The city Transportation Department says it’s looking at ways to convince more people to turn off northbound Alki Ave at 63rd, where the yellow “residential street” sign shown above seems to be too subtle a clue that the arterial ends there, instead of continuing up and through the narrow stretch where it becomes Beach Drive at Alki Point. Sandra Woods of SDOT tells WSB that might even include physical changes to the intersection, “to make the turn more obvious.” This is part of the next stage of the process regarding pedestrian improvements west of that intersection, now that the city has told concerned area residents it won’t do anything that would take away their existing non-parallel parking in the sidewalk-less zone. (That’s the proposal that brought an upset group to the Alki Community Council last month, as we reported here.) Woods emphasizes the sidewalk plan isn’t dead — it was the result of a neighborhood application/planning process — but will likely turn into some kind of what she calls a “nonconventional walkway.” Right now, the city is developing “conceptual drawings” to be presented at a future public meeting, likely late March/early April.
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