Here at Wallyhood, we (especially the relative newbies) have learned that there are certain topics that elicit visceral community reaction. Bike lanes, for example. Homeless encampments. Local implementation of the urban village concept. Outdoor cats, songbirds, and coyotes. The recent and upcoming changes to the Green Lake outer loop seem to fall into this category. For those of you who do not receive updates from the city directly, here is a summary with links. Please feel free to vent in the comments, but be nice and remember, don’t shoot the messenger (replacements are hard to find). Substantive insights and suggestions can be provided directly to SDOT as they wind this project down.
Envision a full loop along the outer edge of Green Lake to create more space for people to safely walk, run, and bike around Green Lake and connect our neighborhoods.
We’ve reached 90% design!
Over the past few months, we have been reviewing community feedback and input gathered from our online open houses, November survey results, neighborhood community meetings, and project inbox communications.We worked in coordination with Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), Seattle Parks and Recreation, and adjacent stakeholders and developed an updated design to share with you all. You can view the full updates to the plans here.
Key changes you’ll see in the 90% plans:
- Updated design at the N 63rd St merge onto Aurora Ave N: We have updated the design to maximize the sight lines southward down Aurora Ave N by moving the stop sign farther north, maintaining more space to turn, and are working on a speed limit reduction to 30 MPH on Aurora Ave from Whitman to Winona in coordination with WSDOT.
- Increased pedestrian access and traffic calming in the Winona Triangle neighborhood: We are proposing parking restrictions with signs and markings, which help keep crossings and ramps open for pedestrian access, more bike markings to connect across Winona with upgraded ramps, and a double flashing beacon.
- Other updates throughout the project area include:
- Adjustments to driveway posts and markings to ensure neighbor access.
- Adjusted sign placement and increased wayfinding signs to help vehicles access the park using the arterial streets.
- Adjusting parking lane widths to maximize space where feasible.
- Reconfiguration of intersection at Winona/77th/West Green Lake Drive N to better delineate bicycle, pedestrian, and vehicle movements.
- Clearer connections to existing bike lanes at either end of the project area.
We want to keep you up to date
Check out our project webpage for continued updates and to sign up to join community engagement opportunities: www.seattle.gov/transportation/greenlakeouterloopTo stay informed, sign up for our listserv. Feel free to share this information widely with your neighbors and encourage them to sign up for the listserv.
Thank you,
Jules PosadasGreen Lake Outer Loop
(206) 900-8760
[email protected]
Are we allowed to ride bike son inside loop?
I think not? But a more informed Green Lake denizen should weigh in here.
Nope. Unless you are a BRAZEN CRIMINAL.
I have a visceral reaction to double spaces after periods. I enjoy your writing, Gary, but this cannot stand.
As for the outer loop project, is there an updated timeline? SDOT’s webpage says, “Construction could begin as early as mid-2022,” which by my calendar is already here.
Doug,
Sorry about the spaces. I will try to do better. But you know, the old habits die hard.
(I actually tried to post this with FOUR spaces after the period. But it won’t let me and auto-corrects…)
I like extra space .
The tide is changing on this matter. Are two spaces better than one? The effect of spacing following periods and commas during reading
The [lack of] width of the vehicle parking lane in the areas that have been redeveloped is perhaps the single stupidest traffic design I’ve seen. Vehicle occupants exit directly into traffic. Personally, I’ve witnessed accidents and tons of broken glass from the regular hits into parked cars that are occurring since they tried to fit a parking lane into whatever ridiculous width is there. People will be maimed and perhaps die because of this.
I completely agree!
Where? Is this between N 50th and the lake, where the car parking is between the bicycle lane and traffic?
There are examples of that design that have been around long enough, e.g. in Chicago, that they have statistics, and they don’t look so good. More accidents. SDOT should know that – NITC study from 2014 – and I imagine some engineer down there does know, but if so it doesn’t look like they listen to that kind of thing.
In this case, I’ve run that gauntlet a few times and survived, but it helps that I come through at a time when a lot of the parking spaces are unoccupied, so visibility is better, there’s probably no one on foot between sidewalk and car, fewer cars trying to enter/exit side streets.
Whatever collisions occur will be because people failed to look for traffic behind them before opening their car doors. That is precisely the reason for moving parked cars to the other side of the bike lane: too many drivers failed to look for bike traffic behind them before opening their car doors. Cyclists were getting seriously hurt running into an opening car door at 20 mph, or swerving into car traffic at the last minute to avoid hitting the car door that just opened in their path.
Now, will forcing inattentive drivers to step into a car lane instead of a bike lane result in more overall injuries than before? Quite probably! This time it will be the person making a mistake who gets injured, instead of an innocent cyclist. Does that factor count for anything? Interesting philosophical question to be sure, and I don’t take a strong position on it either way.
If the number of injuries ends up being too high, the solution there is simple: don’t put parking lanes on arterial streets. I’d love to see us get to a point where we decide parking is the lowest priority for street space. Parking should only be installed as space permits after completing a network of safe protected bike routes throughout the city, after installing nice wide sidewalks, and after lining the streets with trees that will grow up to provide comfortable shade for all of us walking and biking around our neighborhoods.
That doesn’t seem to add up. Problem: open car doors catch bicyclists passing on the left; solution: make bicycles pass on the right. (It’s kind of the old joke: When I found out that 70% of accidents happened within a mile of home — I moved!) There are doors on the right, too, people are less aware of risk when opening those doors, and there’s less room on the path to swing wide if it happens. That can’t be the reason for this design.
You’re right, it’s also to provide a physical barrier between moving cars and moving bikes.
Biking on the new Green Lake Dr N (the diagonal between the north end of the lake and Aurora) feels so much safer and less stressful than, for example, the bike lanes on Roosevelt Way NE where you’re in between the moving cars and the stationary cars. It’s a night and day difference.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e0b7fb23a18066982c6cedc6b44d61fe10d2584ac7bb8ae3ea41ac9c73173c5f.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8dbea2c4d2f16c22045f742375778252a7370d70d67870d57f048d5ad3850f3.png
Also you can see from the Green Lake Dr photo that there is a cross-hatched area to the right of the parked cars for people to open passenger-side doors without becoming an obstacle to cyclists. Even if this area wasn’t provided, most car trips are just a solo driver anyway, so the left side of a recently-parked car is going to be more dangerous to a cyclist than the right side.
When you’ve had a couple experiences with an obstacle suddenly appearing in front of you in that little corridor, the illusion of safety will be broken. The one that stands out in my memory was northbound on Dexter between Valley and Aloha. As I passed a delivery van, a handtruck flew out of the door, like straight at me but for the fact that I was going fast enough it missed. I take these routes only very occasionally, like once a month.
And it isn’t just me. NITC “Lessons from the Green Lanes: Evaluating Protected Bike Lanes in the U.S.“, June 2014; statistics from various bike lane facilities, the parked-car-barrier examples are Dearborn and Milwaukee streets in Chicago.
What’s extraordinary about those two photos is how much of our roadways are dedicated to automobiles, half of which is for free car storage.
Doug: Exactly!!
Nobody_Special has perfectly captured the true issues and accurate solutions. Here, here!
Donn and all drivers need to learn to slow the F* down when driving a big heavy machine though places where other people exist