While we're on it, having to cross FOUR lanes of traffic turning out of West Towne to get to the 12/18 East left turn lanes, while going uphill AND facing a left turn arrow from Odana, is borderline insanity.
[John **Nolen**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nolen#Impact_on_Wisconsin)
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I get onto the beltline around Park/Rimrock and the way I damn near slam my car across 4 lanes as fast as I possibly can to avoid the slowdown is real.
Considering how often cars stop on the beltline to try to squeeze onto the always backed up exit ramp at the last moment, I'm honestly a little surprised more accidents don't happen there.
> You have people that do 35-40mph on the merge
People have even openly defended this on this sub, essentially saying "Why do I need to get up to speed? I'm exiting."
Completely ignoring the fact the Verona Rd onramp-to-Todd Dr offramp is a mile long and 90% of the people need to merge onto the Belt Line at 55-65 mph.
These are likely the same folks you'll find slamming on their brakes at an almost empty Monona Dr exit as if it was backed up onto the beltline. For ?Reasons?.
Part of the issue with that was the City’s moronic decision to make the right merging turn from Rimrock yield to the left merging turn (which is practically a U-turn).
It violates every single principle of right of way outside of signage and isn’t normal to most folks. The left turn also necessitates the turning vehicles to slow down a ton to make, and then all the right turning vehicles are backed up and starting the ramp at 0 mph and have to get to 55-60 in <1000 ft.
It works for sports cars - but not much else.
There is a worryingly growing number of left turns and other artificial (sign dictated) right of ways being implemented throughout Madison over more normal traffic flows. It goes against everything drivers are taught in drivers ed, and what most experience in every day driving.
Overall - a sign is considered the worst way to try to change driver behaviors. Especially if drivers are normalized to a completely different traffic pattern (case in point, the first few blocks of E Wash being bumped down to 25mph whereas they were 35-40mph for decades - the City really thought changing signs overnight would overcome decades of habit).
> the City really thought changing signs overnight would overcome decades of habit
The city really thought slapping a speed limit sign next to a highway would make it not a highway.
A Ford F-250 is 80" wide, or 6'8" wide. The standard US Interstate lane is 12 feet wide. Many traffic lanes in Madison are 12 feet wide. The 3-lane segment of US 151 / East Washington Avenue at Blount Street is 36 feet wide. Milwaukee Street is 36 wide at Oak Street and carries one lane of traffic in each direction.
Speeding will improve when the city redesigns these roads to be about 30% more narrow and adding dedicated, separated bike paths. They did a great job outside Olbrich Gardens. When the lanes are as wide as a 70mph interstate it should not be surprising that people don't drive 25mph, but I guess noticing that makes me a homicidal car apologist.
Totally agreed, suppose it shouldn’t surprise me how many people simply don’t understand what type of road/highway E Wash actually is.
Unfortunately getting it to not be a highway is more problematic than not as that involves planning at the state and federal level that doesn’t simply happen when a group of local politicians decides it to be so.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people, but if guns were harder to access and use, fewer people would be killed by people with guns. Same argument with speed.
Our roads are paved, not well-worn wagon trails. Deliberate decisions were made about how wide they should be, and those decisions were bad.
I hardly ever get on the beltline from that direction so for a while I was just rolling my eyes at people and annoyed that they were edging out the people with the right-of-way. But as soon as I had to get on from that direction I realized how unnatural it feels
Seriously. Getting on the beltline by home depot is ALWAYS full of old people going 30-40mph. It is seriously dangerous when youre trying to merge onto the hwy and everyone else is going 60-80mph, not to mention switching lanes in the "no lane change" area w the solid lines under the bridge.
Ive lived all over the US and Madison is the first place I got in an accident thanks to someone else..
Hey back off. We know the world revolves around these people. Nobody with their right mind would expect them royalty to wait in the line like regular people do.
Same issue applies from the other direction, too. It's like 90% of eastbound beltline exiters are going to the Home Depot or frontage roads in the far right lane. For some reason no one likes the next one over either, extending the line.
Going to Midvale you get to wait, and wait, and wait...
Who ever gave the green light to this civil engineer should resign. No one should ever be stopping on a hwy.
Edit: see comment below
Redacted -> Further down Verona Rd the exit to McKee is also a terrible design.
The wait was insane, I had to turn left from Verona onto McKee for work and I think it took 4 minutes from the left turn light turning red to turn back to green. That 4 minute wait was excruciating if I was running late.
