Category: Uncategorized

Aren’t greenways supposed to go somewhere?

My understanding is that we imported the concept from Portland and that the idea is that bike routes on residential streets are identified and prioritized for bikes by putting stop signs on all of the cross streets and speed bumps on the route.  Naturally Seattle implements it half-way:  we forget many of the stop signs and we are content with shadows and a few signs.

This fall stop signs and speed bumps appeared on 1st Ave. NW.  As a resident I wasn’t consulted, but it didn’t seem to extend as far as may place so that wasn’t a surprise.  I assumed that it was the lady at 70th who made a fuss demanding no parking signs for several years  – but it doesn’t seem to go that far,  either.  The painting on the street suggest that eventually it will continue north of 85th, but for now we have a greenway between 85th and 73rd – really useful, no?

The ironic thing is that two blocks over is Greenwood with a good bike land all way from 100th to 50th.  It sure would have been nice to use the money spent on paint and signs to improve that bike lane…

I assumed that the Seattle Greenways organization was behind this – and they might be but it isn’t obvious from their website.  They appear to be a sock-puppet for SDOT, lots of photos of volunteers with those City=produced yard signs that Seattle likes to substitute for enforcement.  They list neighborhood groups, but don’t have a list or map of greenways.  Their page for Phinney Ridge shows 1st NW as an aspirational goal starting up at Carkeek and running to Woodland Park.  I don’t know why this is a good idea, I don’t know if anybody in the neighborhood got asked about it, I don’t know why this is a better used of money than something like completing the Interurban, but evidently it made their list.

Now that it’s been built somebody needs to update things.

I was on the narrow, divided, stretch the BG today and a guy with 6-inch tires on his e-bike pulled up behind me.  He tinkled his bell and yelled “on your left” at me all the way until the divided parts join up again.  The pavement was wet and is really uneven in that stretch so I felt justified staying a little more to the left than I would have for a faster rider on a human-powered bike.  A couple of thoughts”

1. “on your left” is a peloton call-out to let you know that someone is in your blind spot – similar to “on your wheel”.  It doesn’t create an obligation to move over.  You are an asshole if you think that you are entitled to have everyone else on the trail get out of your way. The rules of the road put it on you to pass safely and if you can’t pass safely you need to wait until you can.
2. the concept that  “moving pedals mean it’s a bicycle”  is fallacious.  A vehicle that goes 20+ mph with motorcycle sized tires doesn’t belong on the trail – whether or not the rider can move his feet.  The thing that kills is the speed differential.  If you can go 20 without working hard then you want to go that fast all of the time and you end up passing everybody else and believing that you are entitled to pass everybody and eventually you have conflict and injury.

Here’s a one-mile radius circle drawn from our place:

If you stay up on the ridge in this circle you’ll find half-a-dozen pubs, at least that many coffee shops, a bunch of restaurants, a grocery store and a hardware store, the library, the post office, a dry cleaner, several dentists – basically the essentials of urban living without having to climb.  There are also more churches than you can count.  If you accept that you have to get back up to the crest of the ridge the circle includes 45th and Fremont, the west side of green lake including PCC, Greenwood almost all the way to 85th, 8th up to 80th, 65th and market over to 15th – including Ballard Market and Safeway and Walgreens.

Expanding that circle to 2 mile looks like this:

Now you’ve got all of Ballard, All of Fremont, Nickerson and fisherman’s terminal, all of Wallingford, all of Greenlake, all of Greenwood, and most of Crown Hill / Loyal Heights.  A 2-mile ride takes maybe 10 minutes.  Even with the climb back up to the crest of the ridge I do it on a single speed without special bike clothes or shoes.

I saw in the Everett Herald that Snohomish County is going to close the road behind Target where the Interurban Trail emerges.  They say it will be close for five months starting in the spring of 2018 and that there “will be detours.”

What do you want to bet that they don’t mean detours for bicycles on the trail?  the alternatives to get across I-5 would be 196th to Filbert to Buttermilk (with no shoulder and lots of traffic on 196th and Filbert) south of the construction and 164th to Alderwood Mall Parkway to 184th (with lots of traffic on the Parkway and on 184th) to the north.

I didn’t see excessive water over the road at this intersection last year (which was supposed to have been the rainiest on record.)  Maybe they’re fixing Ash north of Maple?

Here’s the text of the article:

County, Lynnwood to partner to fix sinking intersection
$7M project will raise the intersection of Ash Way and Maple Road, which was built on a peat bog.

By Rikki King
Saturday, September 30, 2017 11:28amLOCAL NEWSLYNNWOOD

LYNNWOOD — The intersection at Ash Way and Maple Road was built on a peat bog. That’s been a documented problem as far back as 1998.

The peat can’t support that kind of weight, and the crossing has been sinking about an inch a year. Adding more pavement just makes the road heavier, and worsens the problem, said Robert Victor, a project manager for the city of Lynnwood. Now a permanent fix is scheduled.

Maple Road is considered a critical east-west link around Alderwood mall. Snohomish County, which owns part of the intersection, is partnering with Lynnwood. They are sharing construction costs of about $7 million, said Steve Thomsen, the county public works director.

The plan is to drive 8-inch-wide steel piles into the solid ground beneath the peat. It will require hundreds of piles, each averaging 50 feet long, Victor said. Similar systems are used to support piers and bridges.

The work is designed to raise the road about five feet. That would bring it above the 25-year floodplain for Swamp Creek. Where it sits now, the intersection has to be closed several times a year for flooding, said Jared Bond, Lynnwood’s environmental and surface water supervisor.

“There are bathtubs that happen whenever we get a large rain,” Victor said.

That affects traffic for the mall as well as Costco and surrounding businesses.

The construction includes about 700 feet of Maple Road and 600 feet of Ash Way. It is scheduled to start in spring 2018, after an open house, and could last five months. The road will be closed during the work, as well as the nearby Interurban Trail, with detours planned.

“We’re trying to get it done in the summer before shopping season,” Victor said.

About 7,300 vehicles travel Ash Way each weekday and about 5,900 use Maple Road. After construction, drivers are unlikely to notice the piles, which will be covered with infill.

The project includes culvert improvements for fish passage as part of a statewide court ruling.

Lynnwood has similar problems — roadway sinking into peat — on 196th Street SW near Wilcox Park and Scriber Creek and on 44th Avenue W near I-5.