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The new Water Taxis will rust your bike

Support your local bike shop: Ride the M/V Sally Fox to Vashon Island, or the new one coming to the West Seattle Route.

Or, contact these officials to ask for in-cabin bike racks like the old water taxis, or covered on-deck storage that excludes salt spray:

paul.brodeur@kingcounty.gov,
harold.taniguchi@kingcounty.gov,
Dow.Constantine@kingcounty.gov,
joe.mcdermott@kingcounty.gov

Here is what all four bike shops in West Seattle and White Center, and the closest to the water taxi terminal downtown, have to say:

150421 water taxis bike shops

 

 

PRO safety petition for 35th Ave SW

If you are FOR safety on 35th Avenue SW, please sign this PRO-safety petition.
You may have seen a petition circulating to STOP the safety improvements planned for “I-35”. There a several hundred signers who may be deceived by the petition claims that 35th is safe as is, and speed is needed, or actually saves time. It is hard to believe that they would be more willing to risk their neigbors’ lives rather than lose a few seconds of car travel time due to 5 mph lower speed limit; a signal at Graham; a greenway on 34th; pedestrian safety islands; a left turn lane to avoid rear-ending and left-hook car crashes.

If you are FOR Safety, please sign this PRO-safety petition, signed by over 600 concerned neighbors in 2014, and re-opened now.

Please keep the boxes clicked so that Seattle Neighborhood Greenways / West Seattle Greenways can notify you of victories in this project.DSC00064

Bicycle Master Plan 5-year work plan update

SDOT has updated the 5- year implementation plan for the Seattle Bicycle Master Plan, as required each March. What did West Seattle get?

We got the cover shot!  Kathy Dunn in the lead and anther member on the prettiest pink bike in the city, riding at the opening of the South Park improvements on S Portland Street in South Park.
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What about for the next 5 years?  A valuable Greenway parallel to part of 35th Ave SW linking schools, libraries, playgrounds and community centers. Protected bike lanes at the top of SW Admiral Way at the bridge over the Fairmont ravine.  But that’s about it.

Missing in inaction is most of the network we worked so hard in 2012-3 to get on the map  including links to several elementary schools, both middle schools, both high schools, and routes to serve the fastest growing urban village in the city at WS Junction and Triangle. Missing safe routes to Lincoln Park and the Faunteroy Ferry Terminal. Missing the Fauntleroy Boulevard Project and greenways parallel to California Ave between the Morgan, Alaska and Admiral Junctions to link home to schools, parks, shopping and nice commute routes.

We don’t want to take away from other areas. It’s great to see what is proposed for the Rainier Valley, Lake City, the Central Area and other places in need.  What we need is more funding faster. We need the Move Seattle Levy, if it can be crafted to build the bike transportation network in West Seattle and SODO in much more substantial form in this decade.

http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/bmp/BMPImplementationPlanMarch2015.pdf

WS bridge count up 29% March 2015 over March 2014

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Fourth month in a row of gains over previous year.

Weather assisted, or more people ready to ride in any weather?  You decide:

  • Days with >0.02″ rain at SeaTac:  16 in 2014, 17 in 2015
  • Inches of precipitation:  9.4 in 2014, 4.5 in 2015
  • Temperature: close to same number of “heating degree days”.  505 v. 441.

SDOT stats, WSBC graph.   Click on link at page top right for more counter data.

WSBC meeting Tuesday April 7

Open meeting – you are invited to come plan activities, and discuss everything related to using bikes in West Seattle.

6:30 to 8:00 pm at HomeStreet Bank,  41st Ave SW at SW Alaska St    thank you HomeStreet Bank!

Agenda includes

  • bike parking on the new water taxis , with Ken Pritchard from Vashon
  • Bike Month activities including our commute station and a bike commuting workshop
  • USDOT Safety event May 7
  • Denny-Lincoln Classic ride
  • 35th Ave Safety Corridor Project and Chelan 5-Way Intersection project
  • Bicycle Master Plan 5-year work plan update
  • rides, rides, rides:  Garage Sale Day ride, Park & Art Ride,  West Seattle STP, Spoke & Food Ride
  • grants, grants, grants for intersection improvements
at the fishing pier on the West Seattle Bridge trail. photo by Kathy Dunn

 

Delridge at the bridge

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Delridge path work in full swing near WS Bridge. Detour route on 23rd SW to/from SW Andover. Ignore the sign on 23rd at Andover that says “road closed” – it is open for bikes to the trail. Photo by Alex, who posts on WS Blog Flickr group as alextutu1821.

trucks + bikes? trucks = bikes?

