16 Replies to "West Seattle Thursday: 1st local post-primary City Council D-1 faceoff; SDOT Admiral Way project open house; 6058 35th SW at Design Review; 'Perch' at Alki Community Council..."

• Ivan September 17, 2015 (11:52 am)

  Tracy: Is there live video? Seattle Channel’s website has other programming in that time slot. Thanks.

• abovealki September 17, 2015 (11:53 am)

  Regarding the Admiral Way project —
  Other than by attending the meeting, how can we give a formal comment to SDOT about this project? And what is the deadline?

  • WSB September 17, 2015 (12:04 pm)

    Ivan – Seattle Channel tweeted this link for a live webcast.
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    http://www.seattlechannel.org/eventLive
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    AboveAlki – On the project page, click email in the first line and that’ll open your e-mail window to whomever they have assigned for comments (I don’t recognize the name but I know the original project manager, Emily Ehlers, is out of the office for some time). http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/swadmiralwaysafetyproject.htm

• Luvsseattle September 17, 2015 (2:17 pm)

  Late notice, but the West Seattle timebank picnic has moved from Lincoln Park to the West Seattle Senior Center (4217 SW Oregon Street) due to rain. All other details remain the same. All welcome to come join us!

  • WSB September 17, 2015 (2:22 pm)

    Thanks – I didn’t spotlight it (though it’s in the calendar) because I wasn’t sure it would still be on b/c of the weather. Will update the listing.

• Ivan September 17, 2015 (2:32 pm)

  Thanks Tracy. I’ll be on it. Have fun.
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  Oh, and your work on the teacher strike was the best reporting in the city. You’re #1.

• wsnorth September 17, 2015 (9:42 pm)

  What really ticks me off, SDOT funds these projects from “transportation” levies. When I voted for those, I expected to get transportation IMPROVEMENTS not slowdowns, more traffic jams, and worse commute times.

  This has got to be the ONLY city in the country specifically trying to make commute times worse for us all. 5-10 minutes longer from Alki to the West Seattle Freeway might not seem like much, but over the course of a year, 2 ways, it is dozens of lost hours per person.

• Kathy September 18, 2015 (7:49 am)

  wsnorth: If you are driving fast enough over the 30 mph limit on Admiral Way to save 5-10 minutes from Alki to the West Seattle Freeway, then you are recklessly endangering our community. That really ticks me off. It is because of people like you that SDOT needs to redesign Admiral Way to the speed limit. If I falsely accused you of speeding then your criticism of this project is grossly exaggerated. If I need to apologize for accusing you of speeding, then you need to apologize for making a bogus argument against the project. Because SDOT plans to add lanes for bikes in the process, I will be able to use those lanes to do my shopping in the local businesses instead of going over the West Seattle Bridge to shop at Costco. That means more room for your car on Admiral Way and on the WS bridge. That’s a win for you and SDOT.

• Kathy September 18, 2015 (10:19 am)

  I applaud West Seattle Blog for all their hard work reporting the news and I realize that this is a busy news time, and that WSB has already spilled a lot of ink on the Admiral Way Safety Project.

  Since WSB couldn’t be at the SDOT open house and community meeting on this project last night, in the interest of providing some coverage, here is my not unbiased report :

  There were I’d guess up to about 150-200 people attending. Mayor Murray, SDOT Director Kubly were there and both spoke briefly. Project critics were out in force but there were many others present in favor of making Admiral Way Safer including 6 members of West Seattle Bike Connections.

