Advocate for more greenways and parks in Seattle

Lately I’ve been realizing that the current Mayor and Councilmembers of my hometown Seattle are already fairly pro-parks and pro-transit.

Just today I sent an email to all city councilmembers supporting a renewal of a parks level that’ll expire this year. However, one of the councilmembers replied back already saying that they’re already working on it and seeing how it can get done. Also, Mayor Nickels is the new chairman of the Sound Transit board and is a big proponent of extending Seattle’s light rail system (as well as another Seattle councilmember).

It’s good to know that the city is pro-transit right now, but it still feels like we’ve got an uphill battle against the state and county to get this shit done.

Currently in Seattle there is a big issue going on. Near the Fremont neighborhood, 2 big problems with bicycle access are drawing quite a bit of attention.

Firstly, on the street Stone Way the Seattle Department of Transportation has decided to scrap plans to build bike lanes up the soon to be paved road because a few businesses complained. The striping of bicycle lanes on this road has been a major element in the city of Seattle’s 10 year bicycle plan.

Secondly, the Burke-Gilman trail going under the Fremont bridge is slated to be closed for another full year because another businesswoman complained that bicycles would get in the way of her latest development.

I, along with others feel that a few private interests have conflicted with the overall public interest. I use Stone Way frequently, as well as the Burke-Gilman going under the Fremont bridge. Along with a couple other events that have happened lately I feel like people are ignoring and purposely trying to suppress bicycling in Seattle. Cars are an inefficient mode of transportation within this city and as far as I know, these developments will not have any additional public transit either.

Therefore, I will try to help out in planning an awareness bicycle ride through Fremont. A bunch of us will be meeting this Wednesday at Gas Works at 6pm.

A few blocks from my neighborhood there is this grove or trees that might be demolished by a real estate developer. I have volunteered to help out doing some data entry work. Perhaps this kind of helps, but I don’t think it meets the criteria for really accomplishing this goal.

Read about it here in the Seattle Times. I think this is awesome that a local politician with good experienced has joined in on this movement. I believe that the viaduct is unnecessary. Some studies hint at this as well; the following was copied from the People’s Waterfront Coalition

1. A study in Great Britain found that when a highway is closed, an average of 25% and up to 60% of the trips that had used the facility just disappeared.
2. WSDOT studied the effect of charging a $1 toll on the new facility, to see if tolls might be part of the funding solution. They found that roughly 40,000 trips / day would not use the facility. How important was that trip if it wasn’t worth $1?

I think I might try to get on board of the momentum to use a surface/transit option to replace the viaduct. I’ll try to volunteer in some way for this movement and hopefully there will be some parks or bike lanes in any proposal.