With the 2nd Ave protected bike lane pilot demonstrating Seattle’s vision for more ambitious, safe and comfortable bike routes downtown and beyond, Seattle voters approved an unprecedented transportation levy by a big margin. Mayor Ed Murray, his transportation advisors and the staff at the Seattle Department of Transportation laid out a bold vision, and the people said, “Hell yes.”

So with all this momentum and a fresh voter mandate to make bold safety and bike network improvements in hand, the city’s newest annual update of the short term bike plan (AKA the Bicycle Master Plan Implementation Plan, or the Bike Plan Plan) is baffling.

The five-year total for protected bike lanes has been cut from 36 miles to 25 miles compared to last year’s version, and the total for neighborhood greenways has been cut from 52 miles to 32 miles.

These are vital public safety projects designed to prevent serious injuries and deaths on our streets, yet the city plans to cut one in three projects from the five-year work plan. If the city hasn’t abandoned its Vision Zero goal — which calls for a specific focus on biking and walking safety — then it has at least made it a much lower priority.

“Through smarter street design, targeted enforcement, and education, we will make our streets even safer for people of all ages and abilities, especially pedestrians and people on bikes, as they’re the most vulnerable to death and injury on our streets,” Mayor Ed Murray wrote in his introduction to the city’s 2015 Vision Zero Plan.

And the city’s improvements are working. If it hadn’t been for the Ride the Ducks tragedy, 2015 would have been the city’s safest year in generations. This is no time to slow down on our safe streets work. Seattle is among the only major US cities with Vision Zero in sight. We have a moral obligation to keep working as hard as we can to get there.

That’s why biking and safe streets advocates in neighborhoods across the city were devastated to see the newest short-term bike plan (PDF). In many neighborhoods, the hard work to organize and push for safety improvements and a connected bike network have literally been wiped from the map. (more…)