Seattle Bike Blog

Some ways the city can help more people bike during the West Seattle High Bridge closure

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 22, 2020

From the Bicycle Master Plan. Dashed lines indicate needed improvements as of 2014. Full map (PDF).

Seattle needs to take bold, unprecedented action to help many more people get around by bike during the longterm West Seattle High Bridge closure. This isn’t just about improving cycling conditions, it’s one of the only ways the city can keep the whole transportation system moving.

Every idea needs to be on the table, including efforts we have never tried before. This is an unprecedented challenge in recent Seattle history.

The West Seattle High Bridge is closed until at least 2022, and it may not ever open again in its current form. At this point, very little about the bridge is certain other than that it’s going to be closed for a long time. The lower bridge is still open, including the biking and walking path. Personal motor vehicles are not allowed, reserving this connection for transit, freight and emergency vehicles.

Of course the closure is already causing huge transportation problems for the neighborhood as everyone driving a personal vehicle who would have taken the bridge needs to reroute all the way to the 1st Ave S or South Park Bridges. But the real headache will come when the economy reopens and the 100,000 vehicles per day that typically cross the bridge have to find another route. There simply is not that kind of car capacity without the bridge.

This means biking will likely the most reliable and often fastest way to get across the Duwamish River. But as we explored in depth with the help of Anthony Palmieri of the community group West Seattle Bike Connections, the primary bike routes through and to West Seattle are often missing pieces or have other complications that make them either confusing or uncomfortable, especially for new riders. WSBC does great work to help their neighbors find routes that will work for them to help them get riding. But there’s a lot the city can do to remove obstacles that no amount of advice can get around. And many or all these projects can be completed at low cost, especially compared to the scale of this problem.

The city should be taking major steps to fully connect and protect bike routes to and through West Seattle. Just looking at the unfinished connections in the Bicycle Master Plan is a great place to start generating project ideas. But I thought I would highlight a few in particular: (more…)

tags: Delridge Way SW, duwamish trail, duwamish valley, marginal way, rapidride h, sdot, sw admiral way, upper west seattle bridge, west seattle

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Fremont Solstice Parade (and painted bike ride) cancelled for 2020

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 21, 2020
It’s not a surprise, but the 2020 Fremont Solstice Parade has officially been cancelled. And that means the annual painted bike ride is also cancelled.

Of course the ride and parade shouldn’t happen amid the outbreak, but it’s still tough news. The Solstice Parade and the pre-parade painted bike ride are among the iconic events that make Seattle what it is. So I’m mourning the news.

The Fremont Arts Council, which puts on the parade, is exploring ideas for a virtual celebration. I’m guessing there won’t be a body paint biking element, though…

More details from the Fremont Arts Council:
After assessing the current and projected data related to COVID-19 and hearing from King County Public Health and the Seattle Office of Special Events, the Board of Directors felt the wisest and safest choice for the FAC and the community would be postponement to next year.

Looking ahead, the Fremont Arts Council will need your support throughout this year, more than it ever has before.

How You Can Help:
1. The Green Hat in the Fremont Solstice Parade and the Beer Garden at the Fremont Solstice Celebration at Gas Works have been the FAC’s main source of funding for the year. Without it, our budget for 2020-2021 is very small. Please consider joining or renewing your membership OR making a donation!
2. We are brainstorming how to add new revenue streams for the FAC and we are writing grants to support the FAC and its events. If you have an interest in developing funding sources or grant writing, please help us by joining Dayna and the Development Team.
3. We were chosen by the UW Human Centered Design and Engineering Department to help update our website! If you have web development skills and want to learn more about this project, email Lymarie at outreach@fremontartscouncil.org.
4. Help us CELEBRATE!!
We’re creating a committee that can take the lead in the outreach and collective processto make a virtual Fremont Solstice Parade and Celebration happen on June 20th. We will be looking for artists, members, sponsors, and volunteers as well as media content and video editors. If you want to help organize, create and be a part of this, email Henry at volunteer@fremontartscouncil.org.

We don’t want June 20th to pass us by wishing for what we can’t have. We may not be able to gather en masse but we CAN still celebrate the Solstice. We want to safely share Fremont Solstice with our families, our friends, our community and the world. We want to see your celebrations, your joy, your rituals, your art! We want to hear your stories! We may not be able to fill the streets but we can still share with each other our celebration at the return of the Sun!

Lastly, stay healthy and stay safe! We look forward to creating an online Fremont Solstice Parade and Celebration with you and we look forward to celebrating with everyone in person at Luminata on September 19th.

With Care and Hope,

The Fremont Arts Council Board of Directors
tags: fremont, fremont arts council, fremont solstice parade 2020

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Trail Alert 4/27-5/11: Significant delays on Sammamish River Trail for repair work in Bothell

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 20, 2020

Work to fix some tree root bumps and repave a section of the Sammamish River Trail in Bothell kicks off April 27 and will last for two weeks.

During work hours, trail users will need to wait for up to 15 minutes before crews can let them through. There will not be a detour.

The trail is currently closed for recreation as part of King County Parks’ agency-wide closure that began in late March. People making essential trips or traveling to and from essential jobs are still allowed to use the trails for transportation.

