Representative Kim Schrier, whose 8th Congressional District includes Mount Rainier National Park, has pressed park leaders to work with the Redmond Cycling Club to help the 39-year-old Ride Around Mt Rainier in One Day (“RAMROD”) continue.
“Since the announcement, we have been grateful for the tremendous support we have received from Representative Kim Schrier’s office,” said Joe Matthews, President of Redmond Cycling Club, in a statement. “Representative Schrier initiated a meeting with the National Park Service, Mount Rainier National Park and RCC last week. Earlier today, she contacted me and shared her insights on the situation and possible solutions to explore.”
Rep. Schrier’s suggestion is that the park use their new timed entry system to maintain “a thoughtful balancing of cars and cyclists.” RAMROD allows a maximum of 800 registrations, though the rider count is lower due to last-minute cancellations and no-shows. The ride is also held on a Thursday, which is one of the least busy days of the week for the park.
These adjustments would seem to address the Park’s concerns, though it is not yet clear if they accept it. “Mount Rainier National Park officials have determined that an influx of approximately 800 bicyclists and additional support staff through the middle of the park would negatively impact the visitor experience and increase congestion in the park during peak visitation,” a National Park Service spokesperson told Seattle Bike Blog last week. “The safety of all visitors is a priority for the park.”
The signs are already up along the Burke-Gilman Trail alerting riders to the Parks Department’s plans to fix some bumps along the oldest stretch of the stories rail-trail north of Matthews Beach Park. Some of the pavement along this stretch is 46 years old. It may have helped launch the nation’s rails-to-trails movement, but it has long been showing its age. It was also built without the under-trail root barriers that more modern trails have, such as the section just north of the Seattle city limits. In addition, the sides have gradually eroded, making the width of the older sections a tiny bit skinnier.
Work on the first segment is set to begin March 25 and last up to two weeks. The final section is expected to be complete by July. And even more good news is that there appear to be easy detours for all of these work zones, which is not always the case for this trail. You can check out a map of all the planned detours via an online map from the Parks Department. Here’s the planned detour for the first section:
Trail pavements lasts a lot longer than roadway pavement. A half century of service is pretty darn good, especially since the Parks Department has not always stayed on top of maintenance. It is great to see the department continuing its maintenance work from 2023.
However, maintenance will only extend the life of the trail to a point. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed Seattle Transportation Plan (“STP”) includes a large capital project concept for a major upgrade of the trail from UW campus to Matthews Beach and UW campus to Fremont “to more comfortably and safely connect people walking, rolling, and biking on one of the region’s most popular trails with destinations along their route.” Inclusion in the “aspirational” capital projects list does not mean it is guaranteed to happen, but this is the first time I have seen the city officially designate it as a project. This project would most likely need significant state and/or federal grant funding. Below is the project description from the proposed STP:
Over the next 8 years, Seattle will improve safety on every high-injury street in the city.
That’s the kind statement I would love to see Seattle make when selling the transportation funding measure it will send to voters later this year. This is a high-turnout Presidential election year, and higher turnout should make it easier to pass a bold and inspiring package of forward-thinking and innovative transportation goals.
The next transportation funding measure is Seattle’s final chance to reach Vision Zero by 2030, the goal the city set when the program launched in 2015. Since 2015, the Vision Zero has conducted a series of very successful one-off projects here and there, and it is now time to scale these efforts up to address all our most dangerous streets.
We know safety is a top transportation priority for Seattle voters, and we also have a map of high-injury streets throughout the city. Put those together to create an ambitious but achievable goal that may have no precedent among large U.S. cities. Seattle can and should be a leader that inspires other cities by showing them what’s possible. With traffic deaths and injuries rising across the nation, Seattle can be the place that turns that trend on its head. We can take smart action by bringing SDOT’s modernized understanding of safe and efficient street design to all our most dangerous roadways, reversing historical inequities that place the most dangerous roads near lower income communities and communities of color. We can show that this work can be done at scale while keeping people and goods moving efficiently.
Map of Seattle’s high injury network from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed Seattle Transportation Plan. The “scores” shown in this map include a race and social equity weighting that gives a higher score in low income communities and communities of color. Map of deaths and serious injuries 2019-2021, from SDOT’s 2023 Vision Zero Top-to-Bottom Review.(more…)
The 4th Ave bike lane is getting concrete barriers to replace the paint and post style barrier it has had since opening in 2020-21. The upgrade should bring the 4th Ave bike lane up to the level of quality of the 2nd Ave lane. It will be constructed within the existing buffer area of the lane from Vine Street in Belltown to Jefferson Street on the edge of Pioneer Square.
Work will begin as soon as March 18 and be completed by July. The southbound lane against the curb will remain open, but sections of the northbound lane one or two blocks long will be closed as work progresses.
SDOT initially said that they would extend the bike lane from Jefferson to Main Street in 2023 or 2024, but that work is not part of this plan. The excuse at the time was that too many buses use those blocks of 4th Ave currently, but that they would finish the connection once Link light rail extensions to Northgate and the Eastside open. The 2 Line to the Eastside has been delayed due to issues building the tracks across the I-90 Bridge.
