Volunteer Park and 14th Ave are incredibly popular for people walking, biking, rolling, and running – even in the Big Dark of December. I hope @SeattleParks will consider reopening the park street to people, and @seattledot will extend the 14th Ave #stayhealthyblock permit! pic.twitter.com/DyLGDpCPmG
— Gordon Padelford (@GordonOfSeattle) December 10, 2020
A Capitol Hill avenue that became a popular addition to the city’s experimentation with community-created walking and riding streets as part of its efforts to address social distancing needs during the COVID-19 crisis has been removed from the program and looks unlikely to return.
The situation on 14th Ave E is an example of the limits of Seattle City Hall’s urbanist-leaning efforts and, the resident who originally applied for the permit says, a prime example of kowtowing to complaints from homeowners and drivers.
“If SDOT continues to insist on these restrictions (and others) then it seems clear to me that they have no intention of allowing the program to continue in a dense urban neighborhood, no
matter how successful the program was,” applicant and area resident Christopher Hoffman tells CHS.
According to Hoffman, his original approval of the program’s implementation on 11 blocks of 14th Ave E, the city’s legendary Millionaire’s Row extending south out of Volunteer Park, came with the basic requirements allowing the use of signs and small barriers to “temporarily close a street to create more outdoor recreation space for people to enjoy while following social distancing guidelines” while allowing “local access, deliveries, waste pickup and emergency vehicles.”
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14th Ave’s place in the program had its own challenges. The a-frame signs were frequently run over and sometimes ripped down intentionally. Not every problem came from someone trying to sabotage the temporary pedestrianization of the street. Some attempted to augment the sgn barriers by adding rogue “no parking” signs, or adding rental bikes, cinder blocks and even rebar to the a-frame signs to create an even more formidable barrier to cars.
While that back and forth played out, the street stayed busy with walkers and riders spreading out along the blocks in a kind of natural extension of Volunteer Park into the neighborhood.
It didn’t last. Under the program, the Stay Healthy Block permit needed to be renewed in November. That’s when it started to become clear that there were going to be much larger barriers to keeping the street in the program, Hoffman says.
On a recent Saturday, there were more than a thousand people who walked down the
middle of 14th Ave E,” he says. “But in order to grant an extension the city wants me to buy several type three barricades. These are much larger than the barricades that the city installed on Columbia St. Then they want me to find garages to store these large barricades and to remove them every night.”
A Seattle Department of Transportation spokesperson painted a much rosier picture of the 14th Ave E situation. According to SDOT, the street is still being considered for renewal in the program.
“We received a lot of feedback and concerns about the street — positive and negative,” a spokesperson told CHS last week.
The requirements for larger barriers and more active management of the program by the community members who apply for it are a citywide issue, the rep said.
The issues have also been part of the city-run version of the open street program. During COVID-19 restrictions, the city has created miles of Stay Health Streets and in December, beefed up its signage after complaints of destruction and unsafe driving behavior.
CHS reported here on the Central District’s Stay Healthy route which is set to become a permanent addition to the streetscape. Under that program, the city has also opened up a mile of Lake Washington Boulevard through the holidays to “people walking, rolling” through Sunday, January 3rd.
Back on 14th Ave E, what’s next along the mansions of Millionaire’s Row isn’t necessarily a done deal, but it looks unlikely that the original Stay Healthy Block effort will be continued. That’s a problem for Capitol Hill — and the city as it tries to balance a push for changing the way its streets and public rights of way are used.
“It’s not just about this block,” the SDOT spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, some of that creative energy has returned to the street even without a permit. After the sun came back out this week following Monday’s brief burst of snow, somebody had placed two orange cones in the middle of 14th Ave E at E Prospect where a Stay Healthy Block sign used to stand. Lacking the cinder blocks and rebar of some earlier guerilla efforts and reinforcement, two kids decked out in bright snow pants were busy building up the 14th Ave E barrier, decorating the cones with branches and holly leaves from the nearby park. Down the blocks, a dozen or so people were walking in the street.
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