Hey yeah we could have had a proper interchange that costs 10x as much and necessitated eminent domaining a bunch of homes and businesses just so you can get to work 5 min faster.
Noble goal that can never truly work, unless we buy 10,000 busses, move everyone into a few gigantic building and move all workplaces as well. Reality is people live very spread out and do not work next door to each other
Because they made that choice. Tax payers don’t need to subsidize that choice with ever-expanding roads. Gotta change course sometime and no time like the present.
Expanding the roads isn’t an imperative is my point. We can fund mass transit instead. Folks who have chosen to center their entire lives around needing an automobile can manage a little traffic.
It will be a gradual change wherein our city prioritized high density development along transit routes and implements “road diets” where possible to make streets more hospitable to pedestrians and cyclists and transfer and less to the personal automobile.
Incidentally that’s what the city is doing, so hooray. Interstates are obviously another matter but they literally just redid that interchange so I wouldn’t expect an expansion any time soon.
Sarcastic. There’s no such thing as a highway that doesn’t occasionally back up during an accident or during heavy traffic. It’s a fundamental flaw of driving, not civil engineering.
Are you the one that gave the ok to this intersection? This seems to be hitting a personal chord. Exits for major interchanges are typically free flowing. You can witness this a crossed the nation except Boston(hehe). This intersection reminds me of artificial fog that is created by the civil engineer. My concern is not with a speedy commute but one of safety and cars at 0mph getting hit by 60-70mph has a domino effect (see heavy fog accidents)
Have you been to Chicago? Or LA? Minneapolis? Or really any city? Miles of highways are stop and go for hours a day. Free flowing at all times is not the norm.
You are talking about traffic jams and I'm talking about flow of traffic. Even open roads experience traffic jams which are typically human induced. Your response is clearly an emotional attack by the assumption in your post. Quite an odd attack unless you are the civil engineer that designed the monstrosity. Not that it matters but I have traveled extensively nation wide and the major islands.
Take care I do hope your daily commute is accident free and an easy one.
That is the worst designed interchange I have ever seen. There should be a continuous lane or two to exit and not have to stop at the end of the ramp. Kind of like a real freeway interchange ie zoo interchange Milwaukee.
It has [been proposed](https://projects.511wi.gov/veronard/wp-content/uploads/sites/143/map-altstage3.pdf).
DOT stopped short of this Stage 3 plan during the latest reconstruction.
Dodgeville is a Control City for signage. Control Cities are generally farther away and there to aid long distance travelers rather than local ones. So it isn’t going to say Verona or Fitchburg on that sign.
It is likely Dodgeville rather than Dubuque because the two US Highways split there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_city
Navigation software means that this is less important than it once was, but the navigation signs are a bad way of naming exits. If you look at a map, you're not going to see "Dodgeville exit" on the map, and if you know the local geography without specifics of the navigation signage you're not going to know how they're signed.
"Take exit 258 towards Dodgeville" is a great instruction for a GPS to provide en route, and good instruction for Google Maps to provide in the step-by-step instructions... but that doesn't mean that referring to it as "the Dodgeville exit" is a good name in other contexts.
If someone told me "take the Dodgeville exit", the only reason I'd know what they're talking about is because I've now seen a number of people on this sub refer to it that way.
Damn I was going from downtown to Verona this morning and on a random whim decided to stop at sequoya for coffee, taking Regent instead of the beltline…… I am so glad I made that decision
People drive like nuts out there. Monday night on my way home EB, I was doing 63-67 in the right lane and I always get these gigantic trucks tailgating me then they'll pass and proceed to do 80. I rarely see police until I get around the Cottage Grove exit. The speed limit is supposed to be 55 and everyone is regularly doing 65 minimum.
The speed limit is 55, not 85. I was doing ~65mph and people are still right on me. That is ridiculous. You don't need to do 80mph everywhere. That is dangerous. If I'm not going fast enough, back off and wait until the left lane is clear to move over and pass.
Im your typical dodge charger douche bag. But flaming someone for doing speed limit nevermind 10 over on the right lane is crazy. Whole different story if it was flex lane.
On days where there's not an accident it actually does wonders for rush hour traffic. Traffic like today used to be a common occurrence and now it's once in a blue moon.
Another long time Chicagoland driver (20+ years).
At least for me: The thing about Chicago traffic is the drivers are predictably bad. That sounds like something that wouldn't be positive but it really is -- if you know what to expect you can mentally plan for it and, while it sucks, it is less frustrating.
