Seattle Bike Blog

South Seattle bike lane improvements added as budget goes to final vote

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 28, 2022

Though many of the Seattle City Council’s more ambitious budget goals were shelved following a grim revenue forecast, the nearly-complete 2023-24 budget retains the Vision Zero and Missing Link redesign funds that Mayor Bruce Harrell initially proposed and sets aside $1 million for upgrading many District 2 bike lane barriers to concrete.

Considering the budget crunch, biking and safe streets did OK through this Council budget process. Many larger project additions didn’t make it, such as Councilmember Lisa Herbold’s effort to revive the shelved Fauntleroy project, Councilmember Andrew Lewis’s effort to save the Thomas Street Redesigned project that Mayor Harrell cut, and Councilmember Tammy Morales’s Home Zone program expansion. The Council also made some frustrating cuts to the sidewalk repair program and ADA compliance in parks.

But the ill-advised bike and scooter share tax was also cut, which is a significant win considering how appealing a new potential revenue source was during an austerity budget session. However, as we argued, the revenue was far from assured, and creating the new taxing process could even have cost the city money in its first year of operation.

One of the biggest wins late in the Council’s deliberations was a Councilmember Morales proviso setting aside $1 million “solely for the replacement of plastic bollards with concrete barriers on currently protected bike lanes in Council District Two and may be spent for no other purpose” (budget action PDF). Morales tried hard to get more street safety funds into this budget, continuing to stand out as a champion for Vision Zero and equitable safety investments.

In the end, some but not all budget asks from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and Cascade Bicycle Club made it through. You can track all the budget amendments using this very handy city website.

While not related to biking specifically, Ryan Packer at the Urbanist has sounded the alarm about a concerning move to shift $12 million in funds from Seattle’s 2020 transit funding ballot measure to fund bridge maintenance instead of transit service. They are managing this bait and switch by noting that buses also use the bridges, so it should count as a transit investment. This is not what voters thought they were voting for when an overwhelming 80% of them approved this measure. There are many pools of money available to fund bridges that are not available for transit service, such as state gas taxes. That’s why it is so important to protect transit service funds. Unfortunately, the severe bus driver shortage has been leading to King County Metro bus service cuts even as funds are available to maintain that service. So as reserves from the ballot measure built up, it became a juicy pot of cash to raid.

The City Council is scheduled to make a final vote on the budget 2 p.m. Tuesday. While they are able to make last-minute changes, approval is often more of a formality as the vast majority of debates happened in the Budget Committee.

tags: 2023 budget, andrew lewis, bruce harrell, city council, Lisa herbold, tammy morales

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180 riders hauled an astounding 3,308 pounds of donations during Cranksgiving 2022

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 22, 2022

Timelapse from Saturday's #cranksgivingSEA pic.twitter.com/BvibRuI9K2

— Gary A. Fujioka, Sr. (@garyfujiokasr) November 21, 2022

Seattle’s 13th Annual Cranksgiving was one for the record books. The food drive bike ride’s 199 participants (180 riders and 19 volunteers) bought and hauled 3,308 pounds of food and essentials to the U District, Rainier Valley and Byrd Barr Place Food Banks. This officially topped the previous record set in 2019.

After two years of dramatically-scaled-back events due to the pandemic, I missed you all so much. The Cranksgiving crew is so special. Everyone is just beaming with positivity and love for the community. I am still glowing just from being around you all.

The 2022 event may have been the 13th Cranksgiving Seattle Bike Blog has organized, but it was also a new beginning as we partnered with Cascade Bicycle Club’s Pedaling Relief Project to take it to the next level. 2019’s 190 riders was at the limits of what I could feasibly handle as a sole organizer working on a shoestring budget. Swift Industries had long been our closest partner, hosting the afterparty in their Pioneer Square showroom for many years. But their showroom is no longer there (you can now check out their wares inside Peloton Cafe), and our crowd was already bursting at the seams. To allow the event to grow, we needed more careful organization and a coordinated crew of volunteers. PRP, led by friend of the blog Maxwell Burton, did that and more.