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed Seattle Transportation Plan (“STP”) is now in the hands of the City Council, who can make some final changes before adopting it as official city policy. The STP will supersede the 2014 Bicycle Master Plan, so it’s important to take a close look at its vision for the next 10–20 years of bike improvements across the city. To do so, Seattle Bike Blog will post a series of six stories focusing on different areas of the city. You find other areas as well as other STP-related stories through the 2024 Seattle Transportation Plan tag. First up: Southeast Seattle, including Beacon Hill and the Rainier Valley neighborhoods.
Right away, it should be clear why we needed to break map analysis into a series of posts. There’s so much to talk about here, but let’s get straight into the big one: Northern Rainier Ave S is listed as a “tier 1 catalyst project” with bike lanes between MLK Way S and S King Street. The description says only that it would “provide an all ages and abilities bicycle connection between the Judkins Park light rail station, Chinatown International District, and Mount Baker.” As a tier 1 project, it is among the highest priority catalyst projects. It is likely listed as a catalyst project rather than just another bike lane because it would be complex and require a partnership with WSDOT and perhaps also Sound Transit due to the I-90 access ramps and underpass. For many years, this project has been at the top of the priority list for the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board because there is no comparably flat and direct option for connecting Rainier Valley and downtown. The area under and around I-90 is also in desperate and urgent need of major safety changes for biking and especially walking, preferably before Judkins Park Station opens. So my major comment here is that the Council should consider ways to bump the priority of this project as high as they can. It stands out among the rest of the tier 1 projects (it’s S tier). Or better yet, earmark year-one funding for it in the next transportation funding measure and maybe even get early design work going ASAP. It would also be a great poster child for showcasing the benefits of voting YES in November. Perhaps no other project in the city would be more impactful for walking, biking and transit access than this one.
Beyond this catalyst project, the STP makes the same decision that the BMP made by calling for protected bike lanes on MLK Jr Way and for no bike improvements on Rainier Ave south of MLK. We argued against this decision back in 2013, and continue to argue against it now. All of Rainier Ave needs to be safe for everyone, including people on bikes. It is where most the neighborhood destinations are, and it cuts against the street grid in such a way that there are many places where there are no viable alternatives. Leaving Rainier out of the city’s bike plan continues to be a mistake.
Looking at the plan for Beacon Ave S, it looks great. It calls for protected bike lanes the entire length of the road, which is great. But confusingly, the map notes it as an upgrade from an existing facility when there are no bike lanes at all currently. I think they may be counting sharrows as a bike facility. Because it may have an impact when prioritizing projects, any project on a street with only sharrows should be considered a new facility, not an upgrade. A quick glance reveals a bunch of these around the city (Boyer Ave E and 1st Ave S, are two obvious examples that jumped out immediately). This is a technical fix worth requesting. I think it is safe to say that this sharrow is not providing any value worth factoring into the 2024 plan:
Once amended and approved by the City Council, the Seattle Transportation Plan (“STP”) will supersede the 2014 Bicycle Master Plan (“BMP”). So how does it compare to its predecessor?
As we noted in our previous story, the 2014 bike plan was a very strong document, especially for its time. And its fingerprints are all over the bicycle section of the mayor’s proposed STP. Mayor Bruce Harrell submitted the plan to the City Council last week, and the new Transportation Committee had its first briefing about it this week.
To help you see for yourself how the planned bicycle networks compare, I lined the maps from the two plans on top of each other to create the handy tool above. Move the slider left and right to see the changes. And let us know what you find in the comments below.
The most immediate high-level observation here is that a lot of the map changes are positive, though there are definitely some needed improvements and clarifications. Many streets that were slated for paint-only bike lanes (or uphill-only “climbing lanes”) in the 2014 plan have been upgraded to protected bike lanes in the proposed STP. This change reflects how SDOT has mostly been operating anyway since many of the streets slated for painted bike lanes in the old plan were actually too busy for that to be an appropriate treatment (15th Ave S on North Beacon Hill is a good example).
Some streets marked with a yellow line, however, now fall under a new category: Non-Bike+. “Bike+” is a new term in the STP that encompasses any bike facility designed to be safe and comfortable for people of all ages and abilities. So “Non-Bike+” streets are places where the plan acknowledges the need for a connection, but it is proposing a stub-standard facility such as paint-only bike lanes, a bike lane in only one direction or sharrows. The STP specifically states that it does not preclude these streets from getting Bike+ facilities if it is later deemed possible, but the plan estimates that the “right-of-way is so constrained that an AAA bike facility is not feasible.” We will discuss specific examples when we go neighborhood-by-neighborhood in future posts, but the most glaring and obvious one is Seward Park Ave S between Seward Park and Rainier Beach.
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There is going to be an advocacy ride to the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners meeting at 6:30 pm on Thursday, May 9th. The goal is to get as many bicyclists as possible to[…]
Meet up in the center of the park at 7ish. Leave at 730. Every Thursday from now until forever rain or shine. Bikes, beers, illegal firepits, nachos, bottlerockets, timetraveling, lollygagging, mechanicals, good times.ShareMastodonTwitterFacebookRedditEmail
