Seattle Bike Blog

Mayor Durkan: ‘Eastlake is moving forward’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

February 3, 2020

From left: Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Community Organizer Clara Cantor, SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe, Cascade Bicycle Club Policy Director Vicky Clarke and Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Mayor Jenny Durkan removed all doubt about what she thinks about Eastlake Ave bike lanes during a mid-day press event today.

“Without prejudging what would come out of an EIS or what the lawyers would say, we need that bike lane,” she said in response to a question from Heidi Groover at the Seattle Times. “From the north end to downtown Seattle there are only a few routes you can go on, and so Eastlake is moving forward.”

Mayor Durkan was speaking at a press event celebrating the completion of several downtown bike lanes recently (more on that coming soon), but her Eastlake statement definitely got the biggest applause.

As we reported last week (and then rambled on about for more than an hour in a video), Eastlake Ave is the most controversial segment of the major RapidRide J project, a rapid bus and multimodal street remake of the corridor between Roosevelt Station and downtown. Because the project is receiving significant Federal funding, the Federal Transit Administration and SDOT have released a required joint environmental assessment outlining the options they considered for each part of the project and selecting a preferred option, which includes bike lanes.

SDOT anticipated pushback on Eastlake because adding protected bike lanes would remove a lot of parking on the street, so they conducted an exhaustive 100-page report (longer than the environmental assessment for the entire project) looking at nine different options for building a bike route along the project corridor. And the bike lanes are just the only option that is complete, makes regional bike connections and serves neighborhood destinations. (more…)

tags: cascade bicycle club, eastlake, jenny durkan, rapidride j, sam zimbabwe, sdot, seattle neighborhood greenways

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You spoke up, and city plans now extend E Union St bike lanes through 23rd Ave

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 31, 2020

Thanks to everyone who voiced their concerns about SDOT’s incomplete plans for E Union Street bike lanes in the Central District, the project team has changed their designs to now extend the new bike lanes through the intersection with 23rd Ave.

You can support the complete bike lanes by completing the project survey by February 7.

Union is already a very popular street for biking even though its paint-only bike lanes disappear and reappear constantly between Madison St and 34th Ave in Madrona. It’s just the only east-west street in the area that goes all the way through without dead-ending into a major institution (like Seattle University) or turning into a staircase (Pike St). So protected bike lanes on Union are one of the highest-priority bike improvements for the neighborhood.

The design released last spring showed protected bike lanes from 14th Ave to 22nd Ave, then people biking would have been directed to either mix with car traffic (defeating many of the benefits of a protected bike lane) or use the busy sidewalks in the 23rd and Union business district.

Needless to say, people were not pleased with those options. The Urbanist was able to obtain project survey results that showed more than 600 of the 877 responses the project team received were from people calling for completing the bike lanes. The Central District has among the highest bike commute rates in Seattle, and Union is a key link to and through the neighborhood. So it’s no surprise that response was strongly in favor of complete bike lanes. (more…)

tags: 23rd ave, capitol hill seattle, central district, sdot, the urbanist, union street

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Watch: Talking through Eastlake bike lanes and RapidRide J

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 30, 2020

Transcript

I’m trying something new here, so definitely let me know what you think. I created a stream-style video that’s me talking through the RapidRide J project and the Eastlake bike lanes. It’s quite long and definitely rambling. But it also has a ton of information and background on the project that would be hard to squeeze into a single blog post.

Maybe you’re looking for something to watch in the background? Or maybe you want to just listen to it in the background and check in if you want to see what I’m talking about. I don’t really know. I’d love your thoughts. Would you want to see more videos like this? Is it too long? (the answer is yes) Would you want to watch Seattle Bike Blog interviews that are taped like this? Do you have good ideas for future such videos? Let me know!

tags: eastlake, rapidride j, stream

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A look at the latest plans for connecting the 520 Trail to Capitol Hill, Eastlake

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 29, 2020

In our post about the planned Eastlake Ave bike lanes, we mentioned that the bike route there would be part of a regional network once the 520 Trail reaches across I-5. It might be hard to imagine what that connection will be like because it is so different from the way things are today, so here’s a closer look at the latest design plans from a November report to the Seattle Design Commission (PDF).

