Madison Bike Route Safety Map

Madison received Platinum Bicycle Friendly designation from the League of American Bicyclists in the fall of 2015 and renewed it in 2019 and 2024, and the City counts more than 55 miles of shared use paths, 133 miles of streets with bike lanes and 116 miles of signed bicycle routes. It is also a city where downtown and the near east side sit on an isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, so the through-routes are few and the good ones and the hard ones run close together. A separated lakeshore path and a crossing of East Washington Avenue are not the same ride, and the gap between them is what a score is for. Brakeaway rates any Madison route 0–100 on path separation, arterial-crossing risk, traffic exposure, grade, and surface. Paste a Google Maps link, upload a GPX, or connect Strava. Informational only — not a substitute for local judgment. Verify conditions before you ride.

Score a Madison route

How Brakeaway scores a Madison route

Every route is analyzed across five factors, weighted for what Madison riders actually meet: an unusually strong rail-trail and lakeshore path spine, a constrained isthmus grid where the paths and the arterials run side by side, a set of named high-stress arterials the City itself has flagged, and a winter maintenance policy that treats paths and painted lanes very differently.

Path separation and network continuity. What share of your line sits on a path physically separated from motor traffic? The Capital City State Trail, the Southwest Path, the Cannonball Path, the Wingra Creek Path and the campus paths all score at the top of this factor. The City's draft All Ages and Abilities Bike Network Plan is blunt about how much is still missing: over 180 miles of paths and bikeways, or roughly 42% of the planned network, currently meet low-stress standards, and the remaining 58% would either need to be built or redesigned, including 71 miles of paths and 186 miles of on-street bike lanes.
Arterial crossings. Most of the score damage on a Madison route happens where a path or a quiet street meets an arterial, not along the quiet blocks in between. The plan names the corridors: high-stress streets include major arterials like Commercial Avenue, East Washington Avenue, Cottage Grove Road, Milwaukee Street, South Park Street, Fish Hatchery Road, Mineral Point Road, Monroe Street, Raymond Road and University Avenue. Brakeaway penalizes unprotected crossings of those lines and penalizes riding along them harder still.
Traffic volume and posted speed. Madison's 20 is Plenty program is centered on the idea that a speed limit of 20 mph is appropriate for local, residential streets, and the streets whose limit was reduced are local, residential only, streets where the speed limit is 25 mph. Signs started to be installed in November 2024 and were scheduled to be completed by December 2025. Lower posted speeds lift residential connectors in this factor; arterials, explicitly left out of the program, do not move.
Surface and seasonal condition. The Capital City State Trail's surface is asphalt, but not every Madison path is. The Howard Temin Lakeshore Path and the main path out to the tip of Picnic Point are accessible with paved or crushed, packed limestone surfaces, and crushed limestone scores differently from asphalt in wet conditions. Brakeaway scores surface segment by segment rather than treating "path" as one category.
Grade. The isthmus and the lakeshore routes are close to flat. The climbs are on the west and southwest sides, out of the lake basins toward the Beltline and the ridge lines, and Brakeaway folds grade into the score rather than reporting it separately.

Highest-scoring Madison bike routes

These are the routes that repeatedly land in Brakeaway's High Confidence band, because the separation is physical rather than painted.

Capital City State Trail

Madison's trail spine and the piece that makes the regional network work. The Wisconsin DNR lists it at 17 miles with an asphalt surface, and describes it as the link around and through Madison between the Military Ridge State Trail, Badger State Trail and, eventually, the Glacial Drumlin State Trail — the "eventually" is doing real work there, and Brakeaway scores the on-street gaps between trail segments as on-street. One administrative detail matters for planning: a state trail pass is required for anyone 16 and older who bikes, skates or roller-skis on the nine miles of the trail that go through the Capital Springs E-way south of Madison between Verona Road and Nob Hill near Industrial Drive.

