Seattle Bike Blog

It’s time for a transportation revolution east of Lake Union

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 17, 2015
Imagine a direct, fully connected and protected bike route from Roosevelt and Green Lake all the way to downtown. The city is studying how to make it happen.

And not only could the project fix some consistently dangerous collision hot spots, but the project would also fill in the last major missing piece in a complete Lake Union bike loop. This is guaranteed to become a major commuting and tourism draw, revolutionizing non-motorized transportation in the city and opening up Eastlake businesses to visitors like never before.

But that’s not all. The bike lanes can also come side-by-side with significant transit efficiency improvements connecting some of the most densely populated neighborhoods to our state’s biggest and fastest-growing job center.

SDOT presented three concepts for improving surface transit service between Northgate and the city center (you can see more details in this PDF):
- RapidRide – The cheapest option, this would be like our existing RapidRide service. Better bus stops and buses, a signal priority system, consolidated stops and not much else. For the rest of this post, we will ignore this option because it does not include significant biking and walking safety improvements. Sharrows on Eastlake Ave? Immediate disqualification.
- Targeted Investment – Basically RapidRide+. This option includes that RapidRide stuff, but also makes some changes to roadway design, including queue jumps for buses and bus lanes in select locations to help get buses around the worst traffic jams. This option could also come with bike lanes. Peak-hour transit speeds would improve 38 percent north of Denny, but only 10 percent south of Denny.
- Full BRT – Significantly more expensive that the RapidRide+ option, a full BRT option would involve major remakes of the roadway in order to provide transit-only lanes for nearly the entire length of the route. Plans presented also include bike lanes for the entire length of the route. Peak-hour transit speeds would improve 200 percent north of Denny. But the biggest improvement comes between Denny and Downtown (on Stewart/Virginia): 900 percent improvement in transit speed.
I know what you’re thinking. “Why even continue writing? Obviously we want Full BRT and bike lanes the whole way!” Well, you’re right. But there’s more to report, so stick with me. (more…)
tags: eastlake, fairview ave n, rapidride j, roosevelt to downtown hct, south lake union

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Big North Seattle stretch of Burke-Gilman Trail getting pavement fixes this month

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 15, 2015

The Move Seattle transportation levy kicks in January 1, but the expiring nine-year-old Bridging the Gap levy still has a little life left. And part of that remaining funding is being put to very good use: Fixing pavement on the Burke-Gilman Trail from 40th Ave NE to the city’s northern border.

Starting Monday, crews will work into January repairing sections of the well-used but deteriorating trail. These are some of the oldest sections of the trail, serving the city and region well for nearly 40 years. But there are also many sections riddled with bumps ranging from annoying to dangerous, especially at night when low light makes it very difficult to see and prepare for them.

So if you are biking the trial, give yourself a little extra time and be ready for some short delays or detours.

This investment comes after the city conducted a survey of trail conditions to prepare a trails upgrade plan. The city’s Parks District is also prepping more trail and parks access work in 2016.

Details from SDOT: (more…)

tags: bridging the gap, burke-gilman trail

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Who is going to step up and fix the planned waterfront surface highway?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 14, 2015

Base images from Waterfront Seattle. Lower image modified by Seattle Bike Blog.

So many of you submitted comments shocked by the gigantic waterfront highway presented in the most recent Waterfront Seattle plans that you triggered a requirement mandating the city study a road design that has fewer lanes to cross between the downtown core and the rebuilt waterfront.

The proposed eight-lane road is so wide that people who move slower — like children, many elderly people or people with mobility issues — won’t be able to cross the whole street in one signal. They will have to cross to the center median and wait a couple minutes before continuing across to finally reach the other side. Or they’ll just get stuck in the middle of traffic when the light turns green, a terrifying and dangerous situation.

Obviously, this is not acceptable. So good job submitting your comments! You all were very clear about the problem, and you demanded a solution from our city and state. And they heard you, so now they are studying an option that removes the … transit lanes?!?

That’s right. Even though essentially nobody asked to get rid of the transit lanes, that’s the study we’re getting. Because everything about this process is backwards.