A trail was not always part of the so-called “Rest of the West” phase of the state’s $4.6 billion 520 Bridge Replacement Project between Montlake and I-5, but a lot of organizing a few years back by advocates, including Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and Cascade Bicycle Club, made sure a biking and walking connection continued all the way to Capitol Hill and Eastlake. The project includes a new bridge across Portage Bay, a new freeway lid park near Roanoke Park and an improved I-5 crossing. Put it all together, and you get a complete biking and walking path from Eastlake all the way to Kirkland and Bellevue.

Though the project is not scheduled to be complete until 2029, the major design decisions (like whether to include a trail and lid park) have already been made, and the details will be finalized over the next couple years. So let’s take a look. (more…)

tags: 520 trail, capitol hill, eastlake, roanoke, sr 520

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Joint Federal/SDOT report shows RapidRide J and new bike lanes would move far more people + Town hall Thursday

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 27, 2020

It’s hard to think of many potential bike lanes in Seattle as important and fundamentally game-changing as Eastlake Ave. I would probably put it at number two behind only Rainier Ave. There is no other viable option for a quality bike route along the east side of Lake Union between the University Bridge and South Lake Union.

Not only is the route today is one of the most dangerous for people biking, but it will also some day connect to the 520 Trail once the state completes their new connection between Montlake and I-5. So if you think Eastlake Ave is important today, just wait a decade when it becomes the most direct bike route between much of the Eastside and Seattle.

But bike lanes on Eastlake are not just about people biking through the neighborhood. They are also about opening up the neighborhood to customers on bike and providing more residents with a safe way to bike to and from their homes. And this is a chance to support local businesses and build more capacity for people to get there by bus and bike.

The Eastlake Ave remake is part of the larger RapidRide J project, which would include major bus priority improvements between downtown and Roosevelt. Because the project is due to receive significant Federal funding, it is currently undergoing a Federal environmental assessment (PDF). That’s where you come in. You can voice your support for the project, especially the Eastlake bike lanes, via this online comment form and by attending an open house or town hall meeting this week. The biggest meeting is likely to be Thursday’s 6 p.m. town hall at TOPS Elementary with Councilmember Alex Pedersen. From Share the Cities:

Show up to CM Alex Pedersen’s town hall at TOPS elementary school tell your personal story and connection to Eastlake and to show support for climate friendly changes and safety improvements in Eastlake that help all of us move throughout our city.

Let’s gather at 5:50 pm in one section of seats to show support. Share The Cities will be bringing small hand held paper signs & stickers to show support.

Handmade signs are welcome.

There are also drop-in open houses about the project all week: (more…)

tags: eastlake, rapidride j, roosevelt to downtown hct

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Bike Route Alert 1/27: Awful 2-week sidewalk detour on Montlake Blvd near SR 520 starts Monday

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 24, 2020

So you finally got used to biking around the SR 520 construction in Montlake, eh? I have bad news. It’s about to get way worse for two weeks.

Starting as soon as Monday, people walking and biking on the east sidewalk, the current designated route, will have to cross Montlake Blvd twice to use the west sidewalk to get around a closure of the sidewalk between E Lake Washington Blvd and E North Street.

This is especially rough because using the east sidewalk was already a poor bike detour ever since the state closed biking and walking access across the 24th Ave E bridge in September. The signal at Lake Washington Blvd only has a crosswalk on the south side and there’s a slip lane for traffic to turn right from Montlake Blvd to Lake Washington Blvd. So everyone will need to squeeze into this tiny little triangle surrounded on all sides by traffic and wait for the walk signal:

Once this is the only biking and walking option, is everyone going to fit in the little triangle?

(more…)

tags: Bike Route Alert, montlake, sr 520, wsdot

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