hello everybody and welcome to Seattle
bike blog talking heads

news video this is the second one of
these that I've done this one is going

to be way shorter than the previous one
I'm gonna keep mixing up the format

trying new things and just trying to
provide another way for people to take

in the stuff that I report about maybe
give me a chance to provide a little

more context for some of the stories
that are on the blog expand

beyond what would be a
reasonable length for a blog post and

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improvement so we're gonna get right

into this one oh I should say I'm Tom
Fucoloro and I'm the editor of

seattle bike blog and today we're going
to talk about Union Street so East Union

Street in the Central District let's
look at it in context so here's the

seattle bicycle master plan and this
stretch of East Union Street between

Broadway and Martin Luther King jr. Way
is designated as one of the

major citywide bike routes it's one of
the only major protected bike lane

projects in the whole neighborhood
in the plan along with Martin Luther

King jr. way basically from the new the
new Union Street bike lanes and which

someday it this is all kind of fuzzy
down in the south end of exactly

what this will look like but it should
at least go down all the way down to

Rainier
and that would be a really really big

improvement for the neighborhood if they
have when they ever do that one but

today we're talking about this stretch
of East Union Street so the city has

announced a design in the spring that
was incomplete so in April we wrote a

story talking about how the city's plans
just sort of stopped at 22nd Avenue so

we're talking about
high-quality protected bike lanes aimed

at appealing to people of all
ages and abilities and here we're just

gonna have the bike day and just stop
through two blocks around busy 23rd

Avenue this is the major
business district and the bike lane

was just gonna stop and you're supposed to
either mix with traffic or bike on the

sidewalk is what an SDOT
spokesperson told Ryan Packer at the

urbanist and people were pretty upset
about that idea. this doesn't

seem to meet the the goals of a project
like this and the sidewalk doesn't seem

like a very good option to send people
in a busy business district so David

Seater here at the time posted a video
showing what that sidewalk is like. this

is supposed to be the designated bike route

right in front of all these shop
doors in this business district

this is even before a lot of these spaces had businesses occupying them

this building here that we just came up
on is the is currently under development

the Midtown square that's gonna be a huge
project it's really gonna change

it's going to
add a lot more activity to all the

sidewalks that's for sure so it's really
important here that this is not the

the city's planned bike route here. it's important the city does a littler better

than just saying hey take the sidewalk because that's just not gonna be a useful option for people

and mixing with traffic just isn't
appealing to a lot of people so that was

oh yes
and that's right I was able to track

down I was looking through some of the
original fact sheet when they first

proposed this project before they ever
had a design and one of the benefits

that they talked about was fewer people
riding on the sidewalk

so obviously telling people to ride on
the sidewalk would not have met that

project goal this was a people were very
frustrated at the time it felt like a

continuation of a theme with SDOT
in which they were either abandoning or

significantly undercutting bike projects
that had been in the works kind of all

at once
with obviously the mayor's decision to

delete the 35th Avenue Northeast bike
lanes as being the really big

visible one but this was the
details on this were just one

more thing. so they had a survey and a
lot of you responded and the urbanist

actually was able to track down the
results Ryan Packer once again great guy

works really hard and was able to find
that of the 877 people who responded to

this survey 600 more than 600 listed completing the bicycle

connection as important which is the most important thing that they

saw with bus being next and pavement
repair being after that and then far

below is retaining as much parking as
possible. there's already a ton of people

who bike in this neighborhood and Union
Street here as you can see in the

bicycle master plan is supposed to have
protected bike lanes all the way from

Martin Luther King jr. way to Broadway
so this project that we're talking about

would include these protected bike lanes
here you can see the design this is kind

