Community residents gathered Monday in the first of several meetings to discuss a project aimed at improving the section of Madison’s Brittingham Park along Northshore Drive and Proudfit Street.
The main improvement the project calls for would connect a sidewalk on Northshore Drive to the bike path on the northeast side of the park. The trail would weave through the park space, taking into account the placement of existing trees which the project would not tear down in the process.
Members of the community in attendance expressed the idea that a walkway winding through the park would make the area more inviting.
“It sends the message that this is a public space,” said Mike Sturm, a landscape architect with the City of Madison Parks Division who is working on the project.
Sturm also said the city of Madison has more parks, and more park space, than most cities of its size.
According to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, the city added $100,000 to the 2013 Parks Division capital budget for use in the Brittingham Park project.
Verveer said the project will bring about “very exciting improvements to a very underutilized portion” of the park.
Additionally, Sturm said the pedestrian walkway currently has an estimated cost of $60,000. Part of the walkway would have to cross the railroad, requiring both approval and construction by the railroad company.
The Board of Public Works must eventually approve changes to the park before construction on the project can begin, possibly in fall 2013.
