This page from the council presentation on the bike plan implementation update oddly includes an image of a Capitol Hill rider on perhaps the most un-pedal friendly in the neighborhood.
Seattle is criss-crossed by 1,547 lane-miles of arterial streets and 2,407 miles of non-arteries. In recent years, the city has added new bike infrastructure to only about 10 miles of those streets per year.
Tuesday afternoon, the Seattle City Council will begin the latest process to shake out the next five years of Seattle bike infrastructure investments. Following the relatively paltry output of the last couple years, the proposed plan includes projects that will likely add up to even less than 10 miles per year. But there are still some new improvements on the list for Capitol Hill, the Central District, and the nearby.
In all, CHS tallies seven Central Seattle projects on the roster for the 2019 Bicycle Master Plan Implementation Plan. CHS coverage on the project plans is below.
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E Union protected bike lanes: After plan went ‘sideways,’ SDOT says will find a way to build E Union protected bike lanes
- Judkins Park Connection
- Melrose Promenade: Protected bikeway for Melrose Ave secures $3 million
- Lowell-Meany Connection: With John/Thomas corridor work underway, 2019 will bring $2.2M Safe Routes to School pedestrian improvements across Capitol Hill
- Pike/Pine protected bike lanes: Seattle approves 18-month plan for downtown, Pike/Pine protected bike lanes
- Stevens Elementary Connection
- Central Ridge Greenway Phase 2: After a 21-month road diet, first phase of 23rd Ave work complete
- UPDATE: Forgot about one area of work in Montlake. The 520 “Montlake Project” will include new bike infrastructure:
The updated plan will also identify previous concepts that have been cut or put on hold like the Broadway bikeway extension.
What’s the point? Seattle has some lofty goals for its bicycling infrastructure that it is a long way from fulfilling including what might be the most important and most difficult metric to achieve, apparently — zero fatalities by 2030. It seems like it might take more than 10 miles a year to get there.
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I voted for far more bike infrastructure in Move Seattle than has been delivered. The city’s broken promises are deeply disappointing, and cannot explained simply by the rise in construction costs in this region.
I have often argued to cut city leaders some slack; running a city is hard job, especially when it’s growing like crazy.
But this way of thinking is simply backward, as though Mayor Durkan is trying desperately to hold back a flood of change: technological (electric micromobility), social (declining rates of car ownership) and environmental (climate change).
It will make me think twice about believing the city when it puts forth levies asking for money, and will certainly make me think twice about my choice for city leadership.
Mayor Durkan, who campaigned on a platform of Climate Change (electric cars, congestion pricing), must not understand that widening driving lanes, adding parking lanes, and squeezing out bike and pedestrian improvement projects, negatively impact her goals of greenhouse gas reductions. If she can’t put two and two together to understand that, she’s lost my vote in her re-election.
Understand that because of her background, she travels the city in an SUV with a driver. Her view of transportation in the city is 100% windshield, no transit, no biking, no traveling alone.
She is missing out on the fun. Sadly th reality on a lot of cap hill streets is that the back alleys are in better condition and easier to ride on than the main streets. so much money spent when for instance the alley that parallels Roosevelt is a haven of zero traffic. The bike dividers make it impossible to turn left, and leave you victim of parked cars , peds and turning vehicles.