The legal battle to complete the E Lake Sammamish Trail between Redmond and Issaquah continues, heading to the City of Sammamish Hearing Examiner next week.
The majority of the 800+ comments received about the trail project were supportive of King County’s plans for the regional rail trail, but Cascade Bicycle Club and the Friends of the E Lake Sammamish Trail sounded the alarm this week after noticing these comments were missing from the City of Sammamish’s summary of public comment.
To ensure that the Hearing Examiner hears from trail supporters in addition to opponents, the two groups are urging people to head to Sammamish City Hall at 1 p.m. November 3 to sign up to give public comment in person. You can also RSVP online to let Cascade know you’re coming.
The final 3.5 miles of the trail are designed, funded and ready to break ground. The county just needs a construction permit from the City of Sammamish without restrictions that would make the trail less safe.
2. East Lake Sammamish Trail Project Running into Troubles
Cascade Bicycle Club reports that hundreds of public comments that their supporters sent to the City of Sammamish regarding completing the final phase of the East Lake Sammamish Trail were not included or mentioned in a staff report. With the project pending before the city’s hearings examiner, Cascade asks people to attend a hearing next Friday.
Washington State has some great public servants and advocates working hard to make our state safer and more inviting for people riding bikes. But try biking across almost any state highway, and you’ll be confronted with scary off-ramps and skinny or missing sidewalks. And there will almost certainly be no bike lane in sight. Getting around or across state highways and freeways is the biggest barrier for people biking in a huge number of communities in our state.
So when I see that, for a decade straight, Washington State has been selected as the League of American Bicyclists’ most bike-friendly state (PDF), all I can think is, Wow, every other state, you must really not be trying.
I don’t mean disparage the work of great public servants, like WSDOT Active Transportation Director Barb Chamberlain (former ED of WA Bikes), or the current WA Bikes statewide advocacy staffers like Alex Alston and Kelli Refer (who also happens to be my incredible spouse). They are doing great work.
But the vast, vast majority of the state’s transportation money still goes to freeway projects — including a downtown Seattle car tunnel — while major safety problems persist on existing WSDOT highways and their access points in communities across the state with no relief in sight. Try crossing I-5 south of I-90 in south Seattle, then tell me how bike-friendly Washington is. (more…)
Today (Tuesday) is that last day to weigh in on the Pike Pine Renaissance through the partnership-designed project’s online open house.
The vision has been developed over years by Waterfront Seattle, the City of Seattle and the Downtown Seattle Association. The planned project will be funded by a combination of donations, a local improvement district, and government funding. The city has already started testing some of the elements of the plan, including protected bike lanes and expanded public space in front of the 3rd/Pine entrance to Westlake Station.
The vision for the stretches of Pike and Pine from 2nd Ave to Melrose includes a big increase in the number of trees and other greenery along the corridor, much wider sidewalks, bus lanes and protected bike lanes.
This plan is pretty incredible. It is an immense reimagining of these special Seattle streets as places for people, not just pipes for moving cars like they can feel today.
The plan should develop a better solution for people biking through the brick-paved section of Pine between 5th and 4th Avenues. The city’s pilot bike lane is currently testing whether the bike lane and general traffic can safety and comfortably merge into this mixed space, and it’s not working. There needs to be some kind of separation between people biking and people driving cars and buses. Or the plan could make this block car-free. The brick paving does not magically make mixing people biking and busy traffic a comfortable experience. (more…)
If you are registered to vote in King County, your ballot is in the mail. New voters have until October 30 to register in-person. Ballots are due November 7. See this story for more election coverage, including the WA Bikes endorsements.
Photo from Cary Moon for Mayor.
Cary Moon has a bold vision for a more affordable Seattle that is easier and safer to get around by walking, biking and taking transit.
And while her transportation platform is among the most ambitious in recent Seattle history, it is also grounded in reality. She’s a professional urban planner, and she has a strong understanding of what other cities around the world have successfully accomplished and what can work in Seattle.
When Moon believes in an idea, she doesn’t mince words about her support for it. Protected bike lanes downtown (specifically, lanes on 4th Ave, 7th Ave, 8th Ave, Pike St and Pine St as shown in a recent One Center City document)?
“Yes,” Moon said in response to a Seattle Bike Blog questionnaire. “I was on the One Center City advisory committee, and am committed to bold solutions that increase mobility by making walking, biking, and transit more convenient, fast, and safe downtown. More safe routes downtown, connected into a full network of protected bike lanes, is an essential part of this short term and long term solution.”
Her opponent, Jenny Durkan, has also voiced general support for downtown bike lanes (SBB asked her campaign specifically about the streets above, but they missed our deadline to respond. UPDATE 10/23: The Durkan campaign responded. See her answers at the bottom of this post.). And I think that’s important to note because, for supporters of safe streets, that’s a victory in itself. Neither mayoral candidate is campaigning against bike lanes downtown or on Rainier Ave. It is politically unviable to run an openly anti-bike mayoral campaign in Seattle, and that’s awesome.
So when figuring out which candidate will be best for transportation, you can’t just create a checklist of issues. You have to determine who will be most likely to get the work done and provide political leadership for projects in the face of pushback.
Seattle Bike Blog believes Cary Moon not only has a strong grasp of transportation issues, but she has also shown the most decisiveness in backing up her stances. That’s why Seattle Bike Blog is endorsing her. (more…)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The weekly Bike Happy newsletter is a huge dump of local bike events and advocacy news curated by Founder Brock Howell. Brock reached out and suggested the newsletter could be a great addition to Seattle Bike Blog. I agree! You can sign up to receive the newsletter on the Bike Happy website.
Note that this newsletter includes Bike Happy’s opinions on the upcoming election. Seattle Bike Blog has not yet released endorsements. Stay tuned for our mayoral endorsement tomorrow.
Last year taught us all that elections matter. You should be receiving your ballots today or tomorrow, and you need to return them by Tuesday, November 7. Washington Bikes, The Urbanist, Seattle Subway, and Seattle Transit Blog all endorse the same three awesome people to represent you at the City of Seattle:
— Cary Moon for Mayor
— Teresa Mosqueda for Council District 8
— Lorena Gonzalez for Council District 9
The two-way 2nd Avenue Protected Bikeway will be extended from Pike Street to Blanchard, with construction starting on Monday and last four weeks. Like the existing 2-way protected bikeway on 2nd Avenue from Pike Street to S Washington Street, the extension will be on the east side and every intersection with have “no turn on red” restrictions” for drivers. An added feature is the buffer will be a concrete curb with concrete planters.
As part of its expansion proposal, the Convention Center agreed to the investment requests of a coalition of neighborhood, bike, and housing activists, including $31.1 million for bicycle and pedestrian improvements and $29 million for affordable housing.
With a few cheeky stickers on crosswalk beg buttons, this week the City was on the defense of its crosswalks policies, writing a whopping three city blog posts (1, 2, 3). Receiving such a high level of response will surely encourage these anonymous “SDOTransformation” activists to ratchet things up further. For the City’s sake, hopefully SDOT’s good work on crossings to schools and community centers won’t go unnoticed.
5. City Budget Season is Here
Today, city councilmembers will submit their proposals for amending the mayor’s proposed 2018 budget. Duwamish Valley Safe Streets is asking for funding to build a trail to connect Georgetown to South Park, and Bicycle Security Advisors is working for funding to register bikes and investigate bike theft. Council committees will consider these changes over the next few weeks, and the full council will vote on the final budget in mid November.
The legal battle to complete the E Lake Sammamish Trail between Redmond and Issaquah continues, heading to the City of Sammamish Hearing Examiner next week.
