Even the dramatically watered-down and insufficient traffic calming improvements planned for Lake Washington Boulevard are now apparently at risk after pushback from “people who enjoy driving as fast as they want along the boulevard,” as Seattle Neighborhood Greenways put it. Neighbors have campaigned for years about the need for safer walking and biking space on the storied lakeside boulevard, one of the only reasonably flat north-south routes in southeast Seattle. Extensive public outreach showed very strong support for ambitious changes, but SDOT and Seattle Parks decided to ignore their own outreach and instead give a baffling amount of authority to a failed and resentment-consumed community task force effort in 2022–23 that was unable to agree on much of anything beyond a short list of low-cost, unoffensive and insufficient traffic calming improvements that finally made it to construction in 2024 and 2025. We’re talking about a handful of crosswalk improvements, some speed humps, and some boulders in places where people keep driving off the road and into the park and lake. The final list falls far short of than the permanent on-street walking and biking path and expanded Bicycle Weekend hours advocates were initially hoping for. Safety opponents won, and now at least some of them are fighting even the scraps that made it through by pressuring the city to cancel the second half of the planned improvements.

You can help by using their handy online form to send letters to city leaders supporting completion of the traffic calming work. You can also join supporters at a community meeting 6:30 p.m. December 12 at the Mount Baker Rowing and Sailing Center (3800 Lake Washington Blvd S) in person or online.

I honestly have no idea why the winners of this joke of a public process would want to reopen debate on this matter, but fine. Let’s do it. Let’s reopen this project debate. If they don’t know how to take a W, then let’s turn it into an L.

Every time the city surveys people about the idea of a permanent safe space for walking and biking on Lake Washington Blvd., the result is resounding and enthusiastic support. A 2022 public outreach effort got survey responses from 3,048 people, 73% of whom lived in a Seattle zip code that includes Lake Washington Boulevard. The survey asked respondents to pick up to three of their preferred improvements they you like to see on the boulevard. Respondents overwhelmingly supported adding dedicated space for biking (2,319 or 76%), increasing the number of Bicycle Weekends days (1,754 or 58%), and adding traffic calming like speed humps (1,664 or 55%), the top three of eight options. Even though 31% of respondents said they drive on the boulevard as their main commute route, only 14% chose “do nothing” as one of their three preferred changes to the street, a dismal 5% of total responses to the question. Even when they did in-person intercept surveys at nearby grocery stores and community events, they got similar support for better walking and biking conditions on the boulevard even from people who said they usually drive there. Yet we find ourselves once again having to fill out action alerts and pressure city leaders not to listen to this demonstrably unpopular opinion even after these decisions were already made and work is already underway.

From Jan 2015 to April 2022, there were 101 collisions on this park boulevard, including 36 that injured at least one person and 6 that resulted in serious potentially life-long injuries. This is unacceptable and must change. Speed humps, stop signs and raised crosswalks should help, which is why Rainier Valley Greenways has been supporting the watered-down plans despite their frustrations with the process and result. But even once the traffic calming elements are completed, the work will not be finished. Hopefully the rate of serious crashes will be reduced, but there will still be no dedicated space for people of all ages and abilities to bike on the street.