More details from King County Parks spokesperson Doug Williams:

Starting next Monday, April 27, we’ll be removing root incursions and resurfacing a short stretch of the trail (less than 100 yards long) near the “Chicken Lot.” The stretch we’ll be working on is at Sammamish River Park adjacent to 102^nd Avenue Northeast, and east to the bridge that crosses the river. (See the map below.)

Construction is going to take place Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., for two weeks – as long as the weather holds. If we get significant rainfall, the project would likely have to be extended to make up for lost work time.

A flagged trail detour isn’t possible at this location. Instead, we will have flaggers and intermittent closures to allow trail users through the construction zone in 15-minute increments.

The contractor will have temporary control signage (“construction ahead, expect delay,” “bicyclists dismount,” etc.), and flaggers will control trail user flow through the construction zone. Bicyclists will be asked to dismount and walk through the work site.

Even though the regional trail system remains closed to everything but essential trips (work, doctor’s appointments, etc.), we’re concerned that trail use will increase with the improving weather. This can create an issue at the construction site because all trail users will have to be stopped together for several minutes while work is being done before they can safely walk through the construction zone.

With that in mind, we’d appreciate your help in getting out the message about limiting non-essential trips along this portion of the Sammamish River Trail during the construction timeframe

I know it’s an inconvenience to have a stretch of trail closed like this for construction, but with reduced trail use as part of the Governor’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy guidance, we can get this important safety work done now, rather in the summertime when trail use is exponentially higher.

We’ve also lined up the timing of this project to coincide with a City of Bothell project to replace the pedestrian bridge in the Park at Bothell Landing.

tags: Bike Route Alert, king county parks, sammamish river trail

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Watch: Talking open streets during COVID-19 with Gordon and Clara from SNG

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 17, 2020

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has been working with local advocates to develop ideas for open streets as a way to relieve crowding on sidewalks, paths and major parks during the outbreak. We previously reported about some of their ideas, and the organization is still accepting open streets ideas via their online survey.

Since taping this interview with Gordon Padelford and Clara Cantor of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, SDOT has announced their Stay Healthy Streets program to open a set of residential streets to walking and biking 24/7. Similar to Oakland’s Slow Streets program, Stay Healthy Streets will be closed to through-traffic but open to local access.

The city is starting with two streets in the Central District and West Seattle, but has plans to expand the program to include 15 miles “in the coming weeks.”

tags: clara cantor, gordon padelford, open streets, seattle neighborhood greenways, stay healthy streets, video

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With the West Seattle High Bridge closed until at least 2022, talks begin about building a replacement

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 16, 2020

From SDOT.

As we learn more about the unexpected and sudden closure of the West Seattle High Bridge at the end of March, it’s looking more and more like the decision to close the bridge prevented a horrific tragedy. Cracking on both sides of the support structure of the longest span was on a path to meet at the center. And if that happened, engineers said, the structure could have collapsed. That’s six lanes of traffic on the city’s busiest non-interstate bridge plummeting from a ridiculous height.

I’m sure there will a lot of investigation into how the bridge got to this point and whether the city could have prevented it. But first, we need to acknowledge that inspectors and the city’s transportation chain of command made a very good call by closing it when they did.

The cracking immediately slowed when traffic stopped, but it has continued. The bridge itself is so massive that it makes up a huge percentage of the total load on the structure, so removing traffic can only do so much. This is also why they are not going to be opening the bridge to walking and biking. You don’t want to be up there.

The high bridge will be closed at least through 2021, and this means biking will only become more important for West Seattle as the path over the low bridge remains one of the best ways to cross the Duwamish River. See our previous story and video, in which Anthony Palmieri of West Seattle Bike Connections walks through some popular bike routes in the neighborhood.

The city announced Wednesday that it will cost $33 million to maintain the lower swing bridge (which is prone to failures itself), change traffic controls, and to stabilize the bridge so it doesn’t fall down on its own and can handle the workers and equipment needed to make a bigger and more expensive fix.

City engineers are also not confident that they can repair the bridge at all, and they definitely cannot fix it well enough to make it operational for its full expected life span, which should have had it operational until the 2050s or 2060s. If they can repair it at all, the city doubts they could get more than 10 years out of it. So conversations are already starting about replacing the bridge entirely, an effort that will be measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. Which we don’t have. (more…)

tags: city council district 1, Lisa herbold, lower west seattle bridge, sam zimbabwe, sdot, upper west seattle bridge, west seattle

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Cascade survey: How have your walking and biking needs changed during the outbreak?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 15, 2020

Take the survey.

A survey from Cascade Bicycle Club asks people how their relationship with walking and biking has changed since the outbreak began and seeks ideas for how Cascade can help during this time.

As we reported previously, Cascade furloughed half their staff out of worries that they may need to cancel many or all of their major events this summer. Executive Director Richard Smith said they typically need to make a decision about whether to hold or cancel an event one month before it happens, so stay tuned for updates.

May is typically Bike Month, which Cascade and its sister organization Washington Bikes pack with various events including Bike Everywhere Day. Cascade has pushed the entire month of events back into June, including Bike Everywhere Day on June 19. But again, all of this is contingent on social distancing guidance at that time, so stay tuned.

From the survey: (more…)

tags: cascade bicycle club, covid-19

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