Big thanks to Burton and Cascade Ride and Events Program Manager Rishan Mohideen for working with me behind the scenes to make this year such a success. Central Cinema graciously waived venue fees for the afterparty and were very patient with all our last-minute changes. Thanks also to Bike Works, who brought their BikeMobile to the start line to help with pre-ride mechanical issues and secured donated gift cards from REI to help some riders offset their purchases. Thanks also to Eugene Pak for presenting about the upcoming film Riding Han.

These donations will be a big help, but your local food banks need all the help they can get right now. As Josh Cohen reported for Crosscut this week, food banks are facing a serious squeeze as pandemic-related funds dry up and inflation makes groceries more expensive. The Ballard Food Bank, for example, expects to spend about $1.5 million on groceries this year compared to $300,000 a year ago. So please consider monetary donations to support these organizations doing important and direct community support work. You can also volunteer your time with the food banks directly or by joining a (very fun) Seattle Pedaling Relief Project team to help with food rescue and delivery work.

And of course, thank you to all the riders. Here are some scenes from #CranksgivingSEA. If you have more that you want to share, either email [email protected] or post links in the comments below: (more…)

tags: bike works, byrd barr place, cascade bicycle club, central cinema, cranksgiving 2022, CranksgivingSEA, maxwell burton, rainier valley food bank, rishan mohideen, seattle pedaling relief project, u district food bank

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Remembering the victims of traffic violence across our region – UPDATED

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 21, 2022

People held a series of actions and press conferences across the Puget Sound region to remember the victims of traffic violence and call for action to prevent more of them.

A Rainier Valley Greenways action at Seattle City Hall set out 189 pairs of shoes to represent the people killed on Seattle streets since announcing the Vision Zero program in 2015. Actually, they had to update their sign to say 190 after learning of another death over the weekend. As of posting this story, the total was up to 191.

190 people have died on Seattle streets since the City announced its commitment to ending traffic violence. These shoes represent children, spouses, grandparents, friends, & neighbors killed since then.
Join the fight for safer streets: https://t.co/ar9S1ouqpu @RVGreenways pic.twitter.com/P6Bq0AzEfY

— Bob Svercl (@bobco85) November 21, 2022

Washington Bikes also held press events in Seattle and Everett with a third planned to start at 4 p.m. in Tacoma. The events included heart-wrenching statements from people who have lost loved ones as well as calls for policy changes. (more…)

tags: rainier valley greenways, wa bikes, world day of remembrance

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To learn how to respond to community-created crosswalks, SDOT should look to their own past

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 16, 2022

Image from the Reasonably Police Seattleites, April 1, 2013.

In the dead of night in early April 2013, one First Hill resident dragged $350 worth of reflective plastic posts down the hill and glued them on top of the brand new bike lane line SDOT had painted on Cherry Street under I-5. He then went home and wrote an email to Seattle Bike Blog with a cc to then-Director of SDOT Peter Hahn explaining his action. He called himself the Reasonably Polite Seattleites.

A “guerilla” bike lane was already an interesting story, but it was SDOT’s response that attracted national and global attention. Yes, the department sent out a crew to remove the posts, which did not conform to standards. But SDOT’s new Traffic Engineer Dongho Chang surprised everyone when he apologized to the Reasonably Polite Seattleites for needing to remove the posts, thanked them for their statement about the need for more bike lane protection, and then offered to return the posts. But it didn’t end there. Within months, SDOT crews were out installing plastic posts as an official city engineered project.

I know that today’s SDOT is aware of the story of the Reasonably Polite Seattleites, but judging by this week’s response to a community-created crosswalk on Capitol Hill, they may have missed the lesson it can teach them. Dongho making that Cherry Street bike lane official did not set off a string of other unofficial bike lanes across the city. His thoughtful response did not embolden people to take matters into their own hands to get their desired improvements completed. It did the exact opposite. It communicated to people that they don’t need to do this themselves because SDOT was going to do better. And they did. The number of protected bike lanes they installed increased dramatically after 2013 thanks to the department’s commitment to the revised Bicycle Master Plan.

This week, SDOT presented a gruff and authoritative stance against the painters of the Olive Way crosswalk, writing on Twitter, “Improperly painted crosswalks give a false sense of safety which puts pedestrians in danger. There are better ways for people to work w/ us to indicate crossing improvement needs & to make sure changes achieve what is intended — get people to their destinations safely.”

