Seattle Bike Blog

Segment of Lake Washington Blvd To Reopen December 18-January 4

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

December 16, 2020

SDOT has just announced that it will be closing a small segment of Lake Washington Boulevard between Mount Baker Beach and Stan Sayres Boat Launch (at 45th Ave S) starting this Friday December 18 and running through Sunday January 4. This is the same segment of Lake Washington that was closed over Thanksgiving weekend, and is a shortened segment of the 3-mile Keep Moving street that SDOT piloted over the summer that extended all the way down to Seward Park.

Another small segment of the street between the boat launch and 50th Ave S is designated “local access” with signage but will still allow vehicles.

The segment of Lake Washington Boulevard closed to cars.

These temporary closures are clearly intended to provide extra open space around holidays but they also serve a transportation need in a segment of town without a reasonable safe north-south bike route. The narrow pedestrian path along Lake Washington boulevard is also inadequate for people who want to maintain six feet from other around them. Many are calling for at least a portion of the street to be made permanently car-free.

The city continues to have a protracted conversation about the future of Lake Washington Boulevard as a place where people that aren’t in personal vehicles are prioritized. Last week the parks board, which technically controls the land that the street is on, discussed the issue, and the Twitter thread from Erica C. Barnett is worth your time.

Lake Washington Blvd info signs are up. Creating space for people to walk and roll during the holidays: December 18- January 4. https://t.co/R2PFFwElrN pic.twitter.com/clJhdS9lJG

— Dongho Chang (@dongho_chang) December 16, 2020

tags: keep moving streets, lake washington blvd

— Advertisement —
Seattleites Driving Fewer Miles Than Ever, City Report Suggests

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

December 16, 2020

The city of Seattle just released a new report on our citywide carbon footprint. The info in the report is slightly out-of-date, as it’s a snapshot of how we did in 2018, but is the most comprehensive picture we have of how the city is meeting, or rather failing to meet, its carbon reduction goals.

The report includes one significant piece of info that should be encouraging to transportation advocates: the number of miles of vehicle travel for each Seattle resident sunk to its lowest level in decades in 2018. Every single Seattle resident’s share of the miles travelled on city streets was just over 6,000 miles after a likely peak of 7,400 in 2005. This is clearly a result of transportation policy decisions, light rail and the success of the Seattle Transit Benefit District central among them, that drove drive-alone commute rates to record lows.

Vehicle miles travelled per capita in Seattle since 2005

Now for the bad news: due to Seattle’s population increasing, total VMT in Seattle is still continuing to go up even as everyone’s individual share is going down. Per capita miles travelled has gone down 11% since 2008 but overall VMT is up 12%.

Seattle’s goal for miles travelled in the 2013 Climate Action Plan is a 20% drop in overall passenger VMT (separate from freight miles travelled) by 2030. In order to meet the 2030 target, there would need to be a drop of more than 200 million miles per year until 2030.

(more…)

tags: climate action plan, climate change, jenny durkan, vancouver

— Advertisement —
RapidRide J Line Shortening Leaves Roosevelt Bike Connection Hanging

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

December 14, 2020

The recent news that one of the centerpiece transit upgrade projects of the Move Seattle levy, the RapidRide J line- formerly known as Roosevelt BRT- would see its route shortened was another big blow to the transit segment of the levy. Roosevelt BRT will not even reach the Roosevelt light rail station, instead terminating at the U District light rail station. That news comes on the heels of the city giving up entirely on turning 3 current bus routes into RapidRide lines in 2018, and news this year of the route 7’s upgrade being put on hold. The number of broken promises in the transit component of Seattle’s largest-ever transportation levy continues to grow.

But this is unfortunate news for the hopes of completing a critical bike connection between brand new light rail stations in north Seattle as well. Since 2016, Roosevelt Way NE has had a protected bike lane between NE 65th Street and the University Bridge, just waiting for the light rail station at Roosevelt. But Roosevelt is only a southbound bike lane, and RapidRide J was set to upgrade the paint bike lane on 11th Ave NE, finally completing the couplet. Now it’s not likely that will happen anytime soon.

The RapidRide J line, including the bike lane component, will not change south of the University Bridge, meaning that a full bike connection along Eastlake Ave is still planned. This will complete a hugely critical connection that will have massive citywide benefits, despite considerable opposition to parking removal along Eastlake. Earlier this year, Mayor Durkan herself voiced clear support for installing protected bike lanes on Eastlake, hopefully indicating that another downgrade isn’t likely.

The RapidRide J line will terminate at U District Station instead of Roosevelt Station.

