SDOT will upgrade the 8th Ave bike lane between Pike Street to Westlake Avenue to replace the paint and plastic posts with concrete barriers.
Work will start in early January and continue for up to 3 months.
The project was funded thanks to a community-led effort to secure a variety of street improvements from the Washington State Convention Center expansion project. Because the center’s expansion required a lot of pubic space, including alleys and defunct bus tunnel infrastructure, the project was required to compensate the public for those losses. The Community Package Coalition, which included Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, helped put together an $83 million collection of investments that included the 8th Ave bike lanes as well as Pike/Pine bike lanes, a Lid I-5 study and $29 million in affordable housing.
The 8th Ave bike lane when it was new in 2019. A lot of those plastic posts have since been destroyed.
The upgraded design still includes the strange diagonal crossing through the intersection with Virginia Street. The design is safe so long as everyone obeys the rules, but it can feel a bit unsettling to use just because it’s so unusual. (more…)
The crosswalk signal at 83rd and Greenwood made some headlines a few months ago in large part because it was constructed in the same place as a community-made crosswalk that was painted in September 2021.
The crossing is part of the neighborhood greenway connection between Greenwood and Green Lake, and the improved crosswalk even garnered a community celebration when it opened in October. But it has since been somewhat unreliable. It turns out, the bike detection camera was faulty, and SDOT won’t be able to fix it until early 2023. Until then, you can push the button to activate the signal. From SDOT:
We removed & replaced the faulty bike detection camera at Greenwood Ave N & N 83rd St. New cameras will be programmed in the coming weeks. The signal is expected to be fully operational in early 2023. Signs are in place for cyclists to know they need to use the pedestrian button. pic.twitter.com/l8YaDT9oKq
Amber Weilert’s 13-year-old son Mikey was killed in July while biking in a crosswalk on Pacific Avenue S in Parkland. Since then, she’s been sharing her devastating story in an effort to make changes.
But reading her piece in the Tribune, it’s clear that we need to do so much more:
I wake up some mornings, grab my cup of coffee, walk down the hall, and for a split second I put my hand out to knock on Michael’s door to say, “It’s time to get up for school.” But then reality hits. Michael is not in his room. Michael will never be in his room again.
I hope my son Michael’s story and its impact on the importance of transportation safety ensures your child’s story has a different ending.
Michael was an adventurous child. He loved climbing trees, laughing with his friends, trying to do the latest TikTok dance, running into the cold ocean waves at the beach and riding his bike. Michael finished building his own bike in July 2022, the summer before his eighth-grade year. He was so proud of it and enjoyed the independence that riding gave him. The same month, my 13-year-old son was riding that bike alongside his best friend when he was killed by a driver in a crosswalk on Pacific Avenue.
From SDOT :”We will be replacing unused pavement with gravel to make the it more obvious how to follow the bike lanes and cross the train tracks at a safe angle.”
SDOT is set to start work as soon as Monday on another fix to hopefully prevent people from crashing while biking across the train tracks under the Ballard Bridge as they navigate the notorious Burke-Gilman Trail Missing Link.
Crews will tear out sections of the roadway and replace it with gravel in hopes that this will “add more visual and physical cues for bike riders to follow the correct path across the train tracks,” according an SDOT blog post.
The biggest issue here is that the train tracks cut across the roadway at an unusual and shallow angle, and the gaps between the road and the rails can easily grab bike wheels if riders do not cross at a 90-degree angle. The city has tried multiple times to use paint and plastic posts to encourage riders to cross at a sharp angle, but people continue to crash and get injured here.
SDOT says this fix is not part of the Missing Link project, which remains held up in court. That design would move the bike path to the south side of NW 45th Street, bypassing this crossing area entirely in favor of an easier crossing location to the west of the Ballard Bridge. But as legal delays keep delaying that work, people are still getting hurt.
Riders in the area will need to detour around the work zone via 14th Ave NW and NW 46th Street. The work is expected to last up to three days. A safer track crossing would be an incredible Christmas present.
SDOT also plans to return to the location in 2023 to make more improvements, including rerouting the bike lanes around the south side of the bridge supports. Here’s what that could look like:
I have been working on this book since 2019, and I cannot wait for you all to finally get a chance to read it. It is due out in May (though printing backlogs could end up pushing it back a little). There will be hardcover and e-book versions at launch, though only the hardcover version is available for preorder at the moment.
The book started as more of a bike culture book with a short history section, but in the course of researching I kept finding fascinating and often surprising stories buried in various archives about the different ways bicycling helped shape the city and its culture. That’s why the subtitle is “The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars.” It’s a book as much about the City of Seattle as it is about bicycling, but bicycling provides an atypical perspective for exploring the complicated history of this place.
The book uncovers some long-lost stories and names, and it may change the way you think about Seattle as you bike up and down (and up and up and down) around this beautiful place.
Some blurbs from a couple fantastic writers:
A journalist’s eye and personal enthusiasm make this look at the history, culture, and contemporary politics of bicycling in Seattle a fun, fascinating read that will make you want to get on your bike and explore the city—while organizing to keep making local transportation better, safer, and more equitable.
– Elly Blue, author of Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save the Economy
Weaving together history, personal anecdotes, politics, and a passion for the road, Tom Fucoloro opens our eyes to the incredible story of bicycling in Seattle, showing how everyone benefits from more bikes on the road and inspiring us to ride.
– David B. Williams, author of Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City
Photo of Jay Inslee with a battery electric bus from the Budget Highlights document.
Governor Jay Inslee’s proposed 2023–25 budget responds to rising traffic deaths across the state by accelerating safety projects, creating a $5 million fund for responding to “emergent safety needs,” and $3 million specifically for SR-7 in Pierce County.
“Like other states throughout the nation, Washington is experiencing increased traffic accidents and incidents that often result in serious injuries and fatalities,” the Governor’s Office wrote in their Budget Highlights document (view the transportation section in this PDF). “There was a 17% increase in traffic fatalities from 2020 to 2021, reaching the highest level in a decade. Pedestrian fatalities increased by over 31%.”
To address safety, the proposed budget would begin work on $15 million worth of biking and walking projects within the 2015 Connecting Washington package that have not yet begun. The budget would also create a $5 million fund to “improve infrastructure as emergent safety needs arise,” according to the highlights document. “Currently, the department does not have flexible funds to provide infrastructure improvements that might immediately increase safety for active transportation users. The 2023-2025 budget includes funding for the department to better respond to community needs when emerging safety issues arise.”
Given WSDOT’s excellent traffic safety engineers, including former Seattle Traffic Engineer Dongho Chang, I am very excited to see such a fund in action. Chang showed in Seattle that a lot of good can be done with relatively little money through focused safety fixes. If anything, I with the $5 million fund were bigger, though it’s a start.
The recreation section of the proposed budget highlights also includes $3.9 million in bonds to “improve public safety by assessing, renovating, or replacing dilapidated bridges, trestles, culverts, and tunnels along the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail,” according to the highlights document. The proposed budget would also fund “a new foundation and other improvements for the historic Kittitas railroad along the trail.”
The Governor’s Office will submit the full proposed budget to the state legislature, which will have an opportunity to make changes during the legislative session in early 2023. So stay tuned for opportunities to get involved and help influence that process.
SDOT will upgrade the 8th Ave bike lane between Pike Street to Westlake Avenue to replace the paint and plastic posts with concrete barriers.
