Seattle Bike Blog

SDOT solidifies proposal for fully funded Green Lake Outer Loop project

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

February 25, 2022

This week at an online open house, SDOT released the results of a survey the department conducted last year around the concept of creating a path for people walking and rolling along the Outer Loop along Green Lake Park’s western edge. Adjacent to Aurora Ave, no sidewalk currently exists, just a dirt path that frequently turns to mud. The idea of repurposing the curbside lane of Aurora, which is actually a continuation of a bus lane on a stretch of road that buses don’t currently use, as a space for people to walk and bike has been kicking around SDOT since mid-2020, according to records Seattle Bike Blog obtained last year. After hearing from over 5,000 people, a huge response for a survey like this, 40% of people said they supported the idea of converting the lane of Aurora compared to 29% of people who said they opposed it.

The curbside lane of Aurora Ave N is planned to be converted to walking and biking space by the end of the year. (SDOT)

SDOT also announced that they’ve selected an alternative to the final connection between this new Aurora path and the existing protected bike lane at the north end of the lake, via West Green Lake Drive N. The final design will be a two-way protected biking and walking lane along the lake side, with the rest of the street shifting to a new one-way traffic pattern in the southbound direction in order to retain parking along the street for residents. SDOT says they discarded making the street northbound due to concern about additional traffic diversion for drivers trying to head southbound. This option actually narrowly lost to the option that included parking removal, 42% to 47% but was the one selected by the city.

West Green Lake Dr N is proposed to be converted to one-way operation for cars, with a new two-way walking and biking path along the lake side up to Densmore Ave N. (SDOT)

And finally, the department announced that the project, which didn’t previously have construction funding identified, is now fully funded via the city’s Vision Zero program. Most of the $1 million cost is anticipated to come from purchasing concrete barriers for the segment along Aurora, but SDOT says they are looking at how to repurpose existing barriers from elsewhere to keep costs down. The Vision Zero program is expected to see a higher amount of revenue in the next few years thanks to an increase in the city’s commercial parking tax set to take effect this year. Previously Vision Zero funding has been used to create separated space for people to bike on 12th Ave S in Little Saigon and on NE 65th Street.

Once complete, the Green Lake Outer Loop project would finalize a safe place to bike around the entirety of Green Lake Park. (SDOT)

The survey, like nearly all surveys on transportation projects, wasn’t exactly representative of Seattle as a whole: only 22% of respondents said they are renters (renters are a majority of Seattle residents) and 80% of respondents said they are white. Green Lake Park receives some of the highest usage in the entire Seattle Parks system and how to use the street space immediately adjacent to it is a citywide concern, although attention to impacts to nearby residents should certainly be paid.

During the open house, SDOT shared early renderings of how the facility will work at the transition points between the different segments, including the infamous slip lane from Aurora onto West Green Lake Dr N, where drivers will no longer be allowed to exit because of the conversion to one-way traffic.

The existing slip lane from Aurora onto West Green Lake Dr N will be eliminated, with turns off Aurora restricted. (SDOT)

SDOT will create a way for people on bikes to transition from the West Green Lake Dr N walking and biking space across Winona Ave N. (SDOT)

During the meeting, SDOT staff outlined a “worst-case scenario” of traffic impacts from the conversion of West Green Lake Dr N to one way operation: an additional 500 vehicles using Winona Ave N instead and an average delay per vehicle of 18 seconds for drivers turning off Aurora. In return, the city will be creating a pathway for people biking around the entirety of Green Lake Park. Currently Seattle Parks is prohibiting people on bikes from using the inner loop trail, with a permanent restriction on the table as that department assesses the competing uses for that trail.

Creating joint walking and biking space isn’t a widespread habit of the department, but in this case allowing people who walk or roll to use the bike space is probably the only way the city was going to be able to cheaply create an ADA-compliant pathway around the west edge of Green Lake Park. Because SDOT is treating the new facility as a multi-use trail, they will not be installing traffic signals for bike traffic at the signalized crosswalks across Aurora as they might with a protected bike lane project.

SDOT is currently aiming for a construction date of “Summer-Fall” 2022 for all of these improvements, making it one of the fastest rollouts of quick build protected biking and walking infrastructure in recent memory. Across town, the department has still not even announced a planned route for a safe biking corridor in north Beacon Hill after spending all of 2021 doing outreach around the different options. This disparity can’t be ignored when looking at the Green Lake Outer Loop project and the vast differences in the ability of different areas of the city to be able to move projects like this forward.

