Tag Archives: pedestrians

Don’t let new 520 bike/walk bridge get lost in the Montlake Lid’s sea of cars — Opening celebration Saturday

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The bridge crosses 520 just east of the new lid (Image: Washington State Department of Transportation)

Saturday, the Washington State Department of Transportation is inviting you to “walk/roll” across the ready-to-open bike and pedestrian bridge crossing the newly expanded SR-520 just east of the pretty much completed Montlake lid.

It’s understandable if you weren’t aware of a ready-to-open bike and pedestrian bridge crossing the newly expanded 520 just east of the pretty much completed Montlake lid. The $455.3 million Montlake Project to expand the freeway and lid it is a pretty car-forward project as it finally reaches completion after years of construction. The snarl of criss-crossing traffic lanes interconnecting with 24th Ave on the lid is bigger and busier than ever.

The pedestrian/bicyclist bridge just east of the new lid will provide some counterbalance to that motor vehicle snarl. It provides a north-south connection across the freeway for walkers and rollers only and connects to the SR 520 Trail, Bill Dawson Trail, or along Lake Washington Boulevard via the Montlake Lid. Continue reading →

Seattle City Council holds first of two public hearings on $1.45B transportation levy proposal

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A Seattle City Council committee will host the first of two planned public hearings Tuesday on the proposed $1.45 billion transportation levy being readied for November’s ballot.

The Select Committee on the 2024 Transportation Levy’s hearing will focus on providing time for the public to speak in person and remotely on the proposed property tax. If approved by voters in the fall, the funding and spending plan will replace the $930 million levy approved in 2015.

The city says that under the current expiring levy, the cost to a typical homeowner is around $24 per month. The new eight-year levy proposal would increase the monthly cost by 70% to $41 per month. Continue reading →

‘The basics of a 21st-century transportation system’ — Seattle boosts transit levy proposal to $1.45B with $100M more for sidewalks, bikes, and transit

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Harrell digs in (Image: SDOT)

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office has finalized his proposal for the city’s next transportation levy planned to go before Seattle voters in November — now with an even bigger price tag: $1.45 billion.

The Seattle Times is calling the eight-year proposal Seattle’s “biggest-ever property tax proposal.”

Transit, biking, and pedestrian advocates are calling it an improved proposal after a month of criticism over the plan’s focus on repairs, replacements, and realignments over new street and transit projects.

The mayor said Friday at a press conference unveiling the new proposal that feedback shaped a $100 million addition to the plan.

“Over the last month, we’ve received feedback from thousands of Seattle residents who want a transportation system that is safe, connected, and well maintained – this proposal will help get us there,”  Harrell said in a statement.

Transit advocacy leaders have been measured in their enthusiasm for the proposal, praising the administration for listening to constituents but framing the plan’s spending on elements like safety, transit, and non-motor vehicle travel as barely adequate.

“We thank the transit riders and the community of advocates who spoke up to ensure this levy ushers in the transportation future we need,” Kirk Hovenkotter, executive director, of the Transportation Choices Coalition, said in a statement from the mayor’s office that called the proposal’s investments “the basics of a 21st-century transportation system.”

“We thank Mayor Harrell for his leadership on the levy and for being responsive to community feedback.”

The updated levy proposal will add a more than $20 million to boost sidewalk work including adding 250 blocks of new sidewalks in the first four years.

The administration also responded to advocates, boosting funding earmarks for improving transit corridors by 20% to around $145 million in spending in the plan to improve safety and connectivity with light rail stations and on key routes like the 3, 4, and 31.

Bicycle spending in the proposal was also boosted around 20% with about $114 million in planned safety spending, and expansion of the city’s bike networks. Continue reading →

Hollingsworth amendment for Seattle Transportation Plan focuses on Lake Washington Blvd safety

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(Image: City of Seattle)

A Seattle City Council committee Tuesday morning will take up a handful of amendments including a proposal from District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth as it finalizes the city’s new long-term transportation plan.

CHS reported here on the proposed 20-year transportation plan for transit, street, sidewalk, and bridge projects across Seattle that will serve as the framework for the city’s planned transportation levy renewal.

