After more than a year of collaboration and review, organizers of the State Street Design Project presented their final vision for the heart of the city Monday night at the Madison Civic Center.
According to planners, additions to the 100 through 600 blocks of State Street and adjacent side streets would include more trees of various species, wider sidewalks and other changes with the aim of creating a less cluttered atmosphere.
\This is a culmination of a lot of great input,"" said Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, principal designer of the project. ""State Street is a really wonderful place. There aren't many streets like this in the country where there's a university at one end and a Capitol at the other.""
Numerous city commissions and committees will now review the plan, which the city initiated in September 2000. After reviewing the specifics, recommendations will be made to the Madison City Council, which will have the final vote. According to Mark Olinger, Madison's director of planning and development, spring 2003 is the earliest date that construction could start.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said the main issue addressed in the redesign project was ""cleaning up State Street.""
""I'm relieved ... the design is something that the community can embrace,"" he said. ""The big issue is how we pay for it.""
The plan's improvements also include new streetlights, bus shelters, bicycle racks, trash receptacles and benches, all with a simple, nontrendy appearance, proponents say.
""No one wanted a design that was so unique and different that it would be obsolete in 10 years,"" Bunster-Ossa said. ""The idea of preserving culture and history ... became very important.""
Planners took the current appearance of Madison's bus shelters into consideration, he said.
""They look like bunkers,"" Bunster-Ossa said. ""I think it'll look more open then it does today, a little more care-free.""
Inspired by the Capitol's stonework and in an attempt to produce an artsy feeling, the plan calls for bands of red granite paving to run longitudinally along the length of State Street. Designers said in the future, the granite bands could be inscribed with quotes from celebrated Wisconsinites or other cultural anecdotes to create a ""living scroll.""
Madison Principal Planner Bill Fruhling said he thought reaction to Monday's meeting was ""very favorable,"" largely due to the public input received throughout the planning process. UW-Madison students, especially those affiliated with the UW Greens, were also involved, Fruhling said.
""There've been quite a few students [involved] ... all from different takes,"" he said.
