By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
West Admiral/Upper Alki residents opposed to SDOT’s Southwest Admiral Way Safety Project have just launched a campaign titled Keep Alki Safe.
With little advance notice of the proposed Admiral Way changes, SDOT first presented them at April’s Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting (WSB coverage here), then at May’s Southwest District Council meeting (WSB coverage here), and finally in a contentious standalone community meeting May 21st at Alki Elementary (WSB coverage here). That meeting included the following slide deck, showing the heart of the plan in the final few pages, proposing removing more than 200 parking spaces along Admiral Way west of California SW, to make room for changes including the addition of bicycle lanes:
(Slide deck from May 21st meeting)
The parking removal is the center of concern for area residents, for reasons including that it would require some of them to park across Admiral and dodge traffic to get to and from their vehicles. When they heard SDOT say it considered the parking removal to have a relatively nominal impact because of usage studies they had done in the winter, rather than in the busy summer season, that led to further concerns. From the group’s newly launched website:
We are a group of neighbors who came together, in shock and disbelief, in April 2015, when Seattle Department of Transportation informed us they were planning to remove 200 parking spaces on Admiral Way, between the Admiral Junction and 59th SW, four months hence. Admiral Way is a residential arterial, bordering the Alki Parking Overlay; it is the main access route to Alki Beach, the Alki business district, Alki Elementary School, Alki Community Center, a church, and the Alki neighborhood.
We are concerned that SDOT does not understand this street: the traffic patterns, the parking, the adjoining structures and the safety challenges. Most of the accidents on this section of Admiral Way are caused by impaired drivers, late at night. The SDOT Admiral plan is dangerous because SDOT would force some residents to park on the dangerous side of the street, the side where impaired drivers crash into cars and structures on a routine basis. The plan is dangerous because SDOT would also force some residents to cross a busy arterial, with children, elderly and handicapped family members in tow, to get to their cars. The plan is shocking because this portion of Admiral Way suffers from extreme parking congestion during the summer and during school pick-up and drop-off time.
The new website also links to an online petition asking Mayor Ed Murray to drop the plan, and organizers say they’ll soon have yard and roadside signs to catch the attention of neighbors and visitors alike, including ones like this:
Organizers also tell us they are lobbying elected officials directly and expect to meet soon with Councilmember Tom Rasmussen.
As for where the plan officially stands:
At the May “open house,” pressed by Admiral Neighborhood Association president David Whiting to commit to at least one more public meeting about the project, SDOT agreed. No date’s been announced yet; Rasmussen asked SDOT director Scott Kubly about this project’s “public process” during yesterday’s City Council Transportation Committee meeting (starting 53 minutes into the clip at that link); Kubly said he knew one public meeting had been held and thought multiple additional meetings would be ahead. The project website now shows this timeline, mentioning a “community briefing” in late summer:
We left a message for project manager Emily Ehlers today to ask about the status, and have not received a response.
| 56 COMMENTS