When voters approved the 2015 Move Seattle Levy, they created a specific fund dedicated to building projects that came from neighbors. The process to get a project completed can be long and somewhat grueling for those to volunteer their time to propose and support them, but it’s pretty cool that the city will invest significantly into ideas that come from outside the department itself.
SDOT recently released its list of 15 projects that the department plans to build through its Neighborhood Street Fund, including improvements spread out among every Council district. Individual projects can cost between $100,000 and $1 million. This is a totally different program from the city’s Your Voice Your Choice Parks & Street program, which is for smaller neighborhood-generated project ideas.
All of the projects are focused on safety, especially for people walking and biking. Many are intersection and crosswalk improvements, a few are new or improved sidewalks and a couple would redesign intersections to improve bike lane connections.
Below is the 2019–21 project list with links to sign up for email updates:
There’s the map of projects:
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5 responses to “15 neighbor-led projects SDOT will build in the next couple years”
SDOT recently added a bulb / bus stop just south of 100th & Greenwood, as well as an island to prevent cars from using 100th to cross Greenwood.
The bike lane on Greenwood routes behind a couple island bus stops, but this one routes up onto the bulb. This design may be less likely to accumulate debris.
However, there are currently no pavement markings to guide cyclists, so it looks like the bulb just blocks the bike lane. Given that bikes will be moving downhill quickly, this seems like a hazardous condition.
Does anyone know if SDOT has further improvements scheduled, or do they feel this is finished?
I’m not a fan of the left turn signals at Broadway and John. While being billed as a safety improvement, the reality is longer waits for pedestrians to cross the street, for the sake of more car throughput (at least cars turning left). Not one single bus route turns left at that intersection, so there is no benefit to transit (and may delay transit, similar to how it delays pedestrians).
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I’m very familiar with intersection of 51st & Renton Ave S (and S Roxbury St.). It’s a bizarre and dangerous intersection (as you can see from the diagram at the top of the page, it’s really two conjoined intersections) with a consistently high collision rate. Neighbors have asked for well over a decade that this 6 way junction be replaced with a traffic circle, something SDOT initially planned to do, then canceled when it became apparent that the cost to acquire land would be too high (too high for this poorer, diverse South-end neighborhood, maybe?).
The changes in the project should in theory make this intersection better, but do nothing about the “bizarre” — look at the diagram at the top of the page, and tell me you understand what the hell is going on without scrutinizing it for a minute or two. The lines indicating “full traffic signals” in the proposed plan are confusing — for vehicles and bicycles heading northbound toward Rainier Beach, are there really two traffic signals planned, one at Roxbury, and one at Renton Ave S? These intersections are about 20 feet apart. The intersection is currently controlled by stop signs, and northbound 51st currently only has a stop at Renton Ave. S. and not Roxbury.
The real fix for this intersection remains a traffic circle with merging bicycle lanes. It seems a shame to still be spending a lot of money on what will continue to be a very imperfect and confusing layout.
Hopefully, since there’s so much less traffic along Roxbury, the signal timing can be adjusted to move traffic safely along Renton Ave (which sometimes backs up dozens of cars – and slowing the inbound 106 – in each direction at rush hour) and 51st.
The other constraint that jumps out at me is the left turn from NB Renton to SB 51st, which a lot of people do to get to the I5 entrance at MLK. With 51st one way in the intersection and no left turn lane on Renton, the signaling will have to be clever to keep things moving there.
On average, this will probably slightly slow my bike commute, since I’ll have to wait for a light cycle, but if it’s done right, it’ll be a much more pleasant intersection.