You can read more about the Green Lake Outer Loop at the project website.

tags: green lake outer loop

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Repeal of helmet law is a sign of change both in bike advocacy and local politics

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

February 23, 2022

The two-decade bicycle helmet law experiment is drawing to a close as Seattle, the largest remaining city in the United States with such a law, no longer requires them. The King County Board of Health voted Thursday to repeal its all-ages helmet law after months of debate, a decision that also covers Seattle. The law change went into effect immediately.

The Board made it very clear in their deliberations and in a companion resolution that they still strongly recommend the use of bicycle helmets. But they no longer consider police enforcement the best way to promote their use because of the dangers associated with biased policing.

There were times when it seemed so politically impossible to repeal King County’s rare all-ages bicycle helmet law that it didn’t seem worth trying. But times have changed both within local politics and within global bicycling culture, both of which have pretty big implications for the future of safe streets and beyond.

Bicycle helmet laws were a well-intentioned detour

Let’s rewind to 1993. I-90 finally opened in Seattle, and the region’s decades-long binge of new and wider freeways had led to a seemingly never-ending expansion of sprawling suburbs far away from the city center. People biked a lot in Seattle, at least compared to most other cities in the United States, thanks in large part to the wild success of the Burke-Gilman Trail, the poster child of the Rails-to-Trails movement. But beyond trails, there was practically no momentum to significantly redesign city streets to make them safer for cycling. There was also almost no funding for such an effort. Yet people were getting seriously injured or killed while biking, and people wanted to take action to prevent these tragedies. This was how the bicycle helmet law took hold.

In 1986, an estimated 1% of children wore bicycle helmets in King County, according to the Children’s Bicycle Helmet Coalition (“CBHC”) in a March 1993 Seattle Times story (Seattle Public Library account required to access). But bicycle helmets became more widely available and public information efforts from Cascade Bicycle Club, the Washington Bicycle Federation and the CBHC changed that. By 1993, when King County enacted its helmet law, bicycle helmet use was up to 40% for children and over 50% for adults, according to Cascade. The King County law was supposed to precede a statewide law, but the statewide bill failed to pass.

The early 1990s was also when major bicycle racing organizations started to require helmets for athletes, so the next logical question was whether people riding on city streets should be required to wear them, too. Since the head is the most vulnerable part of the body, it seemed like a good way to prevent death and serious brain injury. This is why Cascade and WA Bike Fed were proponents of the law at the time, and why the law was passed by the Board of Health rather than by the Seattle or King County councils at large. It was a public health effort. (The law initially did not affect Seattle, which had its own Public Health Department. The law expanded to include Seattle when the two public health boards merged in 2003.)

But why single out people on bikes? Yes, head injuries were the leading cause of death for people biking, but the same could be said for people fatally injured inside of cars or walking across the street. Yet there was seemingly no effort at all to mandate that people wear helmets while inside motor vehicles or using crosswalks. While people can easily understand the difference between driving a race car and driving to the grocery store, all bicycling was essentially treated as a sporting activity. If it’s a sport, then wearing a bicycle helmet seemed as logical as wearing a football helmet. (more…)

tags: girmay zahilay, helmet laws, king county board of health

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Senate transportation bill now moving through the House includes $1.3 billion for walking and biking safety

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

February 18, 2022

As soon as Washington State legislators released their Move Ahead Washington transportation funding proposal earlier this month, it drew a wave of enthusiastic support from transportation organizations across the state. Lee Lambert, Executive Director of Washington Bikes, called the investments in walking and biking “unprecedented.” And he’s right.

The 16-year, $16 billion “Move Ahead Washington” package passed in the Senate this week with about $1.3 billion for walking and biking safety included. As a percentage of the total, that is far better than what the legislators were discussing during the 2021 session from a safe streets and transit perspective. It is also about four-times better than the “Connecting Washington” funding package legislators passed in 2015 with a Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House. Connecting Washington only carved out about 6% of its funding for walking, biking and transit. As pitiful as that was, it was about double the amount in the previous transportation package. Now with both chambers under the control of Democrats, this package is a test of whether the party is willing to invest significantly more seriously in safe streets and transit. The Senate passed the bill along party lines without support from Republicans.

