Well, this one’s a pretty easy choice. Support Option 1 for a section of 16th Ave SW in White Center! Take King County’s short online survey and attend the open house at 6:30 p.m. July 24 (tonight!) at White Center Food Bank. From the survey:
As a side note, King County is making a classic mistake with their outreach here. If there’s an option that is safer than the others, it really shouldn’t be put up for a public debate. Why would we ask a community whether the safety of people is more or less important than 21 theoretical parking spaces that don’t even exist today? Especially since they have an option that improves bike safety while also increasing parking. Like, what are we doing here, folks?
Comments
3 responses to “Tonight: Public meeting about possible 16th Ave SW bike lanes in White Center + Take the survey”
I live in the neighborhood and went to this event last night. I’d never been to an in-person local government event, and it was interesting to hear all the character tropes play out in real life. There was the maligned small business owner afraid to lose parking, the strident pro-bike people who would put bike lanes on every street if they could, the folks equating bike lines with gentrification, and the random angry people who were really there to gripe about unrelated items. And answering to all these people was a civil engineer with the charisma of paved asphalt.
It was….not inspiring. But I’m old enough now to realize that important discussions and change really do happen in these sometimes frustrating, boring scenes. And therefore they are important.
To answer your question near the end of your article, I’m still unsure of exactly WHY this extra outreach was done. It sounded like a loud enough person or group contacted the county to say that a lot of people (particularly BIPOC residents) felt like they were not heard through the previous outreach process, and that they wanted to have their say. It seems like the meeting was an intent to hear these people, lest the county be accused of railroading marginalized groups in the area.
I can’t say if the county had enough outreach, because I honestly don’t remember it myself. They apparently sent out mailers and online surveys back in 2022, and that is too long ago to remember something so boring as road redesign (sorry, I know it’s important!).
I’m with you though regarding outreach. Do we really need to hold multiple town halls to discuss every damn thing the roads department does? Can we install a bike lane without the PROCESS? A A street light? A crosswalk? New paint? Where does it end? The need to consult every single citizen on every road decision seems ripe for abuse and intentional delays by bad actors.
I was at the meeting too. The project area was built after the Interurban tracks were ripped out. and unlike the downtown of White Center which has few parking lots, all but 5 businesses have their own parking lot! One person at the meeting noted that there are 700 parking spots! One business owner that spoke up against the bike lanes has 7 off street spots for his business. He failed to answer how many he needed!. if ever there was an area that doesn’t need street parking this is it! the one business that has limited parking is the WC Food Bank. the parking in front of their business is getting roughly doubled. Their building recently got completely remodeled and rebuilt. They have ample parking in the back and a wide alley that could be used for their 100 families per hour that drive to their business, but they did not plan for that. contrast this with the food bank in the U-district and the one. at 35th Ave SW and SW Morgan which do not have any street parking. No one seemed to recognize that people on bikes spen more on their routes than people in cars. There are few bike racks in front of businesses! The food bank’s bike rack is in the alley by the dumpsters! you have to walk around the block to the front door. One person even suggested that the bike lanes looked like a cut thru for bikes. Car culture just doesn’t understand how easy it is to instantly stop hop the curb and visit a business. No Parking necessary.
A simple ‘buffer’ between bicycle lane and car lanes are not enough. That stretch of 16th Ave is so straight and car drivers will natural driver very fast. We need physically barrier to protect bicycle users from erratic car drivers. I don’t want to see the tragedy of Dr. Babara Friedes happening in White Center.