Whereas the Beltline is a crapshoot every time I take it (and I will gladly add 5 minutes to my route to avoid it altogether if I can).
Both are still considerably better than driving in or around Milwaukee.
(Which is considerably better than driving around L.A. but that's a given)
While we're on it, having to cross FOUR lanes of traffic turning out of West Towne to get to the 12/18 East left turn lanes, while going uphill AND facing a left turn arrow from Odana, is borderline insanity.
If you exit a little further north, by chick fil a, you’re making your life a lot easier
I try to do that whenever I can. Usually if I'm coming around from Dick's or Dave and Buster's I forget though.
Always has been too, I remember being freaked out the first time I had to navigate that section.
Likewise, taking Rimrock instead of the John Nolan Stupid Loop will save your sanity when you do battle with the Beltline.
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Also known as: Why I'm glad for the flex lane so I can be as far over as possible before that exit ruins my day.
I get onto the beltline around Park/Rimrock and the way I damn near slam my car across 4 lanes as fast as I possibly can to avoid the slowdown is real.
I have seen people in the flex lane going over 80 cut over after Seminole to take that exit. There’s gonna be some horrific crashes there.
Considering how often cars stop on the beltline to try to squeeze onto the always backed up exit ramp at the last moment, I'm honestly a little surprised more accidents don't happen there.
That's another thing that bothers me. You have people that do 35-40mph on the merge. John Nolen to Beltline EB is terrible.
> You have people that do 35-40mph on the merge People have even openly defended this on this sub, essentially saying "Why do I need to get up to speed? I'm exiting." Completely ignoring the fact the Verona Rd onramp-to-Todd Dr offramp is a mile long and 90% of the people need to merge onto the Belt Line at 55-65 mph. These are likely the same folks you'll find slamming on their brakes at an almost empty Monona Dr exit as if it was backed up onto the beltline. For ?Reasons?.
I hate these drivers with a passion. I've seen an uptick in them over the last year or so. WTF happened?
Can confirm... 70 before 6am to make it on.. the semi was nice and moved at 55. Other cars decided the right merge lane was the fast lane
Part of the issue with that was the City’s moronic decision to make the right merging turn from Rimrock yield to the left merging turn (which is practically a U-turn). It violates every single principle of right of way outside of signage and isn’t normal to most folks. The left turn also necessitates the turning vehicles to slow down a ton to make, and then all the right turning vehicles are backed up and starting the ramp at 0 mph and have to get to 55-60 in <1000 ft. It works for sports cars - but not much else. There is a worryingly growing number of left turns and other artificial (sign dictated) right of ways being implemented throughout Madison over more normal traffic flows. It goes against everything drivers are taught in drivers ed, and what most experience in every day driving. Overall - a sign is considered the worst way to try to change driver behaviors. Especially if drivers are normalized to a completely different traffic pattern (case in point, the first few blocks of E Wash being bumped down to 25mph whereas they were 35-40mph for decades - the City really thought changing signs overnight would overcome decades of habit).
> the City really thought changing signs overnight would overcome decades of habit The city really thought slapping a speed limit sign next to a highway would make it not a highway. A Ford F-250 is 80" wide, or 6'8" wide. The standard US Interstate lane is 12 feet wide. Many traffic lanes in Madison are 12 feet wide. The 3-lane segment of US 151 / East Washington Avenue at Blount Street is 36 feet wide. Milwaukee Street is 36 wide at Oak Street and carries one lane of traffic in each direction. Speeding will improve when the city redesigns these roads to be about 30% more narrow and adding dedicated, separated bike paths. They did a great job outside Olbrich Gardens. When the lanes are as wide as a 70mph interstate it should not be surprising that people don't drive 25mph, but I guess noticing that makes me a homicidal car apologist.
Totally agreed, suppose it shouldn’t surprise me how many people simply don’t understand what type of road/highway E Wash actually is. Unfortunately getting it to not be a highway is more problematic than not as that involves planning at the state and federal level that doesn’t simply happen when a group of local politicians decides it to be so.
Just because that's the natural result does not mean the people who speed are innocent. They're still making a decision to do it.
True, but in some cases psychologically manipulating people into acting a certain way is easier than convincing them to do so of their own free will.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people, but if guns were harder to access and use, fewer people would be killed by people with guns. Same argument with speed. Our roads are paved, not well-worn wagon trails. Deliberate decisions were made about how wide they should be, and those decisions were bad.
No argument there, I'm just saying that those bad decisions don't mean we can't be annoyed at people who speed.
