Between 2011 and 2014, people driving on West Seattle’s 35th Ave SW (AKA “I-35”) crashed 294 times, injuring 128 people and killing two. That’s an average of two crashes and one injury nearly every week.

This high rate of collisions and injuries will not stop until we do something to stop it. And that’s exactly what Seattle’s highly-successful Road Safety Corridor program aims to do.

You can support the city’s street safety plan at a public meeting 7 – 9 p.m. Thursday at Neighborhood House High Point.

The southern section of the street already received safety improvements last year. Let’s finish the job.

Unfortunately, the plan does not include bike lanes on the street. Instead, the city has committed to build a “parallel” neighborhood greenway. As usual, it’s important to push back on this idea that a parallel greenway meets the safety and access needs of people on bikes, especially when the options are less direct and more hilly than the arterial street near it.

In this case, calming the street to reduce injuries is the primary goal, and bike lanes are not on the table. It’s important to support the safety changes and not let perfect be the enemy of good (this is a compromise). And there are some people in the neighborhood who don’t want any changes at all, which would maintain the unacceptable collision and injury rate on the street. (more…)