From George Vernon

Monroe

To the editor:

I would like to thank the State and Green County Highway Departments and Chris Narveson at the County for the beautiful (and quick!) job done in repaving Wisconsin 81 from Monroe to Argyle. Especially nice are the generously wide shoulders. Nobody wants to ride a bike on the highway shoulder for 8 miles. But it’s great if you can use the highway for short distances between intersecting County and Town roads without taking your life in your hands next to cars and (especially) trucks zooming past your left shoulder at highway speeds. 

Green County with its varied and hilly terrain and many lightly-traveled side roads, has the potential to be a biking mecca. It seems that only New Glarus has fully taken advantage of this potential. But wide-shoulder roads like the new Wis. 81 are a big boost. From Monroe you can now bike very safely on 81, say, the short distance from Wisconsin 11 to County N and County Y. Similar designs can hopefully be incorporated in the near future to safely link Monroe to, for example, Wis. 11 west to Smock Valley and Patterson Roads; Wisconsin 69 south to Franklin and Melvin Roads; Wisconsin 59 east to Greenbush, Monroe-Sylvester and Burkhalter Roads; and Wis. 11 east to Richland Road. 

Finally, for those who may not be aware, there is a terrific smart-phone friendly map of various biking routes out of Monroe and neighboring towns available at the Green County Tourism office in the old courthouse. This map was created by past participants in the Green County Leaders program.