In a short bullet point during a mostly-fireworks-free Transportation Committee meeting last week, a planner for the Waterfront Seattle project mentioned that they were adding a study to analyze the impact of removing the promised transit-only lanes on the planned Alaskan Way surface street. These transit lanes are vital for moving all the buses that currently use the viaduct, including most service to West Seattle.

But the comment did not go unnoticed. Transit boosters, including Zach Shaner at Seattle Transit Blog, heard the new bit of news and asked, and I’m roughly paraphrasing here, “What the fuck?”

Well, it turns out the problem stems from an agreement between the Port of Seattle and the State. Zach at STB explains: (more…)

tags: alaskan way, seattle transit blog, waterfront, zach shaner

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So, how did the city do at building the Bike Master Plan in 2015?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 11, 2015

After years and years of planning, 2015 was the year Seattle’s Department of Transportation finally tried to hit a stride delivering bike network additions and upgrades regularly and consistently. In order to keep the Bike Master Plan on track, the city needs to build many miles of protected bike lanes and neighborhood greenways every year.

And they are going to get close to meeting their goals in 2015, especially if you count Westlake and other projects ready to begin construction in early 2016.

And perhaps more importantly, SDOT can keep their roll going in 2016 and beyond thanks to voter approval of the Move Seattle levy. If the levy had failed, progress would have ground nearly to a halt.

Of course, there is still a ton of room for improvement, both in delivering projects on time and in the quality of those projects. Seattle still has not built a single protected intersection on any protected bike lane project, and many of the neighborhood greenways suffer from insufficient busy street crossings and too much cut-through traffic due to a lack of diverters.

Much of the protected bike lane miles included in the 2015 count are on Ravenna Blvd, a project we praised for doing a lot with little budget. But ultimately, Ravenna was already mostly there, making it very low hanging fruit. There aren’t many projects that easy out there.

But the biggest problem with essentially every project is a lack of connectivity to other quality bike routes. And that’s a problem we can only solve by keeping up the work every year to build out the Bike Master Plan and by focusing hard on the biggest and most difficult missing links, like downtown and Rainier Ave. (more…)

tags: bicycle master plan, bicycle master plan implementation plan

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Bellevue endorses Vision Zero

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 10, 2015

The Bellevue City Council unanimously endorsed Vision Zero Monday, setting a goal of zero deaths and serious injuries on Bellevue streets by 2030.

In fact, there was very little discussion or debate about the resolution (PDF), which sailed right through. You can watch the very short proceedings here or in the video posted below.

“I know there’s still a tremendous amount of work to be done” to integrate the policy into the city’s comprehensive plan and the bike/walk initiative we reported about previously.

The resolution does not itself do anything direct, like funding specific safe streets projects. But it does realign Bellevue’s often car-movement-at-all-costs point of view evident by anyone trying to walk or bike in many parts of the major Eastside city. The staff memo (PDF) for the resolution acknowledges the role of “unforgiving” street design in the deaths and injuries of people on Bellevue streets: (more…)

tags: bellevue, vision zero, vision zero bellevue

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Cascade Bicycle Club and WA Bikes merge, form nation’s largest statewide bike advocacy organization

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

December 9, 2015

Washington State now has the largest statewide advocacy organization in the nation.

The Boards of Cascade Bicycle Club and Washington Bikes voted Tuesday to merge the two organizations, following months of negotiations and member outreach by both groups (see our previous story for background).

The reworked organization will now have two arms operating under one roof. “Cascade Bicycle Club” will now be a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) non-profit focusing on rides, education and non-political advocacy, and “Washington Bikes” will be a politically-engaged 501(c)(4) advocacy force funded largely by the annual 10,000-person Seattle-to-Portland ride (Full Disclosure: My spouse Kelli is the Seattle Advocacy Director).

Members of both organizations will automatically become members of Cascade Bicycle Club when the changes go into effect January 1.

An email to WA Bikes members calls the merger “a big win”: (more…)

tags: barb chamberlain, bicycle alliance of washington, blake trask, cascade bicycle club, elizabeth kiker, washington bikes

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