Detour to Stevens St. Background

The Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) will be closing the westbound on-ramp at Highland and Campus Dr., near the UW Hospital, this summer. 

This closure directly affects Routes C and E which make a northbound left turn to head westbound on University Ave. 

This area is an important part of the Metro Transit network because many routes make connections here (in addition to Routes C and E, Routes A, F, R, 28, and 38). 

In addition, the UW Hospital is a major employer that relies heavily on employees being able to make it to work on time.

Unfortunately, there are only a limited amount of detour options in the area for Routes C and E to travel down. 

Metro investigated a few alternatives including:

• Westbound on Old University to Stevens to Farley to University Ave.
  Result: Routing maintains all critical bus stops and connections
• Westbound on Old University, right onto Highland 
  Result: Buses miss key connections to other routes at University and University Bay
• Westbound on Old University, left on Highland, right on Regent, right on Fairly to University Ave. 
  Result: Route C would experience major delays that would affect trips in both directions. Route E would miss destinations at Old University and Highland.

Metro, MMSD, the UW Hospital, and the neighborhood alder met to discuss these different potential detours and determined that operating on the one block of Stevens St. was the only workable option.  

Metro and the City of Madison are sensitive to concerns like noise on local streets, however consideration also needed to be given to the important travel needs of a large number of Metro riders. 

To minimize the affects to the one block of Stevens St., Metro is not planning any bus stops on Stevens and has minimized the amount of parking that will be temporarily removed, to only what is absolutely necessary to operate safely.

This detour is expected to be in place for one day on Saturday May 17, and then for about two months from June 29 to August 19, depending on construction progress.