It is a great idea to redesign Leary Way NW and NW Market Street so they are safer for everyone while also connecting the Burke-Gilman Trail through Ballard, but SDOT’s current design needs significant work in order to achieve those goals.
SDOT has not released any new details about Councilmember Dan Strauss’ Market/Leary plan since we last reported on it, but they now have a simple online form for collecting public feedback. So go fill it out!
Question 1 regarding the Market Street segment is the most important. SDOT’s most recent 30% design includes several significant “mixing zones” where the trail and the sidewalk would merge together. SDOT’s own design guidelines for intersections say, “A mixing zone is not appropriate for two-way protected bike lanes.” The current design would create situations where people trying to bike in both directions along the route would mix with shoppers, people heading to the bus, people waiting for the walk signal to cross the street, and anyone else hanging out this this busy business district. This would be frustrating for people on bikes and it would be uncomfortable for people on the sidewalk. People should be able to hang out on the sidewalk without worrying about bikes coming through, and people biking should be able to rely on being able to travel along this route without needing to crawl through a crowd of people. It is in everybody’s best interest for walking and biking spaces to be separated in a busy business district, and the design team should be following best practices for two-way bike lanes through a business district. The Market segment also needs more traffic calming and safer crosswalks, goals that combine well with the goal of separating biking and walking spaces. SDOT’s Vision Zero research found that 80% of pedestrian deaths in Seattle occur on streets with multiple lanes in the same direction, so reducing the number of lanes on Market in this highly-walked business district is a worthy project entirely on its own merits while also creating the space needed to keep biking and walking separate.
If this project is designed well, the bike and scooter volumes could be very high, so it needs to be designed accordingly. Imagine a nice day with a constant stream of people biking and scootering out to Golden Gardens while another stream of people walk and bike through here to a bustling Sunday Farmer’s Market. That should be the design team’s use case.
Question 2 is about the Leary Way section, which is much closer to greatness than Market. Again, they should be designing it to two-way protected bike lane standards without mixing zones, but on Leary the space is already allocated for them to do so. This section needs tweaks, not a total redo. Be sure to voice enthusiastic support for the crosswalk and intersection improvements along this stretch, and request that every intersection leg have a crosswalk (Vernon is missing one crosswalk and NW Ione Pl does not have any marked crosswalks).
Question 3 is about the short section on 17th Ave NW to connect to the trail on Shilshole. Again, keep walking and biking spaces separate and designed to proper standards. The strange intersection of 17th and Leary is also missing some crosswalks seemingly in order to preserve a right turn slip lane. But I suspect the debate on this stretch will have more to do with the trees and parking. The current design would actually add parking while cutting down trees (though one of the three trees is angled over the sidewalk toward the buildings, so its days are likely numbered anyway). I personally think trees are more important than the car parking, but I suppose that’s more of a question for the local community to hash out.
Question 4 is an open-ended space for general feedback. My overarching thought is that the design team should not get hung up on whether they are designing a multi-use trail (AKA “shared-use path”) or a two-way protected bike lane. They should instead use the designs that are most appropriate for the context of a busy business district. If mixing zones are not acceptable for a two-way protected bike lane, they don’t suddenly become acceptable because you call it a shared-use path instead. Another general note is that while I am not against tearing down trees when the benefits are clearly worth it (creating a safe biking and walking route through Ballard is definitely worth it), the team should attempt to build around existing trees whenever possible even if that means utilizing more roadway space. You could also note here that you still support the city’s fully-designed trail on Shilshole that remains held up in endless court battles.
I look forward to enthusiastically supporting a high-quality Leary/Market design for connecting the Burke-Gilman Trail through Ballard.
Comments
8 responses to “Let SDOT know the Market/Leary Burke-Gilman route needs to separate walking and biking near storefronts”
Thanks, this was so helpful.
So we’ve given up on a Shilshole route?
Or just keep the route on Shilshole. Even the separation on Westlake Trail is only partially effective.
Glad to provide comment, but the project page for this one kinda sucks, haha. I’m not super familiar with the area and the color coded section maps are really hard to read.
The insight in this article was extra helpful to understand the route! :D
17th/Shilshole is going to need an all-way stop sign for this design. Crossing over 17th along the north side of Shilshole is a dicey move due to conflicts with cars turning from Shilshole toward the Ballard Bridge, and this design would get a lot more people doing that.
If people think it’s important to pay lip service to tree preservation to build political coalitions, do whatever, but as far as I’m concerned, don’t let trees stand in the way of doing urban streets the way we want them. Seriously expand housing, connect neighborhoods with truly great transit and bike routes — cut down whatever dozens of trees that takes in the city, plant more trees and other plants where it makes sense, especially where we can shrink and remove highways. Then stop sprawling and save trees by the thousands in the hinterlands, along with the wildlife that humans (reasonably) shut out of cities.
While there’s space allocated for bikes on Leary, there’s a significant hazard designed in too. At the Ballard Landmark senior living facility, a driveway crosses the bike lane to a pickup and dropoff area. That will get dozens of car uses per day, not to mention a few 911 calls a week plus regular moving trucks. All of those vehicles will be crossing the bike lane twice, both at oblique angles that will make it hard for drivers to see oncoming bikes.
To add insult to potential injury, the pickup lane is one lane wide, three car lengths long, and has no barriers between it and the bike lane. That means that a driver who’s finished their pickup or dropoff before the car(s) ahead will probably just cut out through the bike lane rather than waiting for the cars ahead to clear out. A design that encourages cars to roll through bike lanes unexpectedly is clearly a bad idea.
I get that folks using wheelchairs and walkers shouldn’t be crossing the bike lanes to get to their pickup and dropoffs, but this isn’t a great solution either. It’s really another reason that the trail should be on Shilshole.
I agree with the separation of the bike and pedestrian design. They did this in front of the Nordic museum and it worked out well. They messed up like you’re describing infront of the kiss cafe not even a block away though.
I’ve got a design that you may like that involves a protected lane down Leary from 22nd on market down to 9th eliminating the awkward 17th junction and keeps cyclists off the most dangerous part of the route down 45th.
It also flips the road pattern to have traffic in a better flow. (I call it a yooper loop) (think of the port Angeles a or Aberdeen 101 split)
That leaves the Ballard RR able to operate and add a trolley service to their tracks. I’ve got the friends of the benson trollies interested in the idea and they’re open in donating the cars to the project.
I’ve got a map of the design which the railroad, Dan Strauss, the cascade cycle club, and some others have all seen and are open to. It’s just a matter of finalizing it and showing it to the people.
Sdot is having a public comment at the market tomorrow and Thursday. You may want to stop there and chat with them. I’ll be doing the same
Keeps cyclists off the “most dangerous” part on 45th by instead going on Leary, where there’s more traffic, faster traffic, and more turning conflicts with higher volumes of traffic? Moves our Ballard Bridge approach under-crossing from Shilshole, where it’s nice and easy, up to Leary, the worst intersection in Ballard? If Cascade truly endorsed that (doubtful) they deserve to be disbanded.
If we were to take opponents of the Burke on Shilshole at their word, the opposition is about protecting marine industry along the canal. So why would they support turning a railroad into a tourist trolley line, starting where fancy retail developments are actually displacing industry and pointing down toward the remaining industry? Fortunately, even with the cars in hand, I doubt you could find anyone willing and able to operate a trolley line that promising to combine the worst parts of the SLU Streetcar and the old waterfront line without too many of their good parts.