People have responded adversarially as you would expect because the whole point of the crosswalk action (I assume since I don’t actually know the painter’s intent) was to highlight the city’s lack of urgency in painting official ones. It comes off as though the agency is more concerned about defending its domain over street changes than it is about creating safe places for people to cross the street. (more…)

tags: capitol hill, guerrilla crosswalks, olive way, sdot

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45th Street bridge money should either require bike lanes or go to sidewalks and south end safety instead

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 16, 2022

A railing on this sidewalk will not make this bridge a safe and usable bike route. Note the desecrated sharrow representing how it feels to bike there.

Amid all the tough cuts to the proposed 2023-24 budget, including $4 million over two year from the sidewalk safety repair budget, one curious project is getting funding: A railing and some lighting on the NE 45th Street bridge over I-5.

Don’t get me wrong, the NE 45th Street overpass desperately needs safety improvements. I should know since I live less than two blocks away and bike or walk across this bridge daily. I personally appreciate that Councilmember Alex Pedersen has been pushing for investments to improve this bridge. But the project has developed all wrong and needs a total reset before getting a dime for construction. Worse, the specific “improvements” cited in the budget text would do next to nothing to address the real safety and mobility issues on the bridge while also potentially limiting future redesign options.

The budget action would use $1.5 million in funds raised by a $10 increase to Seattle’s vehicle license fee to build “pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements on the NE 45th St structure crossing Interstate 5 including, but not limited to, interior and external fencing of pedestrian and bicycle crossing space, and lighting improvements,” according to the November 14 draft of the initial balancing package (PDF page 120). What they are calling a “pedestrian and bicycle crossing space” is actually just a sidewalk that is in no way set up for bicycling. People do bike there, but only because biking in the roadway can be extremely stressful. The sidewalk is not wide enough to serve as a multi-use trail, and adding a railing would potentially reduce this space even further. But worse, there is no usable connection on either end of the bridge for someone try to bike between Wallingford and the U District.

The process that led to this point was frustrating because WSDOT said no to the kinds of changes that are actually needed to make this a safe and usable bike connection. The project needs a total reset, and this time we need WSDOT to be a genuine partner in safety with the community and with SDOT. We need to start all over and put bike lanes and neighborhood connections back on the priority list.

This is where my concerns with the railings come in. It is possible designing safe and protected bike lanes on the bridge would require modifying the existing curbline to create space for both a sidewalk and protected bike lanes. The presence of a railing would likely constrain these options. Here’s an example I found in my Streetmix drafts from back in early 2021:

I’m not saying this is the version they need to build, but my point is that the existing curb would have to be modified to make this or many other options work.

If the City Council moves forward with this funding, they should consider rewording it to remove a railing from the requirements and add a proviso that the project must include protected bike lanes in both directions. Otherwise, as much as it truly sucks to say it as a user of this terrible bridge, the money should go to more deserving investments.

tags: 2023 budget, ne 45th, sdot, u district, wallingford, wsdot

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Updated 2023 Seattle budget cuts sidewalk repairs, leaves out some safety proposals

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 16, 2022

The Seattle City Council has released its “balancing package,” an updated draft of the 2023-24 budget that factors in some Council changes as well as the city’s latest revenue forecast, which wasn’t great.

As Ryan Packer reported for the Urbanist, the reduced revenue forecast was not good news for some of the Council’s proposed additions. The Home Zone program expansion, Thomas Street redesign, and Councilmember Tammy Morales’ south end safety improvement budget adds did not make it. Additionally, the balancing package would cut $4 million over two years from the sidewalk safety repair program and $1.5 million from the Seattle Parks ADA compliance program.

However, one bright spot is that the ill-conceived bike and scooter share tax did not make the cut. We argued against this tax in a post a couple weeks ago.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has put together a sample letter you can send to Council to support some key changes to the proposed budget, including restoration of the sidewalk and ADA budgets and inclusion of south end vision zero investments. Here’s the text of their letter: (more…)

tags: 2023 budget, seattle neighborhood greenways

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