Fremont Neighborhood Council Meeting

I attended my first meeting of the Fremont Neighborhood Council as a board member last night. It was an interesting meeting, and not surprisingly, there is a lot going on in the neighborhood! We received updates about a new affordable housing development that is being built in conjunction with CHHIP (Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program) on an old City of Seattle site; traffic calming proposals for 36th Street on either side of the Troll; and we heard from a representative of the Wallingford Neighborhood Council about a proposal to convert an old King County Metro building just northwest of Gasworks Park into an "aquatic center promoting the creative use of water in Seattle's Urban landscape." I also heard in passing that Suzie Burke is trying to get a passenger only ferry from Kirkland to Fremont and has created a North Lake Union planning advisory board to make it happen. I will look into this and post more here when (and if) I find any information.

I gave my report on the Fremont Bridge Approach replacement project and suggested that we craft a letter to the SDOT and the City Council outlining our concerns. After the meeting I spoke with Candace Barroga and she said the Fremont Chamber of Commerce shares the same concerns I discussed and we are planning on collaborating in some fashion to present a unified front to the City. I'll post the letter here once it's been finalized and agreed upon by the FNC Board.

Bike to Work Day

Today was Bike to Work Day, and there was a pretty good turnout here in Seattle. I stopped at two stations during my commute: the Speedy-Reedy station at 34th and the B.G. reported just over 400 bicycle commuters as of 8:00ish and the Recycled Cycles station at Rainier Vista and the B.G. (south end of the UW campus) reported 550 bicycle commuters!

Unfortunately the weather was a bit uncooperative, and although it wasn't actually raining, the gloomy skies and relatively cool temperature may have disuaded some folks from taking the plunge. But a lot of folks were out, and it's always heartening to see the future out there on the roads and bike paths.

Welcome, and News on the Fremont Bridge Project

My name is Matt Stevenson and I recently volunteered to serve on the board of the Fremont Neighborhood Council to address bicycle commuting issues. Towards that end, I attended the Fremont Bridge approach replacement project open house at B.F. Day School Wednesday night. I talked to several of the engineers from Parsons-Brinckerhoff and was pretty disappointed by their lack of attention to the bicycle issue. I had a lengthy discussion with Darrel Chambers about a variety of concerns including the double-blind right turn problems for south and north-bound traffic on the bridge, striping on 34th and Fremont, and a few others.

On the Florentia Street problem, I drew a diagram illustrating the current situation and what I consider to be some workable alternatives. He quickly became frustrated and said "Look, our main objective is to fix this bridge." To which I replied "Who are you fixing the bridge FOR? Fremont and the surrounding neighborhoods have the highest concentration of bicycle commuters in the state, and the Fremont bridge carries a huge volume of bicycles." I pointed out that this fact warrants increased attention to bicycles in the design process. He was dismissive of Census data, calling it "fuzzy," and said he wanted to see "real numbers."

I mentioned this to Rob Gorman, the Project Manger for the City of Seattle, and he said that Cascade Bicycle Club has generated numbers on bicycle commuters. However, he said this with a clearly discernible sneer, so my suspicion is that they are not figuring heavily into their deliberations.

I was somewhat taken aback by this attitude, but I did the Census research myself and I'm sending the numbers and a map to both of these guys today. If you would like to see the map, go here and click on the "bicycle commuters" link.

I also sent an email to Peter Lagerway at City of Seattle and asked him if the City has done any "bicycle traffic counts" on the Fremont Bridge, and if so, why the engineers have not yet seen them. If the City has not yet done these counts, I asked him when they are planning to do them. This seems like a pretty critical piece of information to me, particularly in light of Mayor Nickels' stated desire to make Seattle "one of the most pedestrian and bicycle friendly cities in the nation."

I'll post responses as I get them.

Cheers,

Matt