As our city gets denser, and as people order more goods for home delivery, how do we deal with the need for more delivery vehicles in crowded conditions?   Some people and companies are going back to using bikes. The lines are getting blurred between what is a bike and what is a truck.  It’s not just Jimmie Johns for sandwiches. It’s UPS for holiday packages in Salem, and urgent medical supplies, and gardening companies in Seattle, and fresh fish in Port Townsend.

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More in this Seattle Bike Blog story, 

and an in depth study of bikes for freight in New York City.

bikes + trucks on the last mile

The Port of Seattle Seaport is open for business, and catching up on the container backlog.

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Easy to see how car traffic delays freight movement on East Marginal Way S. When people on bikes have a safe lane to ride beside truck traffic, they expand the bandwidth and ease congestion on this “last mile” of the major truck routes to the Port.

35th Ave SW Safety Corridor – Public Meetings

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5 deaths in 7 years. Crashes all the time.

Please come and speak out for safety on “I-35”.

6:30 pm Tuesday March 10
High Point Neighborhood House, 6400 Sylvan Way

3:15 pm Thursday March 12
Southwest Branch Library, 35th & Henderson

We’d like SDOT to use this project to help build a safe, connected network of routes for people travel on foot or by bike.

  • Install a signal at Graham to make it safe for people to cross 35th.
  • Build the Greenways parallel to 35th on 34th and 36th/37th SW that are in the Bicycle Master Plan, for safe routes for people of all ages and abilities to walk and ride, with traffic calming.
  • Re-stripe 35th to have a dedicated turn lane and one through traffic lane each direction, to reduce car crashes and stop car drivers from hitting pedestrians when they zip around cars that are stopped for pedestrians crossing at intersections. Keep car parking and bus stops and load zones in the curb lanes on 35th.
  • Reduce the speed limit on 35th SW from 35 to 30 mph to give car drivers a better chance of seeing and stopping for people crossing on bikes, on foot, in wheelchair and scooters.
    IF you could drive the full 3.3 miles from Roxbury to Fauntleroy at the speed limit, making every light, never slowing, the time difference between 35 and 30 mph would be only 60 seconds. It could save a life.

South Park celebration and ride

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Fun celebration and ride! From West Seattle Bridge into South Park with CM Tom Rasmussen. Opening celebration and ride.  And then some of us rode to Marination Ma Kai to celebrate Robin Randels birthday.

DSC06863CM Tom Rasmussen, SPU Director Ray Hoffman, and Seattle Parks & Recreation Director of Planning and Development Michael Shiosaki

Opening celebration for paving, storm sewers and protected bike lane on Portland Ave S, South Park, Seattle.  This extends the West Duwamish Trail in South Park. With SDOT, SPU, Seattle Parks, South Park Neighborhood Association, West Seattle Bike Connections, Cascade Bicycle Club.

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From West Duwamish Trail at S. Holden St/ Hwy 509, instead of taking Holden east, the the trail is now extended south to S Portland Street. Crossing of Holden is improved (except the bike/ped crossing button is out of order, and wayfinding signage could be improved). The path next to 509 is awesome – it did not look like there was room to do that.  Then S Portland from 509 to 8th Ave S has been transformed from a potholed, mostly gravel street with no storm drainage, no defined edges, and wild west parking and loading, to a beautifully paved road with drainage into a gravel strip that defines a protected bike and walking lane.

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Before (2013) and now

On a quiet weekend morning, the protected bike lane seems unnecessary. Come back on a weekday with semi’s traveling these streets, and forklifts loading trucks in the roadway, and it’s a different story!

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New storm sewers will help reduce the flooding and sewage backups that have plagued South Park residents and industries. That is the invisible and expensive part of the project.  SDOT and SPU broke out of the silos and really made this work for everyone!  Parks and Rec, too!  Special thank to Bob Winship from Seattle Bike Connections for many months of volunteering with South Park Neighborhood Association’s Transportation Committee to help this project work for the residents and businesses of South Park.  And Dagmar Cronn from SPNA – no project without Dagmar. And SDOT, SPU and Parks, for breaking out of the silos and making this a win on so many fronts. And Councilmember Rasmussen for pushing it forward.

DSC06846Dagmar Cronn

Next:  Get King County to step up and connect from South Park to the Green River Trail.  First, that miserable muddy patch by the Machinists’ Union to get from 14th Ave S to road parallel to 509.