I stopped biking to work for the winter so I haven’t had as much to write about. I still ride once in a while but the rain and cold limits me a bit. This week there has been a fair bit of Seattle biking news. The big announcement this week is the that there a deal to compromise on the Burke Gilman missing link. The Seattle Bike Blog wrote about it. and the Seattle times.
I’m not sure what to think. I think the train tracks never really needed to be moved and we should be able to find room for a protected bike path along 45th and Shilshole. I’m not sure why they needed to be moved in the first place because there is so much gravel parking that would be easily made into a bike path. But I am not convinced that it is going to stop the neighbors to throwing more lawsuits at it. What they really hate is the idea that they are losing their parking and that is still going to happen. The EIS is now not in the discussion but there are always things to argue about. I hope this is the last plan and it really gets built, but I wouldn’t bet any money on it.
Tonight is the Seattle Bike Advisory Meeting and I will give my highlights.
Georgetown to South Park design is now at 90 percent. Still no designs for how to get through Georgetown or South Park. This is a great trail between them but the problem still lies on the dangers of getting through each neighborhood. Airport Way in Georgetown is beyond scary and so is 14th through South Park.
They showed the new Seattle Transportation Plan which is really replacing the modal plans (biking, walking, transit, trucking and highway plans). But it seems like it is just a rework of the plan so they can not always show that they are failing on all modal plans. Everyone is still curious what this transition in planning really means. It doesn’t seem like each mode plan is getting better.
Then the city showed progress or lack of progress on he cities bike projects as part of the Move Seattle project. Everything seems to be delayed. One item of interest to me was that they are still working on connecting the waterfront trail to Myrtle Edwards. It is still in work but no timetables shared… Beacon Hill plans also have no timetables but are part of this funding…