Tag: wisconsin

WisDOT Active Transportation Plan

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2026-10-03
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The WisDOT Active Transportation Plan is available now. It’s worth a read. I’ve pulled out a few things to highlight here.

WisDOT envisions that walking, bicycling, and other forms of active transportation will be safe, accessible, and convenient for people of all ages and abilities.

On average, people who walk and bike take more trips to local retailers and spend similar amounts when compared with people who drive. Bicycling contributes greatly to the state’s economy as well; In 2022, the total output of bicycle related industries in Wisconsin was over $5.36 billion.

https://outdoorindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OIA_RecEcoState_WI.pdf

Trips taken alone make up nearly 74 percent of all commute trips in the State of Wisconsin. By investing in active transportation infrastructure, Wisconsin communities can offer viable alternatives to short commute and non-commute trips taken alone. Approximately half of all vehicle trips in the United States could be made by bike in 20 minutes or less, and more than one-quarter of all vehicle trips could be made by foot in 20 minutes or less.

There are many benefits to reducing the number of trips taken alone, including:
– reduced traffic congestion,
– reduced vehicle parking demand, and
– increased lifespan of transportation infrastructure.

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Active Transportation Transforms America: the Case for Increased Public Investment in Walking and Biking Connectivity. October 2019.

The majority of motor vehicles produce tailpipe emissions, evaporative emissions (e.g., fuel evaporating in the engine or fuel system), and wear-and-tear emissions (e.g., tire particles, brake dust). These emissions worsen air quality and adversely affect human health. Exposure to traffic-related air pollution has been associated with childhood asthma, respiratory illnesses, and cardiovascular disease, which impacts communities adjacent to high volume highways.

https://www.healtheffects.org/system/files/SR17TrafficReview.pdf

The severity of crashes increases dramatically on roadways with higher posted speed limits, which leads to higher proportions of fatal and serious injury crashes. On roadways with posted speeds of 25 mph or less, 20 percent of crashes result in a serious injury or fatality; on roadways with posted speeds of 45 mph or greater, this rate jumps to 55 percent.

https://wisconsindot.gov/Documents/safety/education/pedestrian/wistudy-pedcount.pdf

Definitions

Active Transportation: Using human-powered means of travel, which includes bicycling and walking, with or without the use of mobility aids, and may also include using other human-scaled or micromobility devices that may be electric-powered or electric-assisted, such as e-bikes and e-scooters.

Complete Streets: Streets that are designed to provide safe and convenient travel for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, riders and drivers of public transportation, as well as drivers of other motor vehicles, and people of all ages and abilities, including children, older adults, and individuals with disabilities.

Rolling: Rolling is an inclusive term that refers to people using other wheeled mobility devices such as wheelchairs, scooters, skateboards, and other mobility aids. Typically used with the phrase ‘walking, biking, and rolling,’ and included in active transportation.

Separated Facilities: A shared use path, side path, or sidewalk that is physically separated with a vertical barrier from motor vehicle traffic.

Shared Use Path: Shared use paths, also commonly referred to as trails or greenways, are paths designed for and generally used by bicyclists, pedestrians, and other non-motorized users. A side path is a type of shared use path that follows the alignment of the roadway.

Vulnerable (Road Users and/or Modes): Non-motorists including pedestrians, bicyclists, other cyclists, and persons on personal conveyances.

I may add more things here after another read through. I occasionally spend time tying to education people about things like how Cars Ruin Cities but most car-brained people tend to think that there is a War on Cars and every bike lane and cyclist is a threat to their way of life.

(Local copy in case the original moves or disappears. WisDOT-ATP-Draft)

Tags bikes, wisconsin

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The Bodgery

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2014-07-06

The Bodgery

There’s a new makerspace in Madison, Wisconsin. The Bodgery is the new home of the Mad City Makers, a group that’s been around for a while, but didn’t have a physical space. Now they do. :)

Of course Madison already has Sector67, so why would it need another space? I had my own ideas about this, but inevitably people started asking me before I got the inside scoop, so I got in touch with Karen and John at The Bodgery and discussed the need for another Madison space. It was pretty much as I assumed; different spaces cater to different audiences. A space (just like a company or any organization) will have a specific culture, a vibe, and a way of doing things that might not work for everyone. I don’t think anyone involved with Sector67 or The Bodgery is concerned, in fact, I think that everyone involved is pleased to see the Maker Movement growing, and the need for another space in Madison.

Right now Milwaukee Makerspace has approximately 170 members, and there’s a projection that we may hit 200 later this year. That may or may not happen, but my own prediction is that there will be a second space, completely separate from Milwaukee Makerspace, within the next 18 months. (I could be totally wrong on this, time will tell.)

