— Advertisement —

⇟ Jump to sidebar ⇟

⇟ Jump to sidebar ⇟

  • Council passes budget with vital South Seattle investments, leaves I-976 cuts for later if they lose in court — UPDATE: Injunction granted!

    By

    Tom Fucoloro

    | Posted

    Aerial photo of a wide street with an arrow pointing to the Duwamish Longhouse. Text: Located on West Marginal Way SW in a heavy industrial area the Longhouse is hardly accessible.
    Screen capture from a Duwamish Tribe video describing the need for better and safer access to the Longhouse. Funding for this project was added to Seattle’s 2020-21 budget.

    The City Council passed the 2020-21 budget Monday, including some vital investments in transportation safety and equity.

    The wins are big and worth celebrating, though they are also uncertain due to the looming threat of I-976. If the initiative makes it through a court challenge from various cities, counties and organizations (including Seattle and King County), the Council will need to make some deep and devastating transportation budget cuts this winter.

    Seattle Neighborhood Greenways highlighted some of the wins in a recent post, including:

    • $10.35 million increase for the Georgetown to South Park Trail, the Beacon Ave Trail or a Martin Luther King Jr. Way South protected bike lane. This isn’t complete funding for these three projects, but it’s a big start.
    • $4 million increase for sidewalk construction and $7 million for accessibility improvements. Again, nowhere close to meeting the city’s need, but it’s significant.
    • $3.76 million increase to build out a people-centered Thomas Street between South Lake Union and Seattle Center, a vital investment for taking advantage of the reconnected street grid as part of the state’s SR 99 Viaduct Replacement Project.
    • Funding a full-time Active Transportation Coordinator for Seattle Public Schools. It’s wild that the district did not already have someone tasked with encouraging kids to walk and bike to school and improving safety for those who do.
    • $300,000 increase for SDOT’s Transportation Equity Program, “helping to identify and address systemic and structural equity issues.”
    • $500,000 for the Duwamish Longhouse crossing. Considering our city is on indigenous land, the absolute least the city can do is heed the tribe’s request for a safe way to cross the busy and industrial W Marginal Way SW to get to the Longhouse. (If you want to go beyond this bare minimum, check out Real Rent Duwamish)
    • $350,000 for a “home zone” concept focused on ways to improve safety and walkability in neighborhoods without sidewalks. Building sidewalks will require a lot more funding and time, so we need to find solutions that can work for people in the meantime.
    • It’s not funded, but the budget requires SDOT to come up with a bike route maintenance plan and report back to Council.

    So, yeah. This is exciting and vital work. But it and a lot of other vital work will but up the air if I-976 goes into effect. (more…)

    tags: , , , ,
    — Advertisement —

  • Seattle’s 10th Cranksgiving smashes the attendance record + Photos UPDATE: More than 1 ton donated!

    By

    Tom Fucoloro

    | Posted

    Photo of woman standing outside addressing a large crowd of people with bikes.
    Rainier Valley Food Bank’s Tara Migliore tells the crowd about the organization’s mission.

    I thought it was a bit strange that the line for the two sign-up clipboards was so long. I had used the same forms for nine Cranksgivings before, and the line to sign in was never that long before. So it was a good thing that I made so many extra spoke cards … except then those ran out, too.

    An astounding 190 people rode Seattle’s 10th Annual Cranksgiving Saturday, far beyond our all-time attendance record set in 2016 at 160. I am just floored by all of you who came out to ride bikes and buy some food to support your community. Thank you.

    I do not yet have a final weight total, but the record was set in 2018 when 150 people hauled 1,713 pounds to Rainier Valley Food Bank. So there’s a good chance we topped 2,000 pounds this year. That’s a ton … literally. All by bike.

    UPDATE: The official count was 2,223 pounds of food donated. This is the first time riders have topped the one-ton mark. Good work, everyone!

    Big thanks to co-presenters The Bikery and Swift Industries. Once again, Swift hosted the afterparty in their store and workshop in Pioneer Square and donated prizes. Other after party and prize sponsors included Cascade Designs, Cascade Bicycle Club, Bike Works, Kelli Refer and Rainier Brewing.

    Swift also hosted a warm clothing and gear drive to benefit Facing Homelessness.

    There was an incident that forced RVFB to close Saturday, but they were able to open today to get the donation out the door and onto tables throughout the community.

    Here are some great scenes from the day posted to #CranksgivingSEA: (more…)

    tags: , , , , , , , , ,
    — Advertisement —

  • Alert: Some UW Station bike racks will be replaced with lockers starting Monday, so careful where you lock up

    By

    Tom Fucoloro

    | Posted

    Sound Transit is moving and replacing some bike racks near UW Station to install new on-demand secure bike lockers starting next week, so be extra careful about which racks you use. Look around for a “Rider Alert” sign before locking your ride.

    The total number of bike parking spaces should remain essentially the same. Today there are 286 open air bike parking spaces. After the lockers are installed, there will be 228 rack spaces and 60 locker spaces (288 total).

