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Meeting Notes
Project: Monroe Street Reconstruction ERT Meeting
Date: 5/25/16 at the Wingra School Library 5-7 PM
Attendees: Christy Bachmann (City of Madison Engineering), Alder Sara Eskrich, Zia Brucaya, Katie Fadelli,
Robbie Webber (Madison Bikes), Hiam Garner (Monroe St. Merchant’s Assoc.), Aaron Williams (UW Planner),
Peter Armstrong (DMNA), Mary Campbell (interim head of Wingra School)
Zia reviewed the public engagement process for the Monroe Street Reconstruction noting the general timeline:
- The June 13
th
meeting will include a recap the 2014 meetings as well as additional visioning and values
exercises and issues and opportunities mapping
- Summer meetings will be focused conversations based around the 5 main project themes
- September meeting will include a modeling workshop for the creation of the cross section
- By November, the goal is to have a resolution to establish a new cross section
A question was raised whether there would be just one cross section for the entire street. It was clarified that the
cross section refers just to the layout of the street and lane widths. There will be flexibility for the terraces once the
main cross section is decided upon.
The engagement process for 2017 includes:
- Spring workshop on streetscapes and green infrastructure
- Summer workshop on placemaking nodes (i.e. the flatiron corner by Trader Joe’s)
- And a wrap up celebration and open house in the fall
In general, our goal for this public engagement process is to receive informed, actionable input from the
public to foster a sense of ownership and support of the final outcome.
After discussion of the role of the ERT in this process, it was noted that Ben Yahr, from Friends of Lake Wingra,
and hopefully someone from both Edgewood and the Vilas Neighborhood Assoc. would be joining the group. It
was decided that these meetings will be held regularly on the 4
th
Wednesday of the month at 5 pm. Urban
Assets will reach out to Barriques to reserve their meeting space for this time and will then send a calendar
invitation out to the group. The first will take place on June 22 at 5 PM. The group agreed that it would be
beneficial to anticipate which local groups will have strong opinions about the project and to make sure that these
groups will all be covered by someone in the ERT.
The next agenda item was to review the plan for the kickoff meeting on June 13th. Zia explained that it is
important to honor the time and effort that has gone into the process already, but it is also important to hear
refreshed ideas and get a new idea of what the definition of success is for the community, since it has been two
years. She asked the BRT whether they thought this review of the past project would be redundant. It was
generally agreed that a review of the 2014 process would be important to review to inform people who have not
been involved and to show that this is a continuation, not a restart, of the process. For example, sharing the
results of the post-it mapping of positive and negative feelings from the 2014 meetings. However, the review
should be actionable so those already involved won’t be bored.
Peter asked what we can learn from issues surrounding the Jenifer and Williamson St. reconstructions. Zia noted
that getting this early start on the public engagement process will already help to work through a lot of the
challenges that the Jenifer St. project faced. Christy noted that many of the difficulties with that project emerged
because the neighborhood didn’t agree with city-wide policies and used the project to combat the policy. Alder