In the meantime, I’ve been tracking other Wisconsin spaces on the wiki, and while a new one gets added now and then, we’ve also seen a few disappear in the last 12 months.

Back to The Bodgery… I’ve not yet had the chance to visit, but I do keep up with their antics on Facebook. If you’re in Madison, go check it out! I know for a fact that there are some awesome and friendly people there who are excited about sharing the love of making.

Tags madison, makerspace, wisconsin

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Minority Report

Hi, I’m the minority.

I know that hearing a white male who identifies as a heterosexual saying he’s the minority may sound odd, but that’s how I feel.

There have been rare times in my life I’ve felt like I was in the majority, but overall, I think I’ve been in the lesser half. Most people in Wisconsin love football, and love beer, and use Windows, and voted for Walker, and do all sorts of stuff I don’t do. Life goes on, and that’s fine.

My problem is that I’ve got friends that are not males, and don’t identify as heterosexual, and I don’t think it’s right that they aren’t treated as I am, and are not given the sames rights as I am. I’ve got friends who are teachers, who have made sacrifices because they believe that educating our youth is important, maybe more important than another career that might pay more money.

I feel like those on the right are concerned that someone is getting something they don’t deserve, while my own point of view is that I’m concerned that someone else is being denied something most others get. That “something” being the things I get because I’m a white male heterosexual.

I’m not a greedy person. I don’t live in a fancy house (I don’t even own a house) and I drive a crappy old car that frequently breaks, and I still eat Mac & Cheese and peanut butter sandwiches all the time, and I fine with all that. I guess what I’m not fine with is telling women that they should make less money than I do for the same work, or telling LGBT folks that they can’t have the same rights I do, or telling teachers that they’re lazy and trying to steal my tax money.

Maybe I’m just an optimist, and like to try to see the good in people instead of assuming the worst and living in fear that someone will get more than they should, and by that happening I’ll somehow get less than I should.

So yeah, I’m in the minority again, and that’s fine, because I’m used to it, but I still wish there was a way for everyone be treated equally, and beyond all that, I’ve got one request for you: please don’t be an asshole.

Tags wisconsin

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MakerBot Hands-on

Wisconsin in Sketchup

After seeing the blog post about the United States Electoral Vote Map, I decided I needed to print out a 3D version of Wisconsin. So I grabbed one of the Sketchup files from Thingiverse and deleted every state except the one I live in. (Which, you know, happens to be Wisconsin.)

Wisconsin in ReplicatorG

Once I had our dear state all on its own, I used this “Sketchup to DXF or STL” plugin (download skp_to_dxf.rb) to export it as an STL file so that I could load it into ReplicatorG.

Yeah, I know it’s tiny. But since everything up until now was the easy part, and the actual controlling of the MakerBot and the print process was the (supposedly) difficult part, I decided to start small. Here’s where it gets hard.

See, last week when I had my first MakerBot Adventure, Drew (the owner/operator and fellow Milwaukee Makerspace member) did all the hard work, while I just handed him a file. This time, he wasn’t around, nor was the laptop that normally connects to the MakerBot, so I was on my own.

I wish I could say skimming this wiki page titled How To Print revealed the secrets to the MakerBot universe, but it took a whole bunch of wiki pages, and some Google Groups messages, and some random searching based on error codes, and at some point, I got it mostly figured out. Mostly. (I also had to remember that I was using a Cupcake and not a Thing-O-Matic, as they have a few differences.)

ReplicatorG Control Panel

Ah, the Control Panel… where the magic happens! Or should happen. Or something. All that digging around on wiki pages provided me with just enough info to be dangerous here, and put in some values I thought would work. The one thing Drew said was “As long as you don’t drive the extruder head into the platform, you should be good.” That was enough to scare me into being overly cautious, and my first attempts obviously had the head too high. The other issue was, the feed rate of the filament was zero. I tried really hard not to force things, but eventually applying more pressure got the filament moving. (Thanks Royce!)

One thing I noticed about the Control Panel is that the settings did not seem to stick, and I had to enter them over and over again. (Which is why I’m posting it here.) Besides that, ReplicatorG was fairly easy to use. I’m still not sure how to determine the size of the thing being printed, but I’ll work on that.

So at this point, I had the extruder head down low enough, plastic was flowing, and the platform was moving. That’s right folks… I was 3D printing!!!

And how did it turn out, you may be asking? Well, here’s some amazing images of my first “all on my own” 3D print.

Wisconsin (with quarter, for scale)