Southwest Path

The commuter path into the west side of downtown. The City's corridor runs from S. Breese Terrace to the W. Beltline Highway, and the City of Madison recently renewed an agreement with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the use and maintenance of the Southwest Path Corridor. It is a continuous car-free approach toward the UW campus from the southwest, and it also feeds the Monona Bay detour network described below — the City is installing a path along North Shore Drive between the Southwest Path and South Bedford Street as part of that work.

Cannonball Path

A shared-use path that has been assembled in phases over years. The City describes the current extension across Fish Hatchery Road as the final piece of the approximately four-mile Cannonball Path, creating a continuous shared-use path linking Fitchburg and Madison's Arbor Hills neighborhood with downtown Madison. It also connects to the Capital City Trail, Southwest Path, Military Ridge Trail and Badger State Trail, making it a key component of the regional network of paths for recreation as well as transportation. Construction on the Fish Hatchery Road extension began the week of August 17, 2026, with work anticipated to wrap up by spring 2027 — until the new bike-pedestrian bridge over Wingra Creek is set, Brakeaway scores the gap as the street connection it currently is.

The Lake Loop around Lake Monona

The 13-mile circuit of Lake Monona is paved and clearly marked end to end. It meets the Capital City Trail under the Beltline Highway, from which the Capital City Trail continues through south Madison, the Capital Springs State Recreation Area in Fitchburg, and the junction where the Military Ridge State Trail and the Badger State Trail meet. Scores across the loop are not uniform — the lakeshore park segments and the causeway path sit far above the street sections that connect them.

Howard Temin Lakeshore Path, UW campus

The Lake Mendota shoreline route through the UW–Madison campus. Note the access rule before you plan around it: within the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, bicycles are only allowed on the Howard Temin Lakeshore path and the paved path that passes through the woods from the Temin Lakeshore Path to the intersection of Lake Mendota Drive and Eagle Heights Drive. Surface changes along its length — the Temin path and the main path to Picnic Point are accessible with paved or crushed, packed limestone surfaces — so Brakeaway's surface factor moves across the route rather than holding steady.

Wingra Creek Path and the Lake Wingra side

The south-side connector between the Capital City Trail corridor and the Arboretum side of the city, and the path the Cannonball extension is being built to meet. The City publishes Lake Loop and Lake Wingra Loop route resources alongside its bike maps, and both rely heavily on this link. It is flat, separated for most of its length, and scores accordingly.

The campus network

UW–Madison renewed its platinum rating in 2023 as one of only nine platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Universities in the nation. The campus carries five miles of off-street bike paths, five miles of on-street bike lanes, and a woonerf that prioritizes pedestrians and cyclists along East Campus Mall, plus 16,450 bike parking spaces that outnumber car parking spaces by more than 3,000. Scores on campus are high on the paths and the woonerf and drop where a route touches University Avenue, which the City's own draft plan lists among its high-stress arterials.

Madison by area — what to expect

The isthmus and downtown

The Madison Isthmus is where the downtown and near east portion of Madison is situated, between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, and the southwestern portion of the Isthmus is home to the Wisconsin State Capitol, State Street, and Madison's main business and financial districts. Geography does the routing for you: there are only so many ways through, the Capital City Path along John Nolen Drive is one of them, and East Washington Avenue is another. Those two score at opposite ends of the range.

Near west and Monroe Street

The Southwest Path gives this side a continuous separated spine, with the campus paths at the downtown end. Monroe Street appears on the City's high-stress arterial list, so the parallel path routing usually scores substantially better than the direct street line.

South Madison and Fitchburg

This is where the regional trails converge. The Cannonball Path connects to the Capital City Trail, Southwest Path, Military Ridge Trail and Badger State Trail, and the Capital City Trail carries riders through south Madison toward the Capital Springs State Recreation Area in Fitchburg and the junction where the Military Ridge and Badger State Trails meet. The counterweight is that South Park Street and Fish Hatchery Road are both named high-stress arterials, and they are streets the paths have to cross.

East side

Strong path coverage along the Lake Monona shore and the Capital City Trail's eastern reach toward Cottage Grove Road. Commercial Avenue, East Washington Avenue, Cottage Grove Road and Milwaukee Street are all on the high-stress list, which is why east-side routes swing hard between path segments and arterial segments.

