Category: Biking

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.

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.

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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.

 

Celebrate with South Park

Let’s celebrate this big accomplishment for South Park residents and industries!

Saturday 3/7 Ceremony and official ride starts at 10 at Duwamish Overlook at 8th Ave S and S Portland St. Some of us are planning to meet Tom Rasmussen at 9:15 under the WS Bridge where Alki and West Duwamish trails meet, to ride over together. Not an official ride, but come ride with friends.

Bob Winship and others from West Seattle Bike Connections participated with Dagmar Cronn, the SPNA transportation committee, industry owners, ECOSS, SPU and SDOT to include a separated (and paved!) traffic, bike and walking route that does not interfere with the industries and jobs we need. Thanks especially to Art Brochet at SDOT and Council Member Tom Rasmussen!wdt_invite1

March 3 meeting – quick recap

That was a great meeting! Full house. Kathy will do minutes. Highlights here:

  • We set a 9:15 am meeting time to ride to South Park trail celebration this Saturday, leaving from under the WS Bridge where the trails meet;
  • Gordon Padelford from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways helped us prepare for 35th Ave Safety Corridor meetings and we discussed the new Vision Zero initiative;
  • Kathy Dunn gave a progress report on contacting owners about vegetation trimming on Spokane east of Harbor;
  • David Whiting will draft a letter to Cascade about advocacy;
  • Theresa Beaulieu, Al Jackson and Kathy Dunn volunteered to take shifts counting bike/ped traffic for a study Mike Hendrix is doing for the Delridge/Highland Park Greenway;
  • Don Brubeck will see if we need to back up Simon’s request to SDOT to restore lighting on bike path on Spokane near East Marginal, and Jodi Connolly and Keith Newnham’s request to repaint the bike box at Andover and Delridge;
  • Theresa will represent us at Delridge District Council for NPSF grants;
  • Mike volunteered for 2016 grant for SW Yancy & Avalon SW;
  • Don will go to the next Bridging the Gap Levy outreach meetings;
  • and last but certainly not least: Anna Hendricks volunteered to be our volunteer coordinator to receive, welcome and match up volunteers with projects and events.

WSBC Meeting Tues March 3

Tuesday, March 3
6:30 to 8:00 pm
HomeStreet Bank, 41st Ave SW & SW Alaska Street – east of the WS Junction

Open meeting – come join the discussion and planning to make riding on the peninsula easier, safer, better. Lots to discuss and plan this month, including

  • Rides for South Park route celebration, and Major Taylor
  • 35th Ave SW corridor.  Public meetings coming up..
  • Chelan 5-way intersection campaign.
  • Volunteers for DIY trail/street maintenance
  • Volunteers to count bikes and cars at the 15th & Holden intersection for a traffic study.
  • Bike to Work Day commute station hosting
  • Vision Zero campaign963387_1390542716.6735

Thank you, HomeStreet Bank, for providing meeting space for Sustainable West Seattle groups!

Channelization – Road Diet – Road Feast

Transportation jargon can be confusing.  What is rechannelization? is that when you finally figure out the remote?  What is a road diet?  Gas station mini-mart food and coffee?  Why call roadway re-striping to include a mix of lane types a road diet? That is a term using only a car driving perspective. From the perspective of people on foot, in wheelchairs and motorized scooters, on bikes, riding buses, driving trucks, a “road diet” is more like a “road feast“, or at least a balanced meal  Here’s a new infographic showing their advantages, from Troy Heerwagen, a Seattle Neighborhood Greenways advocate. Road Diets - Save Lives Keep Moving

Spokane Street Bridge – open for ships, breathing and stretching

Bridge open tonight… time to stretch, chat, check for messages. What do you do when the bridge opens just before you make it to the gate?

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Have you seen Kelli Refer’s little book Pedal Stretch Breathe – the Yoga of Bicycling? Bridge opening can be a good time to be present, to find contentment, even if you will be late for dinner, or in my case tonight, late for a yoga class.

“Bicycling has the capacity to shift the paradigm of the way you see and interact with where you live. Distance is transformed, community is redefined. Try to integrate the same mindfulness of a yoga practice into the act of riding a bike. See what happens. When you integrate a yoga perspective into your riding it amplifies the importance of the present moment and helps you listen to your body.” Kelli Refer

Connect Seattle – West Seattle Bike Connections

We are part of Connect Seattle – the West Seattle, South Park and White Center part.  It’s a new initiative from Cascade Bicycle Club with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.  Connect Seattle is a long-term citywide campaign to create a complete network of bikeways connecting neighborhoods across the city so everyone can ride safely. The campaign is powered by a network of neighborhood groups led by teams of caring neighbors working together.  Want to get involved?  Join us at a meeting first Tuesday of the month or by email to westseattlebikeconnections (at) gmail (dot) com. DSC06539

READ ALL ABOUT IT

 

Connect Seattle Summit – 5-Way Intersection

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality”. John Lennon

 

West Seattle Bike Connections represented West Seattle at Cascade Bicycle Club’s Connect Seattle Summit yesterday. Cascade is helping set up Connect Seattle groups around the city to develop campaigns for critical bicycle transportation improvements. We are already set up, so Brock Howell at Cascade invited us to be the group for the peninsula.

Cascade’s resources will help with a major push for one project in each area of the city. For West Seattle we selected the 5-way intersection near the West Seattle Bridge at Chelan, Delridge, Spokane and West Marginal Way SW.

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The 5-way intersection along the Alki Trail is unsafe, confusing and time-consuming for all users including people on bikes, on foot, in cars and in the many trucks using Port facilities. It is a huge barrier to many who would like to ride this route to commute to SODO and downtown, or to connect between the Alki Trail and West Duwamish Trail and soon-to-be built Delridge/Highland Park Greenway.

The Seattle Bicycle Master Plan, with our input, identifies this as a “catalyst project”: When accomplished, it will dramatically increase the number of people of all ages and abilities using bikes here.  Concepts were identified in an SDOT workshop last February, and vetted during the year, as announced in January.

If you have experienced the traffic jams on Spokane Street lately, you know how important this corridor is for freight movement and jobs in West Seattle and regionally. Getting more people out of cars and onto bikes helps truck traffic, too.

Come to our Feb 3 meeting to get involved! Tuesday, 6:30 pm, HomeStreet Bank, 41st SW & SW Alaska.   Ten of us started strategizing at the summit. We’ll continue the work on strategies for raising awareness and funding.

SDOT has short-term improvements planned and funded for 2015. We want to push for the long-term “flyover” concept that adds a bike lane attached to the flyover ramp that goes from the Spokane Street Bridge approach to Terminal 5. The bike lane would go from the rise under the WS Bridge where the trails connect, crossing Spokane at the existing light, follow beside the Terminal 5 truck entry ramp and peel off before the RR tracks to land on the Alki Trail near the Chelan Café. No additional climbing required, and it goes over the whole 5-way intersection.

Similar to our alliance with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways for the Delridge/Highland Park Greenway and the 35th Avenue SW Safety Corridor Project, this alliance with Cascade Bicycle Club will give us the ability to reach all the decision makers who will need to approve and fund this project. Yesterday, SDOT Chief Traffic Engineer Dongho Chang and City Council Members Tom Rasmussen, Sally Clark and Mike O’Brien joined us for the summit. We really appreciate their investment time and attention to champion these projects. It shows what this coalition can accomplish together, making dreams reality.

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