Move Ahead Washington would massively increase statewide Safe Routes to School funding, which is also a big investment in neighborhood safety. The bill would also fund a major expansion of school-based bicycle education and a fund a free bike program for students. It also includes a state-led complete streets effort, which is a huge deal. State routes are very often the most dangerous streets in any city or community that has one. Cities still have a lot of work to do to make their own streets safer, but they can only do so much for their communities without state action.

The package also funds a list of specific walking and biking projects including major trail improvements, such as the I-90 Trail in Bellevue and the EasTrail. You can check out the bill text and supporting documents as passed by the Senate on the Senate’s budget bills website. Here’s the walking and biking project list:

(PDF)

(more…)

tags: 2022 legislature, move ahead washington

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King County Health Board set to vote on repeal of rare all-ages helmet law – UPDATE: Law repealed

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

February 15, 2022

UPDATE 2/17: The Board of Health voted 11-2 to repeal the law, citing serious concerns about inequitable police enforcement. The general sentiment of the majority was that they still strongly recommend helmet use, just not the police-enforced strategy for achieving that public health goal.

The King County Board of Health should vote on whether or not to repeal the county’s rare all-ages bicycle helmet law during their meeting Thursday. This would put King County in line with most of the rest of the world, which does not use police to enforce the use of bicycle helmets.

The Board nearly repealed the law in the autumn, but decided to hold off on the decision at the time. Since then, Seattle Police have changed their policy and say they will no longer stop people solely for biking without a helmet. This puts extra pressure on the Health Board to take the law off the books in order to make sure the law is as uniform as possible across police agencies.

A large coalition, including major biking and safe streets advocacy organizations like Cascade Bicycle Club, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and even the national League of American Bicyclists have signed onto the effort to repeal the law. But the most recent repeal effort got kickstarted following a 2020 Real Change investigation into an incident in which a man experiencing homelessness was ticketed for not wearing a helmet after someone drove into and injured him. Subsequent research by the Helmet Law Working Group found that nearly half of Seattle helmet law citations went to people experiencing homelessness. Police also issue the tickets inequitably.

“Since 2003, Black cyclists in Seattle have received citations at a rate 3.8 times higher, Indigenous cyclists 2.2 times higher, and Hispanic/Latino cyclists 1.4 times higher than white cyclists,” the report found. “Differences in helmet use between populations cannot explain these disparities.” (more…)

tags: helmet laws, king county board of health

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Pedersen’s office throws out bicycle advisory board process for new member

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

February 14, 2022

On Tuesday morning the City Council’s Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will consider the nomination of a new member to the Bicycle Advisory Board. The appointment comes months after the board undertook a formal search and interview process to select three new members: two of those members went through Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office in 2021, were appointed in December and are now serving on the board. The third nominee submitted by the board was discarded by Councilmember Alex Pedersen’s office with a different candidate appearing at this week’s committee meeting, one who did not interview for the position through the board’s process at all.

Board co-chair Sarah Udelhofen writes in a statement what happened from the perspective of the bike board:

The Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board has worked to create a board member recruitment process that is approachable to the general public and reaches far and wide in the community. As Co-Chair of SBAB, I dedicated over 17 hours to the recruitment, interview, and selection process to fill 3 vacancies this past fall. Our goal is to use a fair and equitable process to bring diverse biking experiences to the board. After sending our recommendation to City Council in September 2021, we followed up multiple times on the status of the recommendation. In mid-January, we learned from Councilmember Pedersen’s office that Council is proceeding with a different candidate, from whom we did not receive an application. I am disappointed at the lack of communication we received from Councilmember Pedersen’s office regarding the recruitment process and I look forward to working more closely with City Council to develop an equitable selection process for future rounds.

The current nominee, Douglas Midgen, is described in the city council appointment packet as a “long-distance cyclist who commutes around the City by bike, which is some small amount of training for the 5,000+ kilometer transcontinental races he has been riding since 2010.” At the February bike board meeting, members did not raise concerns about Mr. Migden’s nomination itself but rather the broader process surrounding it.