(more…)

tags: rapidride j, university district

— Advertisement —
SDOT Proposes Using Bike Budget to Make Stay Healthy Streets Permanent

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

December 9, 2020

New barricade on the Central District’s Stay Healthy Street

The Seattle Department of Transportation generated national headlines back in May with an announcement that it would be taking steps to make twenty miles of “Stay Healthy Streets” permanent. This big announcement that a chunk of Seattle’s neighborhood greenway network would get upgrades that make them more enjoyable and safer to use was cheered by many, and for good reason.
Seattle’s neighborhood greenway network has suffered from inconsistent standards, with little physical infrastructure that prevents people driving cars from utilizing them as an arterial alternative, and little accompanying pedestrian improvements.

But when that announcement was made earlier this year, we didn’t have a great idea of what those permanent improvements might look like, or what city funding would be used to make them. Last week, a city oversight committee was asked to approve a funding source for permanent Stay Healthy Streets: the existing bike budget.

A memo written by Jim Curtin, SDOT’s Project Development Division Director, asks the Move Seattle levy’s oversight committee to approve use of levy dollars for the upgrade of Stay Healthy Street using “durable materials”. It states that these upgrades will “improve safety on Stay Healthy Streets and support a community driven process that was not possible during the initial COVID-19 emergency response”, citing a 357% increase in people walking and a 111% increase in people biking along the Stay Healthy Streets since they were implemented. (According to the same memo, regular neighborhood greenways only saw a 37% increase in people biking compared to a normal neighborhood street.)

In return, more than two and a half miles of new neighborhood greenway projects would lose construction funding. This would further reduce the amount of bike facilities installed over the life of the 9-year Move Seattle transportation levy. A recent report to the oversight committee listed fewer than 35 miles of either protected bike lanes or neighborhood greenways completed to date compared with the 110 miles that were promised to voters in 2015. The bike master plan program is expected to fall well short of its goal already.

(more…)

— Advertisement —
Welcome Temporary Editor Ryan Packer

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 7, 2020

Ryan Packer

I am very excited to announce that Ryan Packer will be Temporary Editor of Seattle Bike Blog now through the end of February.

As readers of The Urbanist know, Ryan is a very thorough reporter with a deep understanding of how transportation policy works (and fails to work) in Seattle. So I was very excited when they applied for the Editor job.

Ryan Packer (they/them) has lived in Seattle for about fifteen years, originally hailing from northern Illinois. Since 2015, they have reported on transportation, particularly on Vision Zero and pedestrian & bicycle infrastructure, at The Urbanist. In normal times, they spent a lot of free time going to see the work of Seattle’s amazing live theater artists and is looking forward to doing that again very soon. To get in touch, email [email protected] or follow @typewriteralley on Twitter.

As for me, I am taking a sabbatical from the blog after more than a decade. Site content has been very slow lately as I work to complete the first draft of a book about Seattle bike culture for UW Press. Hiring Ryan will be great for Seattle Bike Blog, bringing important news back to the site in a more timely manor. It will also give me more time and space to focus on this book.

Businesses can support this effort by advertising, and readers can support by signing up for the monthly Seattle Bike Blog Supporter program.

Thank you all for reading, and thanks Ryan for signing on!

tags: seattle bike blog

— Advertisement —
After nearly 10 years, Deb Salls steps down as Bike Works ED + Ed Ewing takes the helm

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 4, 2020

Deb Salls and Ed Ewing.

When I first met Deb Salls, it was an office crammed full of desks and staff members in the top floor (maybe attic?) of the iconic yellow Bike Works house in Columbia City. There was hardly an inch of open space up there. One floor down, the organization packed a full schedule of after-school programs into a single classroom space. One floor further down, a bustling community bike shop was squeezed into a tiny storefront. They had to hang the bikes they had for sale upside-down from the ceiling.

Salls has overseen big growth and changes at BikeWorks since then. Under her leadership, the organization finally burst out of that yellow house and into a nearby building with warehouse space for their bike reuse work, classrooms for their programs and office space for their staff. The yellow house is now dedicated to the community bike shop, which now has space to put bike on the floor. And they have continued expanding their programming and reaching more people.

So it’s bittersweet to hear that Salls will be leaving Bike Works to head back to Minnesota to be Executive Director of Social Venture Partners MN. It sounds like a good move for her, and Seattle Bike Blog wishes her the best. We’ll miss you, Deb! Thanks for all you’ve done for our city.

Ed Ewing, the founder of Cascade Bicycle Club’s Major Taylor Program and Bike Works’ current Deputy Director, will take over as Interim Executive Director before moving into the permanent Executive Director role, according to Board Chair Marcos Franco in a blog post:

I am confident with Ed at the helm, a brilliant staff behind him, a dedicated board, and a passionate network of supporters, we are heading in the right direction. Deb’s last day will be January 5th, and we will finalize Ed’s transition from Interim Executive Director to Executive Director by the end of that month.

Ewing is a great leader, and I can’t wait to see what he does with the Executive Director role in a local bike organization. And he’ll have some time to get situated before pandemic restrictions (hopefully) lift in 2021 and Bike Works can bring their programming back to full speed. That’s going to be a lot of work, I’m sure.

tags: bike works, deb salls, ed ewing

— Advertisement —