milwaukee at noon, and I cannot believe how many people either didn't have their lights on or used just their parking lights in the fog. Also, too many people were tailgating, and the over-cautious drivers were also screwing things up by breaking too often and fluxuating speeds too much. In fact, bad driving was what led to the accidents, as people were too eager to break, and then a semi that was following too close smashed into them.
4) Meteorologists. I know I always bash them, but jeez, they predicted the fog would end at noon (that's not even close!). Now, they have extended the dense fog advisory until Monday morning. So they were "only" off by 24 hours?!
I wish speedy recovery to all the people involved in the accidents.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Snow Plowing in Madison a Joke
On Saturday, Dec. 1, the Madison area experienced a situation with snow followed by freezing rain. Madison streets superintendent Al Schumacher told the Cap Times, "If we had plowed the snow Saturday, the freezing rain would have gone onto the pavement, and cars would have been bouncing into each other."
I whole-heartedly disagree with the city's choice not to plow on Saturday. Its inaction resulted in a heavy layer of snow topped with ice, a combination very difficult to plow and shovel. The city should have ordered plowing immediately, as well as spread salt and sand to reduce the effects of the freezing rain (yes, I realize no salt and sand were spread because of environmental issues, but I think the land and lakes can tolerate a little salt and sand in exchange for fewer accidents).
Anyone who drove on Saturday or Sunday knows the results: terrible road conditions, cars plowed in on the streets, ice everywhere. This is unacceptable, especially considering neighboring cities such as Fitchburg had clear roads. Those cities did the right thing in plowing early and often unlike Madison, which relies on late and hardly ever.
One other thing that is maddening: The alternate side parking debacle. I think most people don't follow it because they know the city won't plow anyway. For three days cars on my street downtown have diligently followed this rule, but the sides of the street are still not plowed. Meanwhile, the parking enforcers work hard to ticket people--I just wish the plow trucks would word even half as hard.
I whole-heartedly disagree with the city's choice not to plow on Saturday. Its inaction resulted in a heavy layer of snow topped with ice, a combination very difficult to plow and shovel. The city should have ordered plowing immediately, as well as spread salt and sand to reduce the effects of the freezing rain (yes, I realize no salt and sand were spread because of environmental issues, but I think the land and lakes can tolerate a little salt and sand in exchange for fewer accidents).
Anyone who drove on Saturday or Sunday knows the results: terrible road conditions, cars plowed in on the streets, ice everywhere. This is unacceptable, especially considering neighboring cities such as Fitchburg had clear roads. Those cities did the right thing in plowing early and often unlike Madison, which relies on late and hardly ever.
One other thing that is maddening: The alternate side parking debacle. I think most people don't follow it because they know the city won't plow anyway. For three days cars on my street downtown have diligently followed this rule, but the sides of the street are still not plowed. Meanwhile, the parking enforcers work hard to ticket people--I just wish the plow trucks would word even half as hard.
Monday, November 5, 2007
New Bus Shelters at Capitol Loop
For the second time this year, Madison Metro has temporarily re-routed its Capitol Loop routes so that new bus shelters can be installed. If you remember, Madison Metro closed the Capitol Loop for the entire month of August just to tear the shelters down (they were not aesthetically pleasing). But guess what? Some genius forgot to order the new shelters! The bus driver who told the passengers on her bus this was as incredulous as we were. So, after tearing down the older shelters, Madison Metro erected temporary shelters just to cover its ass.
From Nov. 3 until Nov. 18, riders will be inconvenienced once again to go to the outer loop, without the benefit of any shelter. Great job Madison Metro! Way to forgot to order $336,000 worth of shelters!
From Nov. 3 until Nov. 18, riders will be inconvenienced once again to go to the outer loop, without the benefit of any shelter. Great job Madison Metro! Way to forgot to order $336,000 worth of shelters!
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