Planning Division issues report on State Street Pedestrian Mall experiment
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The 2024 State Street Pedestrian Mall project was popular and led to increased activity on that stretch of State Street during the summer months, according to a report on the experiment adopted by the Common Council during its March 25, 2025, meeting. The first year of this experiment is leading City staff to evaluate a longer-term program while keeping or bringing back some of the elements of last year’s experiment.
Using anonymized mobile device location data from Placer.ai provided by Madison's Central Business Improvement District (BID), the report found that the experiment area on the 400-600 blocks of State Street saw greater levels of activity in the summer of 2024 compared to the previous year and 57% more activity overall when compared to 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The BID provided programming for nearly 40 events over the summer months, which were advertised on its website and could be accessed through QR codes placed on the new benches and planters added to State Street for the experiment.
Activity was lower in the fall of 2024 compared to 2023, but may have been the result of other factors, like fewer Wisconsin Badgers football home games in September and October (4 games were played at Camp Randall Stadium in September and October 2025, compared to 5 the year before). Compared to 2022, 17% more people visited that portion of State Street in September and October 2024.
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2024 State Street Pedestrian Mall Experiment Report
Surveys found most visitors – 84% – liked or loved having the pedestrian mall, and 81% said they would be more likely to come to State Street more because of it. Visitors also said the area felt safer and more vibrant during the pedestrian mall hours.
Business feedback was more mixed, with 40% saying they liked or loved the pedestrian mall, 40% saying it was okay, and 20% saying they didn’t like it. Additionally, a total of 44% of responding businesses said they liked the street closure hours, while 19% said the street should have been closed to vehicular traffic even more than it was. A total of 37% said the street closure hours should have been shorter.
Future Recommendations
Some of the other key takeaways and lessons learned during the experiment, which ran from May 8, 2024, to October 30, 2024, include:
- Street painting added color and interest in the pedestrian mall area, but improved surface preparation would be needed in the future to make the paint stick to the surface better
- The flamingo sculptures were very popular with visitors and made a significant visual impact at a low cost
- Benches were well-used and appreciated by pedestrians, but were subject to vehicle strikes and damage outside of pedestrian mall hours
- With more pedestrians in the street area, conflicts between bikes and pedestrians occurred, and additional discussions on how to improve interactions in a shared space will be needed
- Extra staff resources would be needed for pedestrian mall maintenance (i.e., watering plants, repairing damaged benches, etc.) if the experiment were to continue
City staff used survey responses and observations from the experiment period to create a set of recommendations, including some potential capital projects that wouldn’t be feasible for a one-year experiment, if a similar pedestrian mall project were to be held in the future or made permanent, including:
- Consider retractable bollards or other methods to better control non-emergency vehicle access to the pedestrian mall area
- Consider midblock raised pedestrian crossings to help control the speed of vehicles and bikes while improving visibility of pedestrians
- Consider lighting upgrades over the terrace and sidewalk areas
- Consider making the 400-600 blocks of State Street one-way and only allow loading on one side of the street, ensuring there is space for other vehicles and bikes to pass during delivery hours
- Consider updating the State Street Vehicular Access Ordinance to reflect the hours of the pedestrian mall experiment
What’s Next
The resolution that created the pedestrian mall experiment only authorized the changes for 2024, and there is no dedicated budget or staff capacity to run the experiment the same way in 2025.
Image credit:
Ian DeGraff
However, in conjunction with its review of the 2024 report, the Council approved a resolution directing the Planning Division to work with other agencies and community partners to run a very limited iteration of the experiment this summer.
That includes looking at ways to continue the #MadisonIsMusic initiative, potentially touching up the street painting using leftover materials from the 2024 community painting event, keeping the existing flamingo sculptures in place, and reinstalling the benches that were in the street for the 2024 experiment on the terraces instead.
Additionally, the resolution directs City staff to explore ways to increase enforcement and education of the existing vehicle and delivery hours limitations that were already in place for State Street before the experiment, and consider future physical changes to State Street as part of future planning and capital projects.
In particular, the City will explore how the updated pedestrian mall experiment could be used as part of its public engagement during the upcoming Downtown Area Plan process, which is scheduled to begin in 2026 and continue into 2027.
You can find the full report on Legistar and on the Planning Division’s web page for the State Street Pedestrian Mall Experiment.
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