The Wallingford Greenway celebration is this Saturday (June 16), from 4:00PM – 7:00PM, and everyone in the neighborhood is invited. Bring the dogs, kids, and, of course, your bikes to walk, roll, or ride the route along N. 44th Street which will be cordoned off between Bagley and Sunnyside during the event. There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony with SDOT at 5:00PM.
Here’s the full schedule of events:
3:00pm – close N 44th St between Sunnyside & Bagley (parking/local access O.K.)
4:00pm – Bike blender and crafts
5:00pm – ribbon cutting
5:15pm – kids parade
5:30pm – dog parade
5:30pm – hot dogs and ice cream
6:00pm-7:00pm – Walk or bike tour along the Greenway
For more information, visit the Wallingford Greenway website or the Seattle Greenways Facebook page.
As a daily bike rider I was excited when I started to hear bits and pieces of discussions about the Greenway in Wallingford. Now that it is completed, and at some expense, I have to scratch my head and wonder if I missed something. I somehow had the sense that cars were going to be discouraged from using the street (other, of course, than the people who live there and need to park on the street). It seems to me however, that all that was done, and at great expense I understand, is to install some signage restricting parking on the corners (a good move as it is sometimes difficult to see cars approaching when cars are parked too close to the intersection) and some bike lane designators painted on the street. Other than the expense I see no harm, but given the expense, I really expected more.
I cannot agree more, Jon.
I was really excited by the advance press that described the proposed greenway. – especially, the information indicating that the route would be designed so that traffic would be managed to assure that children as young as 7 years old would feel comfortable on the greenway.
Now that the route is finished, I can’t see that the greenway would be any more safe for children than any of its parrallel streets.
I haven’t seen one bicyclists on the greenway. They are riding on 45th.
Hey, Jon @1, why would you mention “considerable expense” so many times without providing an actual number? Do you even know how much it cost?
@3
I’ve ridden it a few times, but yes, I use 45th for most of my cross neighborhood trips. For me the problem is that the greenway ends at I-5, forcing me to head over to 45th anyways. May as well save time and cruise at 15-20 mph on 45th, as opposed to about 10mph on the greenway. But then I am a skilled cyclist who rides every day. If I were riding with a child, I would absolutely be on the greenway.
the Fremont Parade is Saturday.. big crowds down south
Yeah, another day that didn’t include a big festival in Gasworks and downtown Fremont might have been better for this. At least the Greenway shindig is not in the morning.
As an FYI, there’s also going to be a Kidical Mass ride from Green Lake to the Greenwake: http://totcycle.com/blog/kidical-mass-to-wallingford-greenway-partay.html
I probably bike on the Greenway 2 to 3 times a week. Not entirely Greenway related but I also use the newish climbing lane on Latona 2 to 3 times a week as well. I’m usually the only bike on either surface. In my daily commuting, I do see a lot of bikes coming down to the Burke-Gilman but usually on non-obvious biking streets like Sunnyside or Eastern.
Although the current Greenway configuration is not ideal for biking, I intend to keep using it for awareness’ sake I suppose.
With appreciation and thanks to all the folks involved with envisioning, researching, city agency partnering . . . I assume it will evolve and improve as time goes on and that constructive input/actions will help facilitate that . . . as the last sentence in @7 does.
I ride the Greenway frequently. I also ride 45th. The new islands on Stone are great, and more bike signage is always good to raise general awareness.
I’m not sure the green bike boxes at 44th and Thackeray were totally necessary, but I bet their existence will calm downhill traffic speeds on Thackeray, as drivers will be aware of potential bike cross traffic.
It takes cyclists awhile to use newly established routes regularly. With the new climbing lane on Latona, I’m guessing you’re going to see more cyclists using Latona–>44th–>Stone as a route to get from the Burke Gilman Trail to Greenlake.
Most of the expense went into the Stoneway crossing. The connection between Stone and the rest of the greenway requires a very steep climb up 43rd directly to the east of stone. The “willing but wary” and people with kids will not want to climb that hill, so I don’t see the greenway being successful. A better route is 46th, as it doesn’t have the up and down.
its downhill from wallingford to stone going east. That concrete barrier mid Stone and the painted lines?? those were the big cost??????
its downhill from wallingford to stone. That concrete barrier mid Stone and the painted lines?? those were the big cost??????
Big cost is relative. The money seems like a lot if you think in terms of a shopping spree but is not much if you compare it to other things SDOT does. Any time they monkey with the roads there’s traffic studies and process overhead to consider, particularly for arterial changes. I don’t want to quote a dollar amount for the Wallingford greenway just because I don’t remember it precisely…
The Neighborhood greenway budget was $100,000 – see http://www.wallyhood.org/2011/09/upcoming-neighborhood-greenway-meetings/
What I find most problematic about this project, is that it was touted as creating a greenway that was safe for children. This is clearly not the case.
What was delivered appears to be primarily a concrete crossing on Stoneway (helpful) and a lot of road signage that is primarily intended to serve adults who are already biking (and so far that number is very few.) Personally, I don’t perceive the budget as justified ffor the benefit and I would not support it being replicated or continued.
While I’m grateful for all the work that’s been put in on this project to date, I totally agree that the product so far is underwhelming, at best. I don’t think that the little green signs on poles or the sharrows have made any difference whatsoever to drivers who are moving N-S on any of the Wallingford side streets. Other than the bike boxes at Thackeray/Latona, Wallingford, and the crossing at Stone, nothing about this appears any safer than before. Why can’t we put in stop signs protecting the greenway from perpendicular traffic? Has anyone been down to Portland and seen what the facilities look like there?