DART Project Areas
DART seeks to reframe greater Madison’s transit debate while rethinking our region’s relationship with the automobile. We want to help the community envision, in an immediate and intuitive way, why transit matters and how access to good transit can make everyone’s daily lives easier and happier. That project is part of a more general effort to imagine how making our transportation system, and the neighborhoods and communities it serves, less dependent on the private automobile can provide all of us with greater mobility and better access to the places, activities, goods and services important to us.
DART’s work in the coming years will focus on these main areas:
Moving Beyond BRT
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system now under construction and the bus network redesign now being implemented in conjunction with BRT are important steps toward transforming Madison Metro bus service into a regional rapid transit system. But these developments mark the beginning of a new chapter in Madison-area transit, not the end. The task now is to keep that progress moving and to build on it, addressing the new challenges such a transformation generates and thinking about what comes next. This includes improving and expanding BRT and the bus system in general, exploring a possible role for rail transit, and pursuing new and better ways to organize, administer and fund a regional transit system. The Dane Transit Coalition project is DART’s contribution to such efforts.
making tracks to madison
DART is encouraged and excited by renewed plans to restore passenger train service to Madison. While “high speed rail” is a worthy long-term goal, the most immediate need is for conventional train service that’s fast, frequent and well connected with greater Madison’s urban core. That begins with a well-thought-out extension, to Madison, of the Amtrak “Hiawatha” service that currently runs between Chicago and Milwaukee, supported by a Madison train station that is as centrally located as possible and that enjoys good local transit, bike, and pedestrian access. Toward these objectives, DART will actively monitor, and help coordinate community participation in, the city of Madison’s passenger train station study and related planning processes.
less driving by design
Planning that assumes almost everyone will drive all but ensures that everyone will need to. DART is committed to challenging that self-fulfilling assumption and to making sure greater Madison’s development, and the transportation infrastructure that supports it, expands opportunities for people to get around without a car and reduces the amount of driving people have to do. This includes supporting and building on the transportation demand management (TDM) and transit-oriented development (TOD) initiatives now being implemented in Madison, and working to extend those principles to neighboring communities. DART will engage with city, county, and regional planning processes to advance these commitments and bring innovative ideas from around the nation and the world to bear on the local conversation about transportation planning and neighborhood development.
putting pedestrians first
As greater Madison makes progress with respect to buses and bikes, it also needs to take stronger strides on behalf of those on foot—which means everyone, including those who’ve just parked the car, gotten off the bus, or stowed the bike. Pedestrian safety is paramount, but it’s only the beginning. We need to make walking not only safe but convenient and inviting by designing it into all our road and transit development efforts and by making the quality of pedestrian facilities and the pedestrian experience a neighborhood planning priority. This may or may not mean turning more streets or districts into pedestrian-only precincts, but it certainly means making sure all of them are pedestrian-friendly and pedestrian-supportive “complete streets.”
Like these ideas—or want to discuss them some more? Consider joining the DART Facebook Group and/or joining DART (and its email list) as well as following DART on Facebook and on Twitter—all ways of engaging, through DART, with Madison-area transportation issues. Help DART help greater Madison become a place where everyone can get where they need to go and do what they need to do without needing to own a car.