    Sound Transit started installing on-demand BikeLink lockers just this year, though King County Metro has been using them for a few years now. They are not free like the open air racks and they require you to sign up for an account in advance, but I’m sure there are people out there willing to pay a few cents an hour for extra bike security.

    Here’s a tweet from Sound Transit showing the kind of sign to look out for:

     

    tags: , , ,
    — Advertisement —

  • Regional trails get a new brand: The Leafline Trail Network

    By

    Tom Fucoloro

    | Posted

    The three Leafline logo options.
    Logo options.

    Puget Sound counties have selected one trail brand to rule them all: Leafline.

    The new name will describe “a network of over 400 miles of wide paved trails connecting communities throughout Snohomish, Kitsap, King and Pierce Counties,” according to King County Parks.

    The newly-created Regional Trails Coalition is creating this unified regional branding effort for trails, which could do a couple things. Most obviously, it could create some continuity for trails that cross county borders. That alone is probably worth the effort.

    But a larger, less concrete effect of talking about regional trails as part of the same network could be that people start thinking about them all as part of something bigger. After all, an investment in a trail builds on investments in nearby counties, too. And county lines are irrelevant to someone just trying to bike around.

    So a new logo isn’t exactly the most exciting thing on its own, but the sentiment behind it is pretty great.

    UPDATE: An earlier version of this post referred to a survey, which has since closed.

    tags: , , , , ,
    — Advertisement —

  • Why Elizabeth Warren decrying ‘traffic violence’ is what America needs

    By

    Tom Fucoloro

    | Posted

    On World Day of Remembrance Sunday, Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted:

    She didn’t say, “traffic accidents,” she said “traffic violence.” It’s a statement that shouldn’t be notable. More than 35,000 people are killed in traffic collisions nationwide every year, and many times that are seriously injured. And it doesn’t need to be this way. Of course we need to “end traffic violence,” and of course candidates for President should talk about it.

    But that’s the thing: They almost never do. All this death and carnage on our roads is never a topic in TV debates. It is practically never mentioned in presidential stump speeches. And policy platforms practically never include a plan for making our roadways safer (beyond things like fixing bridges and highways). So reading Warren’s tweet Sunday was very exciting. Do we finally have a national leader who wants to actually do something about the preventable traffic deaths happening every 15 minutes somewhere in our country? We spend a lot of time here talking about how Seattle can make our streets safer, but that does little for the rest of the country. This problem desperately needs national leadership.

    OK, so Warren’s statement plays well with Seattle Bike Blog, but what about middle America? Well, the origins for my interest in traffic safety began in a suburban red district in a Midwest swing state. And it’s a story that may as well have happened anywhere in this country, red or blue. (more…)

    tags:
    — Advertisement —

  • I guess I need to take back some of the nice things I said about the Neighborhood Street Fund… UPDATED

    By

    Tom Fucoloro

    | Posted

    UPDATE: Be sure to read to the bottom of this post for an update from SDOT. This specific Neighborhood Street Fund project is dead, but the department has not abandoned this intersection, a spokesperson said.

    2016 top-down concept of the winning 15th and Columbian redesign, including shorter crosswalks and a pedestrian plaza.
    What could have been at 15th and Columbian Way S. Concept from the 2016 Neighborhood Street Fund selection announcement.

    Yesterday’s post was supposed to be about a neighbor-led SDOT program focused on investing significantly into ideas generated from the community rather than from within SDOT. But then just when it went live, The Urbanist reported some very depressing news about a 2016 Neighborhood Street Fund safety project on Beacon Hill. SDOT has officially cancelled the long-delayed intersection redesign and public plaza at 15th and Columbian Way S for purely political reasons.

    So an intersection near a middle school will remain dangerous because people who didn’t want it to change got organized, and city leaders buckled.

    “After extensive design and coordination with the community, we were unable to reach a consensus on a design that could be supported by the community as a neighborhood proposed NSF project,” SDOT Spokesperson Ethan Bergerson told the Urbanist.

    Consensus? If we suddenly need neighborhood consensus to make changes to our city, then we will never change anything ever again. This is an absurd and dangerous requirement, and it cannot become the new standard for NSF projects. The process is already grueling for the volunteers who propose ideas, and the result is an idea that is generated from community members and design by SDOT’s professional engineers. There will always be people who don’t want change. Always and forever. True leadership means doing the right thing, anyway. Trading away safety for middle schoolers because some adults wanted it to be a little bit easier to drive and park cars is very poor leadership.

    This project was not cancelled because of further study. There was no professional report that found it would be unsafe or cause problems for neighbors or businesses. It was rejected because some neighbors just didn’t like it.

    This intersection is dangerous today, and it will be dangerous tomorrow and every day until we do something to make it safer. As the Urbanist’s Ryan Packer reported: (more…)

    tags: , , ,
    — Advertisement —
— Advertisement —

Join the Seattle Bike Blog Supporters

As a supporter, you help power independent bike news in the Seattle area. Please consider supporting the site financially starting at $5 per month:

Latest stories

— Advertisements —

Latest on Mastodon

Loading Mastodon feed…