Madison in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Madison in context

2345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
MadisonWisconsin (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Madison plotted against Wisconsin and United States. While Wisconsin and United States both peaked in 1991-2005, Madison's new street additions peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Madison's incremental SNDi fell from 2.81 to 2.3 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Madison ranked 4th out of 7 cities in Wisconsin and 32nd out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
2.3
Rank in United States
10th of 333
Rank in Wisconsin
1st of 7

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
1.95
Rank in United States
32nd of 333
Rank in Wisconsin
4th of 7

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

04812<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
04812<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
MadisonSt. CatharinesGopalganj

In new street additions, St. Catharines and Gopalganj both fluctuated in street-construction patterns, while Madison built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Madison had a more sprawly network than Gopalganj in 1975, but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.