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1. DP
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   This article from yesterday's "Times" isn't strictly about WS, but it certainly concerns something that's been on WS Bloggers' minds lately: Road Diets.

   http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2012638352_nicole17m.html

   Road diet projects are popping up all over the city, and Times columnist Nicole Brodeur notes that at least some of these projects—like the one planned for NE 125th Street in the Lake City area—are arousing ire.

   Like the diet planned for SW Admiral Way, the NE 125th diet will remove two car lanes on a busy street and replace them with one car lane each way, plus a bike lane each way, and a turn-trap lane down the length of the road. And, just like SW Admiral Way, NE 125th has a steep grade that insures that few cyclists will use the bike lanes once they are in.

   So in both cases, the trade-off is dubious.

   The drivers who use NE 125th are much more up in arms about their road diet than we are about ours, but that might be simply because they're closer to Diet D-Day than we are.

   Stay tuned, and thanks to WS Blogger Hooper1961 for his foresight in spotting this as an emerging issue.

   —David

   Posted 1 year ago #         

2. Carson
   Member Profile

   

   I was under the impression the diet road planned for Admiral Way was actually 2 lanes up the hill and one lane down, with a bike lane. Am I wrong about that? The bike lane would allow bikes to ride down the hill in the bike lane and up the hill on either the street or like most, on the sidewalk.

   Posted 1 year ago #         

3. JanS
   Member Profile

   

   Carson...2 lanes up, one lane down (split at bottom so right turners can go to Avalon Way), bike lanes separated from car traffic by parking lanes....

   DP...don't believe everything you read in the newspaper ;-)

   Posted 1 year ago #         

4. austin
   Member Profile

   

   There is nothing wrong with reducing drivers' sense of self entitlement. If lane reductions are what it takes so be it. There are many other places in the country for drivers to have total dominion over the landscape, this shouldn't be one of them.

   Posted 1 year ago #         

5. christopherboffoli
   Member Profile

   After decades of building additional lanes only to see them have absolutely no benefit in reducing traffic (in fact, they make traffic worse), it is nice to see City planners taking a different tack and dis-incentivizing the overuse of cars.

   But have no fear DP. If the road diet is anything like all of the diets I've experienced, those extra lanes will be back after the holidays.

   Posted 1 year ago #         

6. Jeffro
   Member Profile

   Nicole Brodeur's opinion column is the same stuff we saw last year with the Fauntleroy road diet. People complain about lost capacity beforehand, but it all goes away after they see that things don't move any slower, the road has a safer, more predictable feel to it, and oh yeah, two-lane arterials are more pleasant to live near than four-lane freeways.

   I bike so naturally I have skin in this, but the benefits to drivers and other users is being seriously underplayed (I drive too!). Bike lanes are the most visible change, but I believe the greater benefit would be for the car-driving part of me. Now 35th has a lot more cars moving down it so I don't know if it's viable, but can you imagine if people turning left off of 35th had a lane to pull out of traffic while they waited instead of blocking - and wasting - a whole lane of "capacity"?

   Any road that doubles as a used car lot is in desperate need of a "diet".

   Posted 1 year ago #         

7. DP
   Member Profile

   

   I stand corrected about the SW Admiral Way configuration. Sorry for not fact-checking that first. (D'oh!)

   I'm a bicyclist too, and I hate sharing busy streets with cars in any fashion. ("Sharerows" are the worst!) However, I would gladly abandon all the arterials to the cars in exchange for a citywide grid of standalone bike trails.

   Most of the trails we have now (Alki, Duwamish, Green River) are scenic trails, not commuting trails, and they're not even continuous. To connect from the west end of Alki to Lincoln Park, for example, you have to travel on one of the narrowest, most parked-on residential streets in Seattle (Beach Drive SW). It's the same only worse going the other direction. To get from Alki to Duwamish, you have to go over some of the meanest of the mean streets in South Park.

   To me, it seems like SDOT and McGinn are doing this for the sake of appearance more than substance. It's a quota system that hurts motorists but doesn't help bicyclists.

   Austin, as a serious bike person, how do you stand on this? Would you rather have lots of sharerows and bike lanes up 8% hills? Or would you rather have the equivalent of a Burke-Gilman trail running around Alki, through the Junction, and going on downtown?

