Seattle Likes Bikes has some issues with King County’s In Motion map of West Seattle, which were recently sent to many residents interested in finding alternatives to driving in their neighborhood. The program is designed to send people information customized to where they live that highlights transit, walking and biking options. The program also includes things like free bus tickets to help get the ball rolling.
However, the map sent to West Seattle seems to be missing some fairly key bike routes:
One major bike route, marked with Sharrows, runs from the north to south ends of California Ave SW. This is not marked on the map. No bicycle riding times are marked on the map either…so in spite of California Ave SW being a fast connection between Morgan Junction, Alaskan Junction and Admiral Junction, if I didn’t bike but wanted to, I wouldn’t know how fast it and easy it would be to use California as a connection rather than drop all the way to 48th Ave SW and ride up steep Erskine Way SW or the similarly steep SW Edmunds St or 37th Ave. California is a nice moderate route with the steep portion relegated to the far south end, south of Morgan Junction.
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Another major bike route that is missing from this map is Fauntleroy Way SW which travels from the Fauntleroy ferry dock to SW Alaska St. The re-paving of Fauntleroy, an addition of both a northbound bike lane and southbound Sharrows on a mostly flat route has created a very good connector route southwest of Alaska St. Why in the world is this bike route missing from the map?
Of course, this is being a little nitpicky. It’s great that the county is providing people with these resources (and free bus tickets!). But maybe a little extra care could be given for future maps to make sure bicycle route info is more complete, making the program even more useful.
Or, to take it a step further (into dream land, perhaps), imagine if the county could up its game and make customized maps marking bicycle routes from neighborhoods to popular commercial areas or commuter routes. How cool would it be to get a map in your mailbox marked with decent bike routes from your front door to places you might want to go? Just dreaming out loud here…
Comments
One response to “SLB: King County’s In Motion maps get some W Seattle bike routes wrong”
Well, maybe a *little* nitpicky, but I did preface the overall goodness of the program at the beginning of my article. However, West Seattle is extremely hilly with very few friendly bike routes (due to hills, traffic and plain old lack of well demarcated bike routes outside of Alki – the only exeption being Fauntleroy). To have two of the best bike route options entirely missing from the map was astounding, especially since the Fauntleroy route was highly touted by SDOT when it was being installed and has, to my experience, been a popular route addition in West Seattle. How did Fauntleroy get missed?