Here is the 3rd of 5 projects submitted for the Neighborhood Project and Street Fund. Your feedback is welcome and helpful as the Wallingford Community Council and other groups decide which projects to endorse.
Erika from the Wallingford Community Council submitted this proposal:
This proposal is for lighting (perhaps motion lighting and/or reflective lighting) and general clean-up along the Burke-Gilman Trail running parallel to N. Northlake Place between 1421 N 34 St. and Woodlawn Ave N. This is the stretch of the trail just below the old Institute for Systems Biology Building and just West of the current Tank Farm pit.
Currently, the visibility early in the morning or at night is so bad thru this stretch that you can’t see where your feet are landing or wheels are rolling. As a pedestrian or a solo exerciser, it is an isolated spot and can be scary and feels potentially dangerous.
Clearing out some of the foliage on the South side which borders parking strips and an empty lot, and providing some sort of lighting along the retaining wall that borders the North side, and/or reflective material down the center of the trail would make it feel a lot safer for all people who utilize the Burke-Gilman. The daytime photos below were taken at 8:30 a.m. The night photo (which I lightened a lot so you could make out the trail) was around 7:15 p.m.
Yes!
Also, the striping and bike/ped icons need to be repainted along this stretch to avoid confusion as to which lane is for what purpose. SDOT was out there a few months ago repainting the icons, but they never completed the project and it’s still confusing.
Is there hope that they may wise up and go back to “keep right” for the whole trail?
Definitely needs lighting, and also flattening out the bumps caused by tree roots (preferably without damaging the roots). That section of the trail is dangerous due to the bad light, blind corner, and large number of joggers and cyclists. The corner at Stoneway is a particularly bad squeeze point.
I whole-heartedly agree with this proposal. I jog on this section of the BG trail almost daily and when it’s dark out I am always thinking to myself “it’s a miracle I’ve never seen a serious wreck here”. I’ve seen some pretty close calls.
It can be completely pitch-black here and there is far too much confusion around which side of the trail east-bound foot traffic should be on. It would help tremendously to have any kind of lighting here, but the painted lines and signage needs to be consistent at the very least (preferably all the way to Stone Way).
My stretch goal would be to lay down some kind of reflectors or bumps on the painted lane lines to make it a more serious divider between cyclists and pedestrians, especially at the blind corner closest to Gas Works Park. I’m always seeing cyclists whip around that bend with pedestrians scattered on both sides of the trail, often oblivious to the danger.
I’m also very much in favor of this proposal. I periodically walk through this stretch, sometimes at night, and additional lighting/signage would be very helpful. My husband bikes through here daily.
@DOUG and donn: I fully agree with you about the “keep right” idea. The striping and bike/pedestrian icons that begin at Densmore extend only a small part of the way to Stone Way…but don’t make sense anyhow.
I do bike the trail from time to time, but mostly travel it as a pedestrian. I don’t see the painted lanes working if the intent is to have pedestrians on one side (traveling in both directions), and bicyclists on the other side (traveling in both directions). Instead, I’d welcome and prefer a “keep right” approach…and I’d ask the bicycling community to help us all navigate this safely by agreeing to slow down when pedestrians are on the path.
Good project! With bikes and pedestrians it would also be nice to widen this section if possible.
The Netherlands has a beautiful glow-in-the-dark solar bike path:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/14/in_nuenen_designer_daan_roosegaarde_created_a_solar_powered_cycle_path_inspired.html
Yes! I fully support this! That section of BGT is not safe for riders/walkers/runners day or night. The path needs to be widened and clearly identified what side is for bikers and what side is for walkers. The area also stinks (sewage problem??). As for the night, this area is very high traffic during commute hours and could use some lights that bounce off the retaining wall. With a clean up, repaint of lines and some lighting this section will be a while lot safer day and night.
How do I advocate for this? Is it just up to the council or do we need to attend a meeting to be heard?
The council is reading the comments, and there will be an online vote for preferences after all 5 projects have been posted.
Absolutely agree with this one. So many people hate this part and many bikers (including me) ride the NLake Way part to avoid this stretch of the BGT. It’s probably more dangerous because of the cars, but there is light. It leads into a nasty corner at Stone Way as well.
I generally avoid the Burke west of campus, but this would help me want to ride on it again. It would be great if SDOT could actually make a real connection for cyclists coming down Stone Way, rather than “hang a left through heavy traffic, hop up on the crosswalk ramp, and try not to slam too hard into the pole or people”.
Oh my gosh, it would be so good to get the markings on the trail clarified. I think the separation of biking/walking halves of the trail is confusing and dangerous. Please fix it.
As an aside, but related — are bikers required to stop at street crossings? I bike and run on the trail — and, less frequently, drive on streets that cross the trail — and I am always appalled by the actions of cyclists who seem to assume that they have the absolute right of way whenever the trail crosses a road. In some places, I suppose it’s ambiguous, and it never hurts for drivers to yield as much as possible… But I also notice that even when there is a clear “STOP” for trail traffic, many cyclists ignore the sign and don’t even slow down, let alone stop. What is up with that?? Not only dangerous to themselves, but also unfair to drivers who really don’t want to hit a biker.
In Wallingford, where the BGT intersects a street, the drivers are the ones with the stop signs. The cyclists do not have one. As a daily bike commuter, I see tons of cars disobeying the rules. I can’t remember the last time I saw a driver stop before the line of a stop sign. Usually they just whip around the corner and only look for cyclists after their car is completely blocking the trail. I also see them make a left turn onto Densmore pointing East without yielding to cyclists.