   (Or would you rather have a kayak channel?)

   Posted 1 year ago #         

8. dhg
   Member Profile

   

   I totally support their plans because people get competitive with two lanes. There's always a few jackasses that weave in and out at high speed. A single lane means no racing.

   Posted 1 year ago #         

9. Julie
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   "So in both cases, the trade-off is dubious." I think the trade-off, in both cases, has more to do with improvements in safety for all users (automobile, pedestrian, and bicycle) than it has to do with providing more facilities for bicycles. Improving safety for everyone seems a reasonable trade-off.

   Posted 1 year ago #         

10. DP
    Member Profile

    

    dhg said:

    A single lane means no racing.

    —Betcha start seeing people swinging out into those turn-trap lanes to get around slow drivers though . . .

    It happens all the time on Delridge and other streets that have been constricted.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

11. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    DP...there will always be people who think they are "special", who think that the rules don't apply to them. City can't make their decisions based on accommodating those twits.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

12. Julie
    Member Profile

    

    http://www.publicola.net/2010/08/17/times-columnist-ignores-the-facts-on-road-diets/

    Posted 1 year ago #         

13. DP
    Member Profile

    

    OK, rather than speculate, I'm just going to go have a look for myself.

    First I'll go to Fauntleroy (a recently dieted road) and check out the "new vibe" that people have been talking about.

    Then I'll go over to SW Admiral and check out the current vibe.

    If I'm not back in an hour, just keep waiting.

    If I'm not back in two, call off the waiting and get back to work.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

14. KBear
    Member Profile

    While you're on Admiral, try driving within the speed limit and tell us how many honks and dirty looks you get.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

15. DP
    Member Profile

    

    Will do, KBear, but how will I know people aren't honking at me for other reasons?

    As far as dirty looks go, I gave up on counting those a loooong time ago.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

16. JayDee
    Member Profile

    From Crosscut:
    -
    <http://crosscut.com/2010/08/18/business/20071/Losing-lanes-to-bikes-will-produce-a-jobs-exodus/&gt;
    -
    While not directly tied to the road diets of Admiral and NE 125th, it is a product of the same impulse that led the City to screw Nickerson and indirectly, ourselves. GM Nameplate, an under-the-radar manufacturer will be moving 400 jobs to Kent due to a "road diet"...Actions, even dumb ones, have consequences.
    -
    As to Admiral and the speed limit--lets face it--the majority of drivers in West Seattle have been driving for 20+ years. A 4-lane boulevard should not have a 30 mph speed limit. Generally, we all know what's acceptable for such a street and drive accordingly. And surprise: the accident stats (from the City) suggest that Admiral has a lower accident rate than most arterials. Hmmm, perhaps the people who drive Admiral are driving safe despite exceeding the (absurd, IMHO) 30 mph speed limit. Yes, there was the grisly head-on earlier this year, but I think others have pointed at contributing factors (a curve and ethanol).
    -
    I would favor leaving Admiral as-is, posting signs prior to Olga uphill clearly stating the speed limit is decreasing from 40 mph (I can dream, can't I?) to 30 mph (like the one in Issaquah on Front Street). After the Olga bus-stop I can see the logic in reducing the speed limit--an off-camber turn (see the former tree planters) and many streets/driveways, and if we are lucky, sunshine.
    -
    My three oft-repeated cents.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

17. Carson
    Member Profile

    

    JayDee,

    Where are you getting this news about GM Nameplate moving, or is it just a "Smitty" rumor? It would make sense for them to move (closer to Boeing) but not for the reason you state.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

18. Carson
    Member Profile

    

    Never mind, it was in your post!!

    Posted 1 year ago #         

19. hooper1961
    Member Profile

    Road diets can make sense if properly studied and implemented; and I have recommended them in a number of locations. Unfortunately, the SDOT does not conduct appropriate study (Admiral Way they did not even have traffic data at the Olga St/Admiral Way intersection yet they were cutting the capacity of the I/S significantly!) and is foisting the changes on Principal Arterials that are dubious candidates for the change. Some basic criteria:

    - daily traffic less than 20,000 vpd
    - lots of driveways/side streets with corresponding left turning traffic that makes the inside traffic lane a defacto left turn lane anyway.
    - bike demand (corridors with substantial grade are questionable)

    Posted 1 year ago #         

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