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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Trucks + Bikes this morning

Cars were turning around to try another route, instead of waiting for the trucks backed up from the Terminal 46 entry gate at Atlantic Street on East Marginal Way S. Bike commuters were going through without any problem. 

A perfect example of how truck traffic in the port and industrial areas is in conflict with car traffic, NOT with bikes. 

Using less roadway width than a general purpose travel lane, people on bikes move beside other traffic on S Spokane and East Marginal Way S. Bikes are not slowing down trucks and cars, and are not slowed down by trucks or cars. Every person on a bike could otherwise be a person in a motor vehicle adding to this traffic jam.  Bike lanes on the major truck streets increase bandwidth and flow. A good barrier between lanes here would increase it a lot more.

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Saturday January 31 – Connect Seattle Summit

Going to Connect Seattle Summit at Cascade Bicycle Club on Saturday (tomorrow)?
If you want to ride there together to represent West Seattle, South Park, or White Center, meet on Alki Trail at 59th SW ready to roll at 10:30 am or under West Seattle Bridge where the trails meet, at 10:45.
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WSBC Meeting February 3

6:30 to 8:00 pm.

Come join us!  Open meeting to plan and report on advocacy, events, rides to make it easier and safer to get around by bike in West Seattle.

Usually at HomeStreet Bank, 41st Ave SW & SW Alaska St, near the Alaska Junction. Check location the day of meeting.

Councilmember Tom Rasmussen has decided not to run for re-election, as you may know by now if you read the West Seattle Blog or the Seattle Bike BlogThank you, Tom Rasmussen for serving us well. We will miss you especially in West Seattle, but you are leaving us a legacy of a better transportation network throughout the city. We really appreciate that you have always been willing to meet, look carefully, listen, and talk straight, not just telling people what they want to hear, but explaining the political and fiscal context of an issue and finding a way to create the best solutions for our community.
Looking forward to riding with you in the future, and hearing about your bike journeys around the world.
Photo: Councilmember Tom Rasmussen has decided not to run for re-election, as you may know by now if you read the West Seattle Blog or the Seattle Bike Blog</p><br /> <p>Thank you, Tom Rasmussen for serving us well. We will miss you especially in West Seattle, but you are leaving us a legacy of a better transportation network throughout the city. We really appreciate that you have always been willing to meet, look carefully, listen, and talk straight, not just telling people what they want to hear, but explaining the political and fiscal context of an issue and finding a way to create the best solutions for our community.<br /><br /> Looking forward to riding with you in the future, and hearing about your bike journeys around the world.

 

Options for Chelan 5-way intersection!

Short, Medium and Long Term schemes were presented at tonight’s Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board Meeting. These grew out of a workshop held last February with participation by SDOT and lots of stakeholders, including West Seattle Bike Connections.  The short term option has funding and can be completed in 2015. The medium and long term options are unfunded. There was no support expressed at the meeting for the medium option – confusing and regular users wouldn’t use it. There was enthusiastic support for the long term “flyover” option. It adds a lane to the Terminal 5 truck flyover lane and passes right over the intersection, landing on the Alki Trail behind the Chelan Cafe. It would be obvious, safe, easy, gets bike riders out of the way of trucks at the 5-way, and provides an all ages and abilities connection between the Alki, West Duwamish, and West Seattle Bridge trails, attractive to fast commuters and slow family groups alike.

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Flyover option cuts a gap in the guardrail at the T-5 stoplight, crosses SW Spokane St there, and attaches a bike lane to the inside of the curving T-5 ramp, peeling off before the RR tracks past the NW side of the 5-way intersection,  sweeping down to the Alki Trail by the Chelan Cafe.

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Crosswalks on Delridge for Boren School

A win for traffic safety at Boren School on Delridge! Last February we helped push Craig Rankin’s initiative in going after a Seattle Neighborhood Parks and Streets Fund grant for a crosswalk at Boren. It’s a super long block where people cross the busy street with no protection. The initial reaction to the proposal was negative, but now not just one, but TWO crosswalks will be built! Great work by Craig and Boren’s school community, and thank you Brian Dougherty at SDOT!

http://westseattleblog.com/2015/01/2-new-crosswalks-confirmed-for-delridge-way-by-boren-building/

West Seattle Bike Connections is unappealing

Only two hours left to NOT donate to us! We don’t want your money!

We just want you to ride your bike!

And maybe, if you have some time in 2015, to spend a little of it with us. Or ask us to spend some time with you on a project or activity to make it easier and more fun to go places by bike in and from West Seattle.

If you get involved just a little, we’ll be able to do more of what we did in 2014:

  • Social rides with friends and families, like the mini STP
  • Hosting the West Seattle Bike to Work Day commute station.
  • Getting bike corrals and bike racks at shopping areas and schools
  • Starting and funding after school bike club at Denny Middle School
  • Engaging SDOT and City Council on bike routes in South Park, on Fauntleroy, on 35th Ave SW, at the Chelan 5-way intersection, on East Marginal Way S, and for the Delridge/Highland Park Greenway planning.
  • Our Bike Rodeo at Alki Summer Streets, and participation in Fiestas Patrias in South Park. the White Center Community Summit and Morgan Junction festival.
  • Grant applications with Admiral, Alki, Highland Park, and Morgan Junction neighborhood associations for traffic safety improvements.
  • Night Out with the Junction Neighborhood Association.
  • Lobbying at City Council and in Olympia for bike/pedestrian transportation funding.
  • Lending support to DIY Bikes of West Seattle.
  • Participation in SDOT School Road Safety workshop, Cascade Bicycle Club Policy Ride and Bike Happy Hour in SODO, and another in West Seattle, and memorial and vigil walks and rides.
  • Meeting and working with our allies at Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, Cascade Bicycle Club, and Sustainable West Seattle.

We are a volunteer community group, so what WE need are more of us!

If you do have money to give, you could give it to Seattle Neighborhood Greenways,  Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation, Washington Bikes, Feet First, BikeWorks, Alliance for Walking and Biking, World Bicycle Relief, …DSC04126