Tuesday, the committee could move the plan forward to a full council vote after debate on a roster of amendments including downtown representative Bob Kettle’s push to remove funding from the so-called “Pike Place Event Street project” and amendments that seek to help better address the estimated 27% of Seattle streets that do not currently have sidewalks. Continue reading →

There still isn’t a crosswalk at Harvard and E Olive Way

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A photo Matt Baume sent to city officials showing yet another crash at Harvard and Olive

Even with a new representative on the city council more dedicated to public safety, transparency, and access, “One Seattle” slogans from City Hall, and leaders paying lip service to the importance of pedestrian and bike rider safety as they shape the city’s next billion dollar transportation levy, it still takes a hell of a lot of work and a few squeaky wheels for the Seattle Department of Transportation to add a needed crosswalk at a dangerous intersection on Capitol Hill.

Matt Baume, a neighborhood writer, has been documenting the crashes at E Olive Way and Harvard Ave E for about ten years, all the while trying to get safety improvements put in place. With new leadership in the district, Baume wrote to D3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth in January to share his concerns after yet another crash, this time involving three cars and several passengers including a family with a small child. Continue reading →

City of Seattle not giving up on ‘Healthy Streets’ program in the Central District

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(Image: @SNGreenways)

The pared-back Healthy Streets program has lived on in corners of the city including the Central District, providing hope for advocates wanting to make Seattle safer for bikers, pedestrians, and the drivers who love them.

The Seattle Department of Transportation has announced it is making new investments to the Healthy Streets routes through the CD that are hoped to add new solidity to an effort criticized for a half-baked approach that depends on flimsy signs and driver goodwill.

According to the SDOT announcement, the Healthy Streets routes along 22nd Ave and E Columbia are lined up for new features to be constructed in 2024 and 2025 including a planned new vehicle divider at the busy 22nd and Union intersection that would be installed as early as this summer to do more to protect the routes from car and truck traffic.

“To further improve safety for people walking and biking along the north end of the Central District Healthy Street and discourage cut-through traffic, we’re excited to announce that we will construct additional safety enhancements at the intersection of 22nd Ave and E Union St,” the announcement reads. “These enhancements will include installing a new median on the south side with a cut-through for people biking, restricting vehicle turns from E Union St onto 22nd Ave, and restricting vehicle access southbound onto 22nd Ave from the intersection.”

The changes at 22nd will include installation of a “new median with bike cut through on south side of intersection” to block motor vehicle traffic, and elimination of left turns in both directions from 22nd Ave onto E Union. Continue reading →

$$$ for a Capitol Hill Superblock? 2024 city budget includes cash for ‘public space activation concepts’

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The mother of the Capitol Hill Superblock is hoping she has left a lasting final gift to the neighborhood’s pedestrianization dreams.

Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda says a portion of $600,000 carved out of the city’s 2024 budget with revenue from the JumpStart tax on its largest employers will go to creating “public space activation concepts” including a $300,000 pedestrian and bike friendly effort on Capitol Hill.

“I’m very excited about the $600,000 in Jumpstart economic revitalization funding included in the 2024 budget for public space activation in Capitol Hill, Mt. Baker, and Rainier Valley,” Mosqueda told CHS in a statement on the earmark. “This funding will build on the years of community organizing and advocacy in Capitol Hill and beyond—led by organizations such as the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict—for healthy, activated, pedestrian-oriented public spaces, to begin to actually implement public space activation concepts inspired by leading cities like Copenhagen.”

Mosqueda, who will be leaving Seattle City Hall in the new year to take the seat she won in the November election on the King County Council, has been supporting the efforts around a so-called Capitol Hill Superblock for years and sponsored the budget amendment this fall “to build momentum and lead to tangible improvements in these neighborhoods.”

“This is exactly the type of investment we envisioned for the JumpStart economic revitalization dollars to create healthy, safe, vibrant spaces in our neighborhoods that support small businesses, and provide places for the community to enjoy,” Mosqueda said. Continue reading →

Over a decade in the making, $4.3M Melrose Promenade’s final pieces include new bike lane, better Capitol Hill connections to Seattle’s growing network of safer streets

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By Kali Herbst Minino

Construction on the $4.3 million Melrose Promenade project, aiming to make walking and biking safer, accessible, and attractive along Melrose Ave on Capitol Hill, is planned to be completed in June.

