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 dollars.[1] 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 known 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.