I’d like to know where these stop signs are on the trail for cyclists because I don’t know of any in our area.
If a trail crosses a street at a crosswalk, the only obligation of any traffic crossing in the crosswalk (pedestrian or cyclist) is to allow drivers enough notice to come to a stop. Any stop sign on the trail applies only to cyclist as they cross the sidewalks, not the street. Cyclists in a crosswalk have the same rights and responsibilities of a pedestrian.
I believe you’ll see “yield” signs where the trail crosses a street by itself. I have a vague memory of a stop sign at NW 42nd in FreeLard, but it’s gone now.) That doesn’t happen much in Wallingford, but does occasionally to the west, and going the other way up north. Intersections like we have here allow the cyclist to cross at speed, but this relies on the motorist’s awareness that there’s a cyclist coming, or that there’s even a trail. I’m sure there are incidents, I’m surprised isn’t worse.
Don’t forget skaters. I don’t know, maybe we can forget skaters, as the numbers do seem to have died down a bit, but who knows, they might come back. Between walkers, runners, skaters, slow bicyclists and racers, there’s a continuous range of trail user speeds, all going both ways. If they all keep right, the middle of the path is clear for someone to pass, in either direction – 3 total lanes. Dividing the path into two different uses means in effect four coming/going lanes and two passing lanes, 5 lanes with the adjacent lanes in the middle going opposite directions. The trail is not big enough to support that, even if people reliably understood it.
There are stop signs for trail traffic near UW. Some of them are very explicit about the fact that bikes must stop for road traffic. I’m thinking of some to the east of UW as well — apologies if this seems irrelevant because it’s a bit outside Wallingford.
Anyhow, whenever I bike through UW it looks like at least half of the cyclists will not stop at these streets, let alone slow down — they bike through the street like they have a force field around them. I think it works for them because traffic drives pretty slow around there anyhow, so cars are going to avoid the bikes. But, it’s confusing for us cyclist who do intend to stop (or slow, at least), and have a cyclist behind us who may or may not stop.
Skylar, I do agree that cyclists have the same rights at peds in crosswalks. I was asking about places where the BGT trail crosses roads with no crosswalks and where there appears to be no sign warning drivers of the trail. My memory could be off, but I’m thinking of a couple places near Gasworks. For the record, I’m not defending cars — I am a bike commuter, too, and I’m rarely behind the wheel of a car these days. But I think a lot of Seattle cyclists need to pay better attention to road rules, for the safety of pedestrians, other bikers, as well as drivers who would very much like to look out for them. For example, don’t get me started on the cyclists who weave through the Westlake parking lot and sidewalks instead of hauling their butts up the not-very-big Dexter hill.
@christine: That Westlake parking lot weave is actually a designated multi-use trail—the Cheshiahud Trail. I don’t use it because it’s unsafe and ridiculous (I too ride Dexter), but it’s hard to fault the cyclists who do, since our city government encourages it. Thanks Greg Nickels!
Hopefully Ed Murray, the city council and SDOT will step up and follow through with the planned Westlake road diet, which would make that a much better route to ride and walk through.
Okay, good point, Doug. I should clarify that I don’t think that bikers should be speeding through the Westlake parking lot, racing other cyclists and weaving between cars. Even if the city encourages the use of the Westlake parking lot, I think that individual cyclists should make the personal decision to ride safely — whether that means taking Dexter or riding slowly and conscientiously through Westlake.
Again, I bike far more frequently than I drive, and I’m absolutely pro-bike, pro-pedestrian. I’m in favor of the Westlake road diet. I just think there are lots of cyclists that need to calm down and realize that if they swerve out unseen in front of a car and get hit, lots of people are affected, including the driver.
Even the crossings in Freelard are technically intersections (and, therefore, crosswalks), and cross-traffic has an obligation to yield for people already in the crossing. The sightlines are awful, and obviously cyclists should yield if they aren’t already in the crossing, but the onus really is on the cross-traffic.
All the crossings by Gasworks are definitely intersections (they’re at corners, after all), and even without marked crosswalks, trail traffic has right-of-way except for pedestrians on the perpendicular sidewalks. Again, I wouldn’t blow through those intersections on a bike without looking, but drivers need to yield at those crossings as well.
Unmarked crossings between the trail & the road (which probably should be marked), are still bike-right-of-way first. The stop signs in the UW area are pretty confusing, though, as there’s a marked crosswalk, which implies that bikes have the right of way, but the stop sign implies bikes don’t.
Most bikers, in that area, slow down, make sure there’s no people on the sidewalk, and no fast-approaching cars, then proceed across the road. I’ve never seen anyone just buzz it at full speed, and I bike that route daily.
I would say, in the area this post is actually about, it’d be nice to see that be a bit wider, if we can, but making the trail consistently “stay right” or “bikers & walkers in different sections” would be nice. Most bikers seem to just stay-right, since that’s what the majority of the trail is, but I bet there’s walkers who are super-pissed at bikers not using the correct side, when that’s the rule (even when the lines are long gone).
i’m surprised no one has mentioned the fact that through this area along northlake, there is no sidewalk. the trail serves as the sidewalk near densmore and wallingford on northlake. you have people who are just trying to walk on the sidewalk as a regular sidewalk having to contend with speeding cyclists who nearly run you over. is there any other neighborhood in seattle that has to deal with that – just trying to get to/from your car you’re being run down? they should make northlake safer for cycling and route cyclists over there so people can make use of the sidewalk safely.