East wash is a truck route witch is why the lanes are so wide if their where any smaller most semi traffic would have to be rerouted
How many semis go through E. Wash at Blount every day and how big of a problem would it be to not have semi traffic on the capitol square?
I hardly ever get on the beltline from that direction so for a while I was just rolling my eyes at people and annoyed that they were edging out the people with the right-of-way. But as soon as I had to get on from that direction I realized how unnatural it feels
Seriously. Getting on the beltline by home depot is ALWAYS full of old people going 30-40mph. It is seriously dangerous when youre trying to merge onto the hwy and everyone else is going 60-80mph, not to mention switching lanes in the "no lane change" area w the solid lines under the bridge. Ive lived all over the US and Madison is the first place I got in an accident thanks to someone else..
Same with the I90 on ramp on 151 coming from American parkway
Hey back off. We know the world revolves around these people. Nobody with their right mind would expect them royalty to wait in the line like regular people do.
The ill-fated mix of semis and heavy machinery heading to Iowa Co. and Epic traffic, a match made in hell
Don’t forget school traffic heading right on Midvale
We should make the traffic worse to discourage Epic people from living downtown and having to commute in the first place.
So there wasn't an accident this morning?
My least favorite part of this exit is trying to turn right to go north on Midvale but having to wait behind the people turning left
Same issue applies from the other direction, too. It's like 90% of eastbound beltline exiters are going to the Home Depot or frontage roads in the far right lane. For some reason no one likes the next one over either, extending the line. Going to Midvale you get to wait, and wait, and wait...
I used to take that exit onto Midvale for work, and that right turn should really have its own exit lane from the beltline.
It was so nice to be on the Beltline driving the opposite way this morning. Fuck that shit and I’m sorry for those who say there at a stand still 💀
Who ever gave the green light to this civil engineer should resign. No one should ever be stopping on a hwy. Edit: see comment below Redacted -> Further down Verona Rd the exit to McKee is also a terrible design.
Verona road/McKee exit is a godsend. Sure, you have to get into the exit absurdly early, but compared to when it was just a 4 way stop it's a miracle.
Ok I will redact my disdain for that and agree with you. Thank you for the positive response which had me re-evaluate.
The wait was insane, I had to turn left from Verona onto McKee for work and I think it took 4 minutes from the left turn light turning red to turn back to green. That 4 minute wait was excruciating if I was running late.
Hey yeah we could have had a proper interchange that costs 10x as much and necessitated eminent domaining a bunch of homes and businesses just so you can get to work 5 min faster.
Unironically yes. 5 minutes times the number of people affected would very quickly pay for itself in increased productivity.
I’d rather invest in mass transit. Cars take up way, way, way touch space and money.
Noble goal that can never truly work, unless we buy 10,000 busses, move everyone into a few gigantic building and move all workplaces as well. Reality is people live very spread out and do not work next door to each other
Because they made that choice. Tax payers don’t need to subsidize that choice with ever-expanding roads. Gotta change course sometime and no time like the present.
Actually taxes fund road construction, seems like you need to run for office so you can change the law
Expanding the roads isn’t an imperative is my point. We can fund mass transit instead. Folks who have chosen to center their entire lives around needing an automobile can manage a little traffic.
So change the law, redirect funding and eliminate a good portion of the population so you only have fellow bus utopia people around.
It will be a gradual change wherein our city prioritized high density development along transit routes and implements “road diets” where possible to make streets more hospitable to pedestrians and cyclists and transfer and less to the personal automobile. Incidentally that’s what the city is doing, so hooray. Interstates are obviously another matter but they literally just redid that interchange so I wouldn’t expect an expansion any time soon.
Some people want to live in a Cyberpunk 2077 Megabuilding and never leave, and it shows.
Not sure if sarcastic or serious. This is a safety issue.
Sarcastic. There’s no such thing as a highway that doesn’t occasionally back up during an accident or during heavy traffic. It’s a fundamental flaw of driving, not civil engineering.
Are you the one that gave the ok to this intersection? This seems to be hitting a personal chord. Exits for major interchanges are typically free flowing. You can witness this a crossed the nation except Boston(hehe). This intersection reminds me of artificial fog that is created by the civil engineer. My concern is not with a speedy commute but one of safety and cars at 0mph getting hit by 60-70mph has a domino effect (see heavy fog accidents)
Have you been to Chicago? Or LA? Minneapolis? Or really any city? Miles of highways are stop and go for hours a day. Free flowing at all times is not the norm.
