Our monthly meeting is coming up. You are invited!
Tuesday, November 6, 6:30 to 8:00 pm.
Neighborhood House
6400 Sylvan Way SW
in High Point. North side entry.
Come join us to discuss and plan
As Gordon at SNG says,
“It’s a natural fit as clean air and a stable climate for our families and future generations is one reason many of us, are dedicated to this work of transforming our streets and transportation system. What’s more, this initiative does more than just put a price on pollution, it will likely invest in clean transportation projects that we care about here in Seattle. ”
the campaign is leaning heavily on a strategy of turning out the vote here in Seattle. That means we are ideally situated to talk to our neighbors about why this ballot measure is important. I encourage all of us to have those conversations over the next few weeks, because person to person conversations have been proven to be the most effective way to win more votes.Can you spend a few hours canvassing? There is canvassing happening in neighborhoods around the city every day,
2018 bike count is +2.9% above 2017 for year-to-date, despite a wet winter/spring, closure of the bridge for over a week for emergency repairs in June, and then the forest fire smoke air quality alerts. If you look at the data in detail, a few things jump out:
SDOT data. Our graph.
SDOT is proceeding now with suggestions we made during the Delridge Transit + Multimodal Corridor planning. There’s a good Neighborhood Greenway on 26th Ave SW from Andover to SW Juneau, parallel to Delridge and just two blocks west. It’s at basically the same grade as Delridge Way, with less traffic, and connects to the Spokane Street Bridge and Alki Trail. There is also the Delridge-Highland Park Greenway up on Pigeon Point, along Puget Ridge to Highland Park and White Center via 21st Ave SW – SW Myrtle – 1 7th Ave. That one needs some improvements, and was not connected to the 26th Ave Greenway.
Now it is connected! SDOT has installed speed humps on Juneau between 26th Ave and SW Croft Place, and along Croft, which angles up the hill for a less steep way to go from 21st Ave down to Delridge Way.
A crew was out yesterday installing bike detectors on Juneau to trigger the stop light at Delridge. One of them asked me as I stopped at the light if I ride this way often. And he gave a nice unsolicited explanation of the bike detectors, here for you, too. short video
SDOT agreed to a bunch of our suggestions to improve the Delridge-Highland Park Greenway to make it a viable compromise route in lieu of northbound protected bike lanes on the south half of Delridge Way. It’s good to see work proceeding even before the final plans for the RapidRide H line are set. Good bike and walking c0nnections are vital for people to safely get to and from the farther-apart RapidRide bus stops. It is time for safe routes to ride, walk and roll in Delridge.
Seattle Police say “The most important overall advice for any kind of pedestrian and traffic safety is PAY ATTENTION!!”
As bike riders, we know how important it is for safety to focus on our surroundings. As drivers, feeling safe, we know distractions can be so tempting.
Our monthly meeting is coming up. You are invited!
Tuesday, October 2, 6:30 to 8:00 pm.
Neighborhood House
6400 Sylvan Way SW
in High Point. North side entry.
Come join us to discuss and plan
We worked with the school and PTSA to celebrate Park(ing) Day!
Kids and parents came over to see the demonstration protected bike lane and play games. Thanks to Bell Helmets, we had 50 helmets to give to excited kids who need them. Teacher Adrianne brought over her whole first grade class and their “fence” of wishes and goals.
Thank you to all participants!
Doug Ollerenshaw led the effort. Michael Oxman, arborist, brought the plants that protected the bike lane. Kathy Dunn brought a great library of children’s books featuring bike riding. Bob Winship led the helmet fitting. Kate Wells, Joe Laubach and Don Brubeck helped with games and helmets and info for parents. SDOT and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways provided the bike lane supplies.
Seattle OPCD has released the final version of the North Delridge Action Plan. As we focus on the Delridge Multi-modal Corridor, this plan gives wider context from several years of community involvement for north Delridge neighborhoods, including from a number of people in our group. Worth a good look.
The “active transportation” section starting on page 39 has goal that align with ours for safe, efficient bike and pedestrian transportation and for good access to transit. There are some good new items about improving the greenways and east-west connections, and improving stairways and un-opened streets, too. Let’s talk at our next meeting about what our role can be to help the neighborhoods realize this vision.
West Seattle Bike Connections is putting the “Multi-Modal” back into the Delridge Multi-modal + Transit Corridor Project
Doug is a scientist and lover of beer. He lives in Delridge, and he wants a safe and comfortable way to ride with his wife and child to White Center. Doug was a pro bike racer, but he is not comfortable riding with his family on Delridge Way.
Charmaine is a musician and square dance caller. She lives in White Center and wants to be able to bike with her husband and child to Delridge’s library, parks and community center.
Right now, neither of them has good options, so they organized a ride with other West Seattle Bike Connections members, Gordon Padelford from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, Cascade Bicycle Club’s Kelsey Mesher, and three SDOT outreach and project management people to look into improvements.
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West Seattle Bike Connections’ top priority for 2018 is the Delridge RapidRide H multi-modal corridor project. This is the opportunity to make the street safe for people walking and biking, including getting to and from the new RapidRide stops. This is one of the Move Seattle Levy projects that WSBC members worked hard to pass, because of the positive impact it can have for the traditionally underserved neighborhoods of the Delridge Corridor. Delridge is the flattest, most direct route through the valley (the “dell” between the ridges), from the south end at White Center to the north end at the West Seattle Bridge and the Alki and Duwamish Trails.
With help from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, we reached agreements from SDOT staff on some key requests we made for Delridge, and for spot improvements to the alternate northbound greenway bike route that SDOT has proposed. These are reflected in SDOT’s revised “Option 3″ for the corridor.
Any program cuts due to the Move Seattle Levy “reset” must not be at the cost of safety for the most vulnerable users of the road: people walking and biking to bus stops or other destinations on Delridge.
This year, we are building relationships with community groups. In April, four of our members did a helmet giveaway and fitting at Boren STEM K-8 school, using a Small Sparks grant that Joe and Marlowe Laubach got through the PTSA. WSBC members who are school parents led Bike to School activities. We have worked on Safe Routes to Schools projects that residents, teachers and Delridge Neighborhood Development Association initiated . We moved our monthly meetings to Neighborhood House in High Point, more convenient to the Delridge corridor. We’ve got a Parking Day activity scheduled for 9/21/18 at Boren STEM K-8. We led a Cycle History bike ride focusing on Delridge with Southwest Seattle Historical Society. Several of us have given support to a resident who was seriously injured in a crash with a car driver while riding at Orchard and Delridge. We are looking for more opportunities to work with and hear from community groups and individual residents.
There is lots more work to do. It will take concentrated effort to build community support in time to have an impact on the RapidRide project. But we have members who are willing. Would you like to join in? Send an email to westseattlebikeconnections@gmail.com.