West and southwest

Mineral Point Road and Raymond Road are named high-stress arterials, and this is also where Madison's real grade lives. Routes here tend to score lower on two factors at once — exposure and gradient — unless they stay on the Southwest Path or the Cannonball.

The John Nolen Drive closure — the biggest change on the map right now

If you have ridden Madison before and your usual line crosses the causeway, re-score it. John Nolen Drive reconstruction will require closing the Capital City Trail, between E Lakeside St and S Broom St, from approximately July 2026 to June 2027. A 2.6-mile detour will be marked around Monona Bay during construction, and the detour will use a combination of shared use paths and low-traffic bicycle boulevards. The City's work to support it includes marking and signing Van Deusen St and Rowell St as Bike Boulevards, and constructing a short two-way cycletrack on W Lakeside St to connect Rowell St to Gilson St.

For scoring purposes the detour is a different kind of route from the thing it replaces: a separated causeway path becomes a chain of path, cycletrack and residential street with more intersections in it. Brakeaway reflects that — the detour reads lower, and where it reads lower is at the joins.

What Madison's crash record says about routing

Madison's Vision Zero program launched in 2020, and the city's initiative aims to reach zero traffic deaths citywide by 2035. Announcing the 2023–2024 progress report in June 2026, the City stated that traffic fatalities on City-Controlled roadways declined by 58% since the launch of Vision Zero Madison in 2020. Local reporting on the same release added that from 2020 to 2024 traffic deaths on City of Madison controlled roads decreased by 58 percent while deadly crashes on non-city controlled roads have surged more than 166%. That split is worth carrying into route planning: the safety trend Madison can point to is a trend on the streets it controls, and a route is only covered by it to the extent it stays on them.

The 20 is Plenty program is the other half of the picture. It focuses exclusively on local, residential streets, leaving major thoroughfares unaffected, lowering the speed limit in residential neighborhoods from 25 mph to 20 mph. Practically, that means Madison's residential grid has been getting quietly better for cycling while the arterials have not, and a route that threads residential streets between path segments will often outscore the more obvious arterial line by a wide margin.

Winter, and why it changes the score you should care about

Madison's maintenance policy is explicit and asymmetric. The City plows arterial bike paths as needed after any snow event and will plow arterial bike paths when a general plowing is underway, with the goal to have these paths clear for commuters as soon as practical on weekdays. On-street lanes get the opposite treatment: the City does not remove snow strictly to clear on-street bike lanes, notes that since on street bike lanes are located on the edge of streets they will get snow accumulations, and states plainly that even though most on street bike lanes are on salt routes they are seldom clear during winter. Its own advice is that the day of a storm and a day or two after usually are not great for bicycling. A route that scores well in July on a painted lane is a materially different proposition in February; the arterial path network is the part that gets maintained.

Things worth knowing before your first Madison ride

Use the City's own tools alongside the score. Madison publishes a Dane County Bicycle Map and a Low Stress Bike Route Finder, plus Lake Loop and Lake Wingra Loop resources. Brakeaway's score and the City's low-stress map answer different questions — the map tells you what exists, the score tells you what your specific line adds up to.

Bike counters are public. Madison operates automated visual bike counters, one northeast of the Regent and Monroe Streets intersection and one on the Capital City Path along John Nolen Drive east of the Brittingham Park Path; both counters display the number of daily and annual bicyclists who cross at the location. They are a decent proxy for which corridors are actually carrying the city's riding.

BCycle is electric and seasonal. Madison BCycle is an electric bike share system that connects the University of Wisconsin, State Street, and the Capital City Trail across the isthmus, with stations across downtown, the Isthmus, Fitchburg, and Monona. It operates 24/7 during the riding season: March 15 – December 15. Brakeaway scores a BCycle trip exactly like a trip on your own bike.

Carry a state trail pass if you are heading south. The nine-mile Capital Springs E-way stretch of the Capital City State Trail requires one for riders 16 and older.