Playing games with appointments to the different modal advisory boards is nothing new. In 2018, co-chair Casey Gifford was notified hours before a board meeting that her term would not be renewed. Transportation committee chair at the time, Councilmember Mike O’Brien, called the dismissal “kind of unprofessional“. Gifford was replaced by an appointee who was aligned with Transportation Choices Coalition, whose political arm endorsed Durkan in the 2017 election, contributing to speculation that the motivation behind the change was overtly political.

In early 2021, Transit Advisory Board member Bryce Kolton was informed that his appointment to that body wouldn’t be renewed despite the fact that he had served fewer than two years on the board and was interested in continuing. Kolton had been one of the transit board’s most outspoken members, and had connected Pedersen’s decision with remarks that he had made at a public meeting regarding the city’s decision to cancel planned bike infrastructure on 35th Ave NE.

All of the appointees to Seattle’s modal boards are volunteers, and the effectiveness of their advocacy in their individual spheres has waxed and waned over the years. Attempting to steer the direction and makeup of the boards is certainly a prerogative of the mayor and City Council, but it’s not always a good look. In this case, Councilmember Pedersen’s office appeared to jettison a process intended to ensure representation on the bike board remains broad and that volunteers asked to donate their time to serve the city are treated fairly.

Councilmember Alex Pedersen’s office did not respond to request for comment on the matter.

tags: alex pedersen, city council, seattle bicycle advisory board

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RapidRide J plans still include paint-only section south of University Bridge

By

Ryan Packer

| Posted

February 12, 2022

The RapidRide J line project, currently scheduled to open in 2026, will upgrade the bus corridor between downtown and U District Link light rail station, and include protected bike lanes along Eastlake Avenue, one of the few bike projects that former Mayor Jenny Durkan specifically went to bat for. However, for a segment of Eastlake Ave E between Harvard Ave E and the University Bridge, the designs for the project haven’t included any physical barrier separating the bike lane and the other vehicle lanes, in contrast with the rest of Eastlake.

The plans for Eastlake Ave south of the University Bridge still include retaining the paint-only bike lane along the curb with no protection. (Photo: SDOT)

The intersection around Eastlake Ave and Fuhrman Ave has always been one of the most dangerous intersections in the city for people on bikes, with the harrowing merge for southbound cyclists to turn onto Harvard Ave close behind. In October, the Bicycle Advisory Board was told by the project team that traffic volumes were just too high between Harvard and the bridge to eliminate any of the five traffic lanes. The board pushed for creative solutions, such as elevating the bike lane to sidewalk level or a narrower barrier.

Cascade Bicycle Club and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways organized a push to submit comments pushing the project team to fix this segment. “Dropping the protected bike lane in this area is especially concerning due to the volume of vehicle traffic that travels at high speeds in connection with the I-5 highway on-ramp,” Cascade’s sample letter wrote.

This week, the project team for the RapidRide J project sent out an email update notifying people who had submitted comments that the design would largely be staying the same, with some additional green paint added.

The full email:

Thank you for taking the time to provide your comment regarding the multi-modal improvements and the connections served by the protected bicycle lanes along Eastlake Ave E. The street width on Eastlake Ave E between Harvard Ave E and the University Bridge is limited and needs to accommodate all travel modes – including people biking, walking, driving, and taking transit. Because of the narrow width of the roadway in this section, and in order to accommodate all modes, the concept design plans do not include the 3-foot buffer that is included along the majority of the new protected bike lanes along Eastlake Ave E.

However, the current design for this section does include bike facility updates, such as green markings on the roadway, that bring attention to the potential conflict points between motorized vehicles and bicycles. Additionally, with the proposed redesign of the street, we would expect fewer motorized vehicles traveling adjacent to the bike lanes, making the bike lanes feel more comfortable.

As we work towards final design, we will continue to evaluate options to provide separation between the bike lane and the motorized vehicle travel lanes along this section of roadway while considering all roadway users. We will reach out to the community for an opportunity to participate in these conversations.

Calling Eastlake Ave narrow here, when it’s 59 feet wide, is a wild statement to make. A tremendous amount of effort is being expended to make space for people biking along the majority of the Eastlake corridor, and the city is ultimately just undermining their own work in a way that will likely frustrate everyone. A better solution must be found.

The RapidRide J and the accompanying bike facilities aren’t scheduled to open for use until 2026, which should be enough time to find a fix. But unless the environmental review process gets reopened for the project again, this key design flaw may be baked into the project.

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