Lakeshore path ready for improvements

The Howard Temin Lakeshore Path, a favorite spot on campus, will get a facelift this spring to improve safety, maintain accessibility, and prevent flooding and erosion.

Located on the south shore of Lake Mendota, the three-mile path runs between the Memorial Union and Oxford Road in the village of Shorewood Hills.

The project, expected to take about three months, will focus on the western half of the path between Oxford Road and the Willow Creek bridge, behind the Natatorium. Construction should begin the week of April 26.

“This section of the path crosses some of our most scenic and sensitive natural areas as well as the rapidly expanding western edge of campus,” says Gary Brown, assistant director for planning and landscape architecture with Facilities Planning and Management. “The project will improve the path surface and provide long-term protection for campus buildings and sensitive natural areas.”

The reconstruction project is unrelated to work underway on the path’s eastern portion where a water-supply line is being installed between Charter Street and Willow Creek to provide cooling water from Lake Mendota to the West Campus Cogeneration Facility now under construction. Portions of the path from the Limnology Laboratory to Willow Creek will close until June. Areas near the lakeshore residence halls and points east will be completed first to allow those sections of the path to open earlier.

Much of the western half of the Lakeshore Path consists of separate 10-foot-wide bicycle and pedestrian paths with deteriorating surfaces and excessive contact with street traffic, problems that create safety and accessibility problems. Also, the adjacent shoreline is showing signs of erosion and provides little protection against flooding.

Path traffic will be diverted to Observatory Drive, Walnut Street and a series of existing trails on the west side of the 1918 Marsh.

To improve safety and accessibility, the project will:

• Resurface the bicycle and pedestrian paths.
• Narrow the pedestrian path from 10 feet to eight feet to create green space, reduce runoff and save maintenance costs.
• Redesign street intersections so that path users cross at a single point, reducing the risk of collisions.
• Redesign the boat landing across from parking lot 60 so vehicles and boat trailers no longer share the road with cyclists and pedestrians. Instead, vehicles will cross the path at a single driveway between lot 60 and the boat launch.
• Replace some deteriorating willow trees that have been identified as “hazard trees” and could pose a threat to path users during windy days.

The new path’s design was developed with input and support from UW–Madison’s Transportation Demand Management program, which promotes biking, walking and other alternatives to driving to, from and around campus.

To address flooding and erosion concerns, additional work will be done on the path between Picnic Point and the boat landing, raising the path 18 inches and grading it away from Nielsen Tennis Stadium, Rennebohm Hall, a sanitary lift station that serves UW Hospital and the 1918 Marsh.

The grading will require the university to replace additional willow trees that border the path with a mix of golden willow, swamp white oak and river birch trees, which will form a heartier mix of trees better suited to survive in the area.

The project will not affect the older willow trees along the shoreline, some of which are believed to be the original trees after which Willow Drive and Willow Creek were named. Fifty-one trees will be replaced.

Brown says the difficult decision to replace trees — for both safety and path re-grading purposes — was made to ensure long-term protection of path users, and the environmentally and technologically sensitive areas nearby. Most of the trees that will be replaced were planted by the university in the 1980s and are already showing signs of decline.

The project, which will cost $411,000, is partially supported by grants from the federal government and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The university is providing additional funding through program revenue in its Transportation Services fund. The Campus Planning, Campus Transportation, Campus Natural Areas and Temin Lakeshore Path Advisory committees reviewed and approved the project.