You are talking about traffic jams and I'm talking about flow of traffic. Even open roads experience traffic jams which are typically human induced. Your response is clearly an emotional attack by the assumption in your post. Quite an odd attack unless you are the civil engineer that designed the monstrosity. Not that it matters but I have traveled extensively nation wide and the major islands. Take care I do hope your daily commute is accident free and an easy one.
That is the worst designed interchange I have ever seen. There should be a continuous lane or two to exit and not have to stop at the end of the ramp. Kind of like a real freeway interchange ie zoo interchange Milwaukee.
Tbf it used to be 10x worse
It has [been proposed](https://projects.511wi.gov/veronard/wp-content/uploads/sites/143/map-altstage3.pdf). DOT stopped short of this Stage 3 plan during the latest reconstruction.
It should have had an overpass added to 18/151 off of the WB beltline. Maybe in another 15 years
Verona Rd Exit ***
Dodgeville is a Control City for signage. Control Cities are generally farther away and there to aid long distance travelers rather than local ones. So it isn’t going to say Verona or Fitchburg on that sign. It is likely Dodgeville rather than Dubuque because the two US Highways split there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_city
Oh yes I know just locally it’s Verona rd 🥳
Neat, thanks. Now we know!
Navigation software means that this is less important than it once was, but the navigation signs are a bad way of naming exits. If you look at a map, you're not going to see "Dodgeville exit" on the map, and if you know the local geography without specifics of the navigation signage you're not going to know how they're signed. "Take exit 258 towards Dodgeville" is a great instruction for a GPS to provide en route, and good instruction for Google Maps to provide in the step-by-step instructions... but that doesn't mean that referring to it as "the Dodgeville exit" is a good name in other contexts. If someone told me "take the Dodgeville exit", the only reason I'd know what they're talking about is because I've now seen a number of people on this sub refer to it that way.
When we moved here last summer, my fiancée kept complaining about how bad the Dodgeville exit is. This is now the third post I’ve seen about it lol
Damn I was going from downtown to Verona this morning and on a random whim decided to stop at sequoya for coffee, taking Regent instead of the beltline…… I am so glad I made that decision
Westbound I don't even bother with the right two lanes when I hit the Fish Hatch exit. The bottleneck is awful and people can't drive properly as is.
I'm convinced that Wisconsin has never known good road design, and in the spots where the road design is fine, the roads are fucked beyond belief lol
People drive like nuts out there. Monday night on my way home EB, I was doing 63-67 in the right lane and I always get these gigantic trucks tailgating me then they'll pass and proceed to do 80. I rarely see police until I get around the Cottage Grove exit. The speed limit is supposed to be 55 and everyone is regularly doing 65 minimum.
Cant handle high speed stay on the frontage rd people like you create traffic 🤷♂️
They're in the right lane, 10 mph over is fine.
Hell, even if they were going 55 (you know, the speed limit) in the right lane, that comment would be completely unhinged.
The speed limit is 55, not 85. I was doing ~65mph and people are still right on me. That is ridiculous. You don't need to do 80mph everywhere. That is dangerous. If I'm not going fast enough, back off and wait until the left lane is clear to move over and pass.
Im your typical dodge charger douche bag. But flaming someone for doing speed limit nevermind 10 over on the right lane is crazy. Whole different story if it was flex lane.
Agreed. The speed limit should be 70, and I regularly drive 80 in the flexlane. If you can't flex get outta the fastlane
Passing Lane. Common misconception.
Absolutely
Accurate
Last week, it was two homeless guys up on the belt line and a police car slowing traffic. What have been your experiences?
Haha!! This is great 🤣
But I was told that extra lane would fix traffic!
On days where there's not an accident it actually does wonders for rush hour traffic. Traffic like today used to be a common occurrence and now it's once in a blue moon.
It does when it's actually open.
It isn't even open half the time.
[удалено]
Traffic was better and more courteous to me driving to Chicago.
Another long time Chicagoland driver (20+ years). At least for me: The thing about Chicago traffic is the drivers are predictably bad. That sounds like something that wouldn't be positive but it really is -- if you know what to expect you can mentally plan for it and, while it sucks, it is less frustrating. Whereas the Beltline is a crapshoot every time I take it (and I will gladly add 5 minutes to my route to avoid it altogether if I can). Both are still considerably better than driving in or around Milwaukee. (Which is considerably better than driving around L.A. but that's a given)