The community-led Cheasty Trails and Bike Park concept has been six years in making. With a series of walking and mountain biking trails in the greenbelt, project boosters hope to create much-needed access to outdoor recreation in a steep greenbelt slope between Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley.
Volunteers for the effort have spent years working on environmental restoration projects in the greenbelt, but the full vision has been sidetracked by a lengthy legal process. The Seattle Hearing Examiner directed Seattle Parks to do more environmental study back in 2015, and that effort has led to some changes to the plan and a more robust environmental analysis. Parks has released a new “Determination of Non-Significance” (PDF) for the project based on this work, and project supporters are urging folks to send supportive comments (see below).
The plan now avoids the steepest sections and wetland areas as much as possible. Here are the updated (and somewhat difficult to read) plans: (more…)
The Center City Mobility PlanOne Center CityImagine Downtown Imagine Greater Downtown inter-agency partnership is hosting an open house Thursday (tomorrow!) to gather your “big ideas for great public places and lively streets in the heart of Seattle.”
I know, I know, didn’t we just do this, like, two years ago? And didn’t that effort include a project list of bold ideas? Well, that was when it was called One Center City, the part of the SDOT, King County Metro, Sound Transit and Downtown Seattle Association partnership focused on near-term projects. Imagine Greater Downtown is focused on the mid-term and long-term, looking to 2035.
They are hosting an open house5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.
By 2035, the entire Bicycle Master Plan is supposed to be completed. That means the bike network in the study area should look something like this (each line may move a block or two based on project design, but this density of bike routes is needed to meet the plan’s goals):
From the Bicycle Master Plan. Blue: Protected Bike Lane, Red: Trail, Green: Neighborhood Greenway.
A coalition of community groups on Capitol Hill is hosting a design workshop October 25 to help craft a vision for the protected bike lanes on Pike and/or Pine Streets that were funded through the convention center expansion community benefits package. The City Council passed a resolution in July calling on SDOT to design and build these bike lanes by the end of 2019.
You should RSVP online for the evening workshop, which even includes dinner. Space is limited.
The workshop concept is a wonderful example of what can happen when community groups get together and invite folks to be part of a positive change in the neighborhood and to shape public investment. Neighborhood groups like Central Seattle Greenways have already been going around to area businesses for years talking about the need and potential for bike lanes. And, of course, neighborhood groups organized to boost the convention center public benefits package to include this funding. Few bike lane projects in the city’s history have been so community-led.
There are few bike routes in the city with as important and promising as Pike/Pine, which connect downtown to large swaths of dense housing and business districts. These streets are already heavily used today by people biking despite lacking quality bike lanes.
It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s some stuff going around the ol’ World Wide Web that caught our eye.
First up, as Seattle heads into the so-called “period of maximum constraint” downtown (the years after buses are kicked out of the transit tunnel but before Northgate Link opens), perhaps we could learn from New York City’s TransAlt and organize a series of bike trains. While this would be a lot easier if Seattle had a connected bike network, successful and inviting bike trains could provide folks with the safety and comfort of biking in a group for those stretches where bike infrastructure is lacking (*cough*Rainier Ave*cough*):
Bicycling Magazine has named Seattle the “best bike city in America.” Seattle typically places fairly high on the magazine’s list, which is based on editorial judgment and comes out every two years. But Seattle has not been picked as the top city in a long time (Zosha Millman at the Seattle PI reports that the last time Seattle won was 1990).
So what put Seattle over the top this time? Well, the magazine has a whole list of reasons, including the city’s recent high-quality downtown bike lanes, the city’s role in private bike share innovation, the number of women who bike here, and our great cycling community.
The photos alone are worth checking it out (not to mention that yours truly was interviewed for the feature). I especially like the mini profiles at the end.
Seattle is an amazing place to get around by bike, and everyone out riding is doing so for their own reasons and finding joy in their own ways. Riding a bike is such an intimate way to get to know your city, and the same geography that makes Seattle challenging at times to navigate by bike also makes the city endlessly rewarding to explore.
Of course, Seattle has a lot of work to do, and Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration has so far been putting the brakes on many of the qualities the Bicycling Magazine feature so admires about our city. Downtown bike lanes have been delayed. Other Vision Zero road safety projects have been extremely watered down or are under threat. And bike share innovation has seemingly stopped, with the number of companies operating down from three to just one and the city unwilling to try new ideas like scooters.
It doesn’t need to be this way. The city could easily modify its bike share permit to encourage innovation. And the city already has great plans and significant funding to make huge improvements to connect communities with a safe and inviting bike network. It just requires political will and leadership.
But it’s also important to simply enjoy the city, even if you know there is so much work to be done. Sure, this list might be very subjective and prone to big swings (the last city to claim the top spot, Chicago, is now down at number six), but it’s a good reminder that Seattle is a really special place. So get to know it a little bit better by riding a bike. (more…)
King County Parks will show off the latest plans for what could easily become one of the most stunning segments of trail in the region: The Eastside Trail through Wilburton.
The open house is 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Bellevue City Hall.
This segment will include the rehabbed Wilburton Trestle, a very cool old rail bridge that will provide trail users with towering views of downtown Bellevue and beyond.
But, of course, it’s not just the views that are exciting. The trestle and a planned NE 8th Street overpass will also make it much easier to bike through the area, providing routes that fly over wide streets near a I-405 interchanges. This segment also needs to include a connection to the I-90 Trail. It’s hard to overstate how much this segment of trail will improve bikeability in the immediate area and through the region.
Sections of the Eastside Trail are already open as interim hardpack gravel trails through Kirkland, north Bellevue and Renton. If all the pieces come together perfectly, the trail could be open by 2021. But, of course, there are still a lot of “ifs.”
The community-led Cheasty Trails and Bike Park concept has been six years in making. With a series of walking and mountain biking trails in the greenbelt, project boosters hope to create much-needed access to outdoor recreation in a steep greenbelt slope between Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley.
