State Street

State Street is a pedestrian zone located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, United States, near the Wisconsin State Capitol. The road proper extends from the west corner of land comprising the Capitol (on the southwestern edge of the Madison Isthmus, at the corners of Carroll and Mifflin Streets) westward to Lake Street, adjoining the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison at Library Mall.The street was a conventional four-lane undivided road until 1974, when a proposal was passed by the City of Madison to turn it into a pedestrian mall. Construction on that project began in late June, 1974, with an initial estimated completion budget of $15 million. This conversion left the street as a two-lane limited-access road, with extra-wide sidewalks created on both sides of the now-narrower street. The east–west road allows only city buses, fire apparatus, police cars, bicycles, delivery vehicles, and pedestrian traffic.Today, the street hosts a variety of shops, bars, and restaurants and is popular for its small-town appeal, street musicians, jugglers and other types of busking, making it a common tourist attraction. Like high-pedestrian-traffic streets in many cities' downtowns, it also has a noticeable homeless, vagrant, and panhandler population. Places of interest on State Street are the Overture Center for the Arts and the Memorial Library Mall.