State Street runs as a pedestrian zone from the Capitol down to the University of Wisconsin–Madison at Library Mall. The road proper stretches 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, where it adjoins the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison at Library Mall. Once a conventional four-lane undivided road, State Street was transformed when the City of Madison passed a proposal in 1974 to turn it into a pedestrian mall.
Construction began in late June, 1974, with an initial estimated completion budget of $15 million. The conversion left a two-lane limited-access road flanked by extra-wide sidewalks on both sides of the now-narrower street. Today you feel a lively mix of shops, bars, and restaurants and the small-town appeal that brings street musicians, jugglers, and other busking to the thoroughfare, making it a common tourist attraction.
Traffic here is intentionally limited: the east–west route allows only city buses, fire apparatus, police cars, bicycles, delivery vehicles, and pedestrian traffic. Street musicians and jugglers work these extra-wide sidewalks, the small-town appeal that keeps the shops and bars busy.