Pre-score the crossings, not the miles. Madison's paths are good enough that riders tend to assume a whole route inherits the path's score. It does not. Run the line first and look at where it goes red — in this city that will almost always be an arterial.

Resources

Frequently asked questions

Is Brakeaway free to use for Madison routes?

Yes. Scoring routes — in Madison or any other city Brakeaway covers — is free. Upload a GPX file, paste a Google Maps directions link, or connect Strava to import existing rides. Every score is informational data, not a substitute for local judgment; verify conditions before you ride.

Madison is a Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community. Why do some routes still score low?

Because the designation describes the city, not your specific line. Madison received Platinum Bicycle Friendly designation from the League of American Bicyclists in the fall of 2015 and renewed it in 2019 and 2024, and the City counts more than 55 miles of shared use paths, 133 miles of streets with bike lanes and 116 miles of signed bicycle routes. But the City's draft All Ages and Abilities Bike Network Plan found that only about 180 miles of paths and bikeways — roughly 42 percent of the planned network — currently meet low-stress standards. Brakeaway scores the segments you actually ride, so a route that leaves the path network onto an arterial drops sharply.

The Capital City Trail is closed along John Nolen Drive. What is the detour?

The John Nolen Drive reconstruction requires closing the Capital City Trail between E Lakeside St and S Broom St from approximately July 2026 to June 2027. The City says a 2.6-mile detour is marked around Monona Bay using a combination of shared use paths and low-traffic bicycle boulevards, including Van Deusen St and Rowell St signed as bike boulevards and a short two-way cycletrack on W Lakeside St connecting Rowell St to Gilson St. Brakeaway scores the detour as the mixed path-and-street route it is, so it reads lower than the causeway path it replaces.

Which Madison trails score highest?

The fully separated ones. The Capital City State Trail is 17 miles of asphalt and is described by the Wisconsin DNR as the link around and through Madison between the Military Ridge State Trail, Badger State Trail and, eventually, the Glacial Drumlin State Trail. The Southwest Path corridor runs from S. Breese Terrace to the W. Beltline Highway. The Cannonball Path is an approximately four-mile shared-use path linking Fitchburg and Madison's Arbor Hills neighborhood with downtown Madison. The Lake Loop around Lake Monona is a 13-mile paved and marked route.

Which Madison streets does Brakeaway flag hardest?

The city's own planning work names them. The draft All Ages and Abilities Bike Network Plan identifies high-stress streets including major arterials like Commercial Avenue, East Washington Avenue, Cottage Grove Road, Milwaukee Street, South Park Street, Fish Hatchery Road, Mineral Point Road, Monroe Street, Raymond Road and University Avenue. Brakeaway penalizes both riding along those corridors and crossing them without a signal or median refuge.

Do Madison's 20 mph residential speed limits change scores?

Yes, on the streets they apply to. The City's 20 is Plenty program is centered on the idea that a speed limit of 20 mph is appropriate for local, residential streets, and the streets whose limit is reduced to 20 mph are local, residential only, streets where the speed limit is 25 mph — major thoroughfares are unaffected. Signs started going in during November 2024 and were scheduled to be completed by December 2025. Lower posted speeds raise the traffic-exposure factor on residential connectors, which is why Madison's side-street links often score better than their width suggests.

Does Brakeaway score Madison BCycle trips?

Yes, and identically to a trip on your own bike — pedal assist does not change the infrastructure under the wheels. Madison BCycle is an electric bike share system with stations across downtown, the Isthmus, Fitchburg and Monona, and it operates 24/7 during the riding season, March 15 to December 15. Export the trip and upload it as a GPX.

How does Brakeaway handle Madison winters?

By scoring the infrastructure, with the City's own maintenance policy as context. Madison plows arterial bike paths as needed after any snow event, but does not remove snow strictly to clear on-street bike lanes, and notes that even though most on street bike lanes are on salt routes they are seldom clear during winter. That asymmetry is worth knowing: a winter route that stays on arterial paths is maintained on a different schedule than one that relies on painted lanes.

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Last updated: September 24, 2026.