Lake ice status.

I'm sorry, but when you start with "It's easy for historical narratives to highlight the grand and powerful" and that leads you to the conclusion that we need to tell the stories of "upper middle class families" like manufacturing company owners you may be missing quite a few stories.

The 2025 report details progress producing housing in Madison, leading to an improved rental vacancy rate, but demand still outpaces new supply as land and construction costs continue to rise. Those factors continue to limit housing choice across Madison, especially for low-income households.

Blurred Rapid Transit.

Rainy morning on the tow route. (Thank your local parking enforcement officer — they’re keeping the streets moving!)

We got a thing with our names on it for being good at Transit Signal Priority tonight. 🎉🚍🚦

Cheese curds, buses, people.

A D bus passes the James Madison Park boathouse on the frozen Lake Mendota.

Articulated facade?

Whatever data one maps, Madison looks like Madison.

I've been looking at the LA28 logo a lot more than usual over the last few weeks and I had some questions. Once I show you the problems with having 50+ variations of a logo, this information will haunt you for the next two years as you see these graphics spattered across the city

Pulling forward just far enough to annoy all the drivers.

This week in the difference between theory and practice: "The city is divided into five quadrants."

Exploring this weekend, seeing how much a few signs would improve our path network.

Congrats to BART rider and Oakland legend Alysa Liu on winning a gold medal at the Olympics and making the Bay Area proud!

We all know about rail-to-rails, but here's an example of the much less common rails-to-sharrows. (East Wilson Street, Madison; the Milwaukee ran down the street for two blocks here and that's now a bike boulevard, but the rest of the right-of-way is the Capital City Path.) 1966 photo by Rick Burns.

The next version of “Trains, Buses, People” (whenever that is) will actually be taking some systems out of the book, which is a bit startling.

The best way to get to Olbrich Botanical Gardens is by bus (or bike.)

A day in the 50s after a cold spell brings people out onto the ice.

This is shortline railroading: a train of four cars, probably bound for 3 different industries. It's the "last mile" connection from a transcontinental rail network to small town businesses and a remnant of a time where railroads carried just about everything to just about everywhere.

The former C&NW (now Wisconsin & Southern) and the former Milwaukee (now a bike path) on the Isthmus in Madison.

The nearest major alternate airport is Albuquerque, 4 hours away. Is there a precedent for a US metro area just being cut off like this with no reason given? (San Juan got shut down in similar fashion, but not for 10 days.)

@chittimarco.bsky.social Winter Olympic Q: Is there a reason why so few Italian ski towns have rail service? That side of the alps seems much less train-connected than Switzerland (obviously), but also France, Germany, and Austria. Historical happenstance or something about Italian rail history?

Since we're crayoning: Here's a challenge. Pick a metro area. You can build 10 miles subway, 20 miles elevated rail, or 40 miles at grade (street, freeway, rail ROW) rail (or any suitably weighted combination.) Where do you put it for max ridership? How do you adjust the bus network to work with it?

Some questions I ask whenever I see a crayon like this:

One of my favorite things about Madison is how much people love gathering outdoors. This is 17 degrees atop an ice-covered lake for the Frozen Assets Festival.

Walking a dog on a lake, sunset.

(If you don’t want to be remembered as a sex pest, maybe DON’T BE A SEX PEST. It’s NOT HARD, lots of people manage it.)

ice fishing at dawn.

Wisconsin & Southern crossing Lake Monona, Madison.

midwinter.

One year ago

Unity Ride in memory of Alex Pretti, Madison.

BRT accesses homes, jobs, education, shopping, and of course the first amendment.

The best first mile / last mile transit technology even invented is a good sidewalk. That’s how all the world’s successful transit systems work.

This week Madison Common Council unanimously opposed any expansion of the Beltline freeway while supporting new connections between neighborhoods. With every project, we're making a decision about what kind of city we want to be. This is an important one. madison.legistar.com/LegislationD...

"Rob Jeffris moves mountains. You may recognize him from the dim cab of a Madison plow truck, where he’s spent the last three years clearing the city’s streets in 12-to-16-hour shifts."

Achievement of the day: got a room full of businesspeople to applaud parking enforcement officers. (We need them to keep the streets functioning! And it's a hard job in a Wisconsin winter!)

This is not a "possibility," it is very, very obviously what's currently happening. The only reason people in power want to view it as a possibility rather than an ongoing fact is that they are scared of the implications. If it's the latter, they have to *do* something. History calls. It's scary!

The halls of power.

East Washington Ave., Madison.

It is blatantly obvious that Alex Pretti should be alive and Greg Bovino should be in prison.

I wrote something for Politico about the real issue with Greg Bovino's overcoat. IMO, it isn't about whether the overcoat is tied to any particular regime, but about how immigration enforcement has become increasingly warlike in terms of strategy, discourse, and dress. 🧵

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

Milwaukee.