of the average design a typical the
retaining parking on both sides and

travel lanes in each direction
which will have buses on it that's the

number two and then protected bike lanes
parking protected bike lanes on

either side all the way from 14th Avenue
to 26th Avenue which is we'll get to

that in a minute so to give you some
context about why this is so important

let's go back to the bike master plan
Union Street is one of the only streets

that actually goes all the way through
so there are like you see Pike here

turns into a staircase well
that's not a very good option Pine

Street turns into cobblestones here and
then is also super steep Columbia which

is a neighborhood Greenway that exists
is a couple blocks out of the way also

pretty steep but then also runs into
Seattle University so you can't see it

it's not marked on the map here but see
how the University is right here you can

bike through the University but it's a
little especially when school is in

session it can be really busy and and of
course the campus is on a very steep

hill so there's a huge hill here that
does not exist here so people don't want

to go up a giant hill just to come down
a giant hill which is what you'd have to

do you come up because there's a huge
hill here on Broadway as well so if you

can just take Union it is still hilly
for sure definitely still hilly there's

no way to get around the hill but it is
at least the least hilly option and

it's all the way continuous and it has a
good connection to Broadway which then

you can either take up the first hill
you can take down the new Pike pine bike

lanes so this is a pretty important
street for the neighborhood this is a

pretty big improvement. the current
project will get you to 14th but it's kind

of it's pretty easy to get up to Madison
and then that's where you would

intersect with the upcoming improvements
for the rapidride G project which is

the Madison rapidride bus that's going to
completely

redesign this intersection here so this
project we're talking about leaves it

for the rapidride project to fix that's
a different conversation but this

project gets you there which is awesome
which is really great the downside to

this project is that it stops at 26th and for the two blocks between

26th Avenue and Martin Luther King
jr. way the downhill direction becomes a

sharrow and then there's parking and
then there's also a bus stop so I think

the bus stop is probably the major
reason why the sharrow is being used here

but so you get a protected bike lane
uphill which is nice that's a good

improvement but it doesn't actually get
you to 27th Avenue which is a cuz you

can see the bike master plan is
designated as a future neighborhood

Greenway option so it stops a block
before this connection here which is

actually it's a pretty good route
southbound but it's a really good route

northbound or north of Union as an
alternative to connecting into the Lake

Washington loop and getting up to the
Montlake bridge and the 520 trail but so

it's frustrating that it will stop one
block before that and then of course

Martin Luther King jr. way has bike
lanes today technically if you look at

the seattle bike map it says that there
are bike lanes there but they are really

old and outdated and honestly they don't
exist or exist on

paper only like you go there in person
and they just kind of the parking lane

is slightly wider than maybe it would
normally be and you're supposed to

squeeze next to the parked cars it
doesn't count but it's on the map as

though it should count for the purposes
of planning it's supposed to be there

and they're supposed to be an improved
bike lane later so maybe this

is one of those things where we're
kicking the can down the road that when

they do the MLK project someday
that's when you would make this two

block connection
and we have to fight for that later and

in the meantime I think
that they should continue it all the way

East Union Street continues to
be an important bike route up to madrona

it's honestly kind of weird here that
the bike master plan does not

list this as a citywide route because it
has painted bike lanes today and it's

kind of the only way up to madrona it's
weird I never noticed that before

there's no citywide bike route up to
Madrona

so this is to get up to 34th
which is the main business district in

madrona and then also a popular bike
route to wind down the hill to Lake

Washington Boulevard so
continuing it through would also have

benefits to people heading to madrona so
anyway that that's something that you

could contact the city and tell them in
their comment form. so this is linked on

the blog posts that we posted on January
31st it's really short basically just

do you like it and do you have any
suggestions for feedback and I would

suggest yes you like it a lot and also
could you continue the bike lane all the

way to MLK that's what my suggestion
would be but definitely thank

you for adding back 23rd fully support
that let's make let's do the whole thing

so Capitol Hill Seattle had a good story
about this because there was an open house

recently and they dove into what were the trade-offs like

what was the reason why the bike lane
wasn't complete and of course it's

parking it's always car parking but they
noted well first of all this map by

SDOT shows you individual parking
spaces that are being removed so a lot

of these are just like one parking space per block face

because you have to get the bike lane in
and out and you need enough space that

there's good visibility so really really
minimal reduction for pretty much the

whole length and then there's three car
parking spaces

on Union just this map is turned
sideways so this is just east of 23rd so

this is right in front of Uncle Ike's
and the neighbor lady which rest in

peace they're closing in March I really like the neighbor lady I hope they

come back but yeah three parking spaces
meanwhile they're building a giant

underground parking garage in the
Midtown Square project right across the

street so first of all three parking
spaces is absolutely not worth having a

gap in the middle of the bike lane that
completely undercuts its potential for

success and usability for so many people
that's a terrible trade-off you should

never trade safety for some car parking
and especially not for three spaces like

that's ridiculous and also
there's gonna be a giant garage and

there's already surface parking lot here
and there's a garage under this building

so and there's side
street parking

it's just this is not a huge parking
trade-off it's weird that I think it's

honestly kind of weird that the city had
ever bailed on these bike lanes for two

blocks because it doesn't seem that the
trade-offs are that bad and so I'm glad

that they thought differently and reversed
the way so the other thing that

Capitol Hill Seattle reported is that
the city is working with the Seattle

world school which is up here in the old
TT minor building at 18th and Union to

reroute where their buses load so this is kind of a

logistical problem to figure out I'm
hopeful they find a good solution that

works for everyone but the
result would be that there would be fewer

conflicts with the bike lane on Union
itself but those details still need to

be worked out. this project is going
to be happening pretty quickly so

they're going to finalize the design
pretty soon and then just in the next

couple months and then when they go to
actually do the project it could happen

in just a couple weekends during the
summer which is neat we are

so used to waiting having it
just so far out in the future but I

guess this project's mostly paint and posts really so I guess

they can do it pretty quickly so thank
you for watching again thumbs up on

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