Seattle Department of Transportation crews have been working on the final pieces of the project: a new protected bike lane between E Pine and Denny, reconfiguring street parking on the west side of Melrose, new crosswalks on Pike and Pine, new curb ramps, and sidewalk repairs. Melrose at Pike and Pine’s decorated community crosswalks will be re-constructed later in the summer.

The project is one piece of a community vision of a “Melrose Promenade.” Central Seattle Greenways, an organization comprised of community members who advocate for safer streets, helped work on that vision alongside the Melrose Promenade Advisory Committee (MPAC) 10 years ago. Creating a series of events titled “Muffins on Melrose,” CSG advocates talked with passersby about the street’s potential over free muffins and coffee.

MPAC’s website has been lost due to age, but a 2013 document lists their ultimate goals: improving pedestrian safety, new bicycle connections, additional connections to other forms of transit, and creating pedestrian green and gathering spaces. Continue reading →

‘Tree retention evaluation’ — City sorting out how to keep Cal Anderson’s maple trees and fix the sidewalk around the park

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Thanks to the many readers who have alerted us to the signs (Image courtesy a CHS reader)

Ominous “tree retention evaluation” signs that have gone up on the dozens of Red Sunset Maples surrounding Cal Anderson Park have caused a stir as Seattle experiences record May heat.

A city spokesperson’s words about the signs probably won’t do much to cool things down though the representative wanted it made clear the notices do not — necessarily — “indicate that we intend to remove these trees.”

“We value our tree canopy and all the benefits it provides. The purpose of the postings was to share information with the public about an upcoming evaluation and scheduled maintenance activities that have the potential to impact the trees,” the spokesperson tells CHS.

The City of Seattle’s transportation department says that the trees, many decades old, are being evaluated “to consider possible solutions to address sidewalk damage with minimal impact to the trees.”

The Seattle Department of Transportation says it is looking into whether the sidewalk alignment can be adjusted around the trees and is also considering “other possible solutions to preserve the trees in any areas where this is not feasible.” Continue reading →

Vision Zero and ‘self-enforcing’ roads: Here is how the city’s transportation head says Seattle will make its streets safer

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Up against a rising tide, SDOT’s Vision Zero overhaul comes amid a nationwide road safety crisis

(Source: SDOT Vision Zero Top to Bottom Review)

A City Council committee Tuesday will hear new Department of Transportation head Greg Spotts’s plan for overhauling Seattle’s approach to street safety to better incorporate so-called “Vision Zero” concepts into every project and to implement a “safe systems” model with roads designed to be “self-enforcing.”

Spotts’s report (PDF) on the plan was released in late February. “The draft Vision Zero ‘Top to Bottom Review’ has been circulating internally and has catalyzed productive conversations about what specifically we can do this year to make our streets safer. In the coming weeks we will be sharing info on action steps and funding,” the director said earlier this year.

“People at multiple levels of government are collaborating on this urgent issue and positive change is coming,” Spotts added. “We feel the urgency and we are committed to meaningful action for safer streets with a focus on underserved communities.”

The report follows Mayor Bruce Harrell’s selection of the former chief sustainability officer at the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services and “15-minute city advocate” last summer to lead SDOT as the mayor said he was seeking a more “balanced” approach that better recognizes “the role of cars and new electric vehicles.”

And it comes as Seattle is grappling with its place in nationwide trends indicating the roadways are increasingly deadly — especially for those walking or riding bikes. Lowering speed limits hasn’t helped on its own.

According to the city, people walking and biking are involved in 7% of the traffic collisions in Seattle and account for 66% of the traffic fatalities. Seattle’s Vision Zero program was launched in 2015 with a goal to end serious injuries and fatalities citywide by 2030.

“We found that safety interventions and countermeasures used by SDOT to advance Vision Zero make our streets safer,” the executive summary of the new report says. “We also identified dozens of potential opportunities to improve SDOT’s Vision Zero efforts – by strengthening policies and improving policy implementation, streamlining decision-making, improving project delivery, and moving more quickly toward broader implementation of proven interventions where they are most needed.” Continue reading →