  This time there weren’t so many complaints about the parking since the summer parking study kind of shot that argument down and SDOT scrapped the plan to eliminate all parking on one side of some blocks. But many people complained that they were afraid it would slow down their commute. (I suspect the rationale for this argument is something like “if SDOT designs the road to the 30 mph speed limit, I won’t be able to drive 40 mph on Admiral Way anymore”). I think it was Kubly who stated that a similar project was done on Dexter Way which has a 6.5% grade and average 14,000 cars per day compared to Admiral Way with a 6% grade and a similar volume of traffic at the top near California Ave. He stated that there has been a reduction in collisions on Dexter since the project was completed. The other major argument is about reducing the left turn lane that extends the length of Admiral Way from California Ave SW down to 63rd Ave SW and instead have smaller left turn pockets at the busiest intersections with reduction of parking near those intersections. The argument was, without a full left turn lane people turning left will get rear ended. My observation: people in cars are sometimes using the left turn lane to pass and to turn onto Admiral Way from the side streets when there is too much traffic to enter directly into the travel lane. I am not sure about the legality of the latter but neither use of the left turn lane seems safe to me. Another argument against the project was that there aren’t enough bikers to justify separating bike from car traffic. Some people repeated their complaint that people who want to bike from Alki to the Admiral Junction should use the Alki Multi Use Trail and then go up California from Harbor Avenue across from the Water Taxi dock. I commented that this route is at least 3 times the distance and steeper than the west side of Admiral Way for reaching the businesses where we Alki residents need to go for banks, grocery stores, drug stores, (I should have added, High and Middle Schools), etc. If people feel safe to bike to the stores from Alki, they will be more likely to shop locally and boost the economy in the Admiral Junction neighborhood, at the same time reducing demand for car travel space and parking in the commercial district.

  • WSB September 18, 2015 (10:25 am)

    Kathy, thanks – actually, we DID have a WSB presence there – team member Katie recorded it, I just haven’t had time to upload the video and publish it yet, which will be done later (I’m retrieving the camera on my way to the Water Taxi dedication). Patrick would have been there (of the three notable community meetings last night, it was top priority) while I moderated the City Council D-1 forum last night (an uncancellable commitment made long before the SDOT meeting was scheduled) except that he took ill early yesterday (happens to each of us only once a year, thank heavens). – TR

• M September 18, 2015 (10:54 am)

  Well, Kathy I was at the Admiral Way Safety meeting last night but from your description perhaps I had gone to an alternate universe. MOST of the people there were opposed to the original plan and this is what had caused all the push back from the community in the first place. There were several people even with signs against it, and even several bicycle enthusiasts also opposed the original plan.
  The revised plan is much improved and leaves parking on both sides of the street, which will be important in the spring/summer months. I especially don’t understand why you said the summer study for parking “shot down” the argument; actually it is why they changed the plan and added parking back on both sides of the street(the first study was done in December). But again I must have been in alternate universe. Hopefully WSB will shed some unbiased light into what really happened.

  • WSB September 18, 2015 (1:08 pm)

    Our video uploads slowly so it’ll be a few hours but check in late afternoon/evening (or of course since our archives live forever, any time afterward). I’m getting the camera on my way back from the Water Taxi dedication.

• Chad September 18, 2015 (3:06 pm)

  Regarding this comment…

  “What really ticks me off, SDOT funds these projects from “transportation” levies. When I voted for those, I expected to get transportation IMPROVEMENTS not slowdowns, more traffic jams, and worse commute times.”

  For starters, cycling is transportation and for many this would be considered an improvement to cycling transportation.

  Also, how much of a slowdown is this change expected to cause? I can see that someone turning left where there isn’t a turn pocket would slow traffic, but are there other aspects of the design that look like they may slow traffic to a speed slower than the speed limit?

• Kathy September 18, 2015 (11:59 pm)

  M: The parking plan was changed because people voiced strong opposition to crossing the currently unsafe street to get to their cars, not because of high parking utilization, which was found in the summer study to be rarely at capacity except between 59th and 63rd at the bottom and between 45th and California at the top. Much of the utilization between 47th and 53rd is at less than 10% even in the summer study. I recall the original plan proposed little or no impact on parking between 59th and 63rd, except to eliminate half a block of parking on the south side between 59th and 60th, where utilization in the summer study still did not exceed 50%. No thanks to the “Save our Parking” campaign for helping us waste more money on another parking study to calm irrational fears.

• Kathy September 19, 2015 (12:02 am)

  WSB I hope Patrick is feeling better!

  • WSB September 19, 2015 (12:08 am)

    Mostly. I won’t have the full story up until morning but the video of the presentation/ Q & A is here if anyone’s up all night …
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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K7zGNJrA0U
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    Does not include the mayoral opening due to switch glitch.

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