At least one “Car-Free Day” proposed for Alki Ave. this summer

| Environment | Transportation | West Seattle news

Remember when we talked about the city’s “Give Your Car the Summer Off” campaign a couple weeks ago, and mentioned the city would identify certain streets for “Car-Free Days” before summer’s end? A briefing paper for tonight’s Parks Board meeting (same one where the beach-fire-ban briefing is planned) says:

SDOT is proposing Car Free Days for one Sunday each during this August and possibly September at these locations:
â€¢ Alki, between the Water Taxi dock at Seacrest Park and 63rd Ave SW in West Seattle;
â€¢ Create a loop from Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market via Alaskan Way and First Avenue to Olympic Sculpture Park;
â€¢ Connect Magnuson Park to Seward Park via Burke Gilman Trail, the Arboretum, part of Montlake Bridge and Lake Washington Blvd and encourage attendees of the Pro Bike Pro Walk event to participate.

There will be the need for close coordination as park usage will be involved. For all locations, SDOT is interested in linking to special events and/or including programmed activities to enhance public awareness of the program and have a critical mass of public participation.

You can read the whole briefing paper here. A public hearing is planned on the proposed road closures during tonight’s Seattle Parks Board meeting; it starts at 7 pm at Parks Department HQ in Denny Park, 100 Dexter Ave. N. (scroll down this page for directions), and the sign-up sheet for public comment is available starting at 6 pm. It’s one of a mountain of major events tonight (all listed on West Seattle’s most comprehensive events calendar) – if you can’t go, here’s how to send written comments.

Eddie June 12, 2008 (6:28 am)

Lake Washington Blvd closes to motor vehicle traffic about once a month – to provide a place for people to walk and bike (and skate, etc) car-free.

I think getting the cars off Alki once a month in the summer (if it ever starts) ought to be a nice goal.

JunctionMonkey June 12, 2008 (6:58 am)

How ’bout a car-free Saturday night!

cjboffoli June 12, 2008 (7:33 am)

I love this idea! I was a resident of Lower Manhattan in September 2001. In the days immediately following September 11th, the streets south of 14th Street were completely closed to car traffic. Except for police, recovery vehicles and utilities vans, pedestrians took over the entire lower peninsula. And despite the fact that I had just seen 3,000 people die from my kitchen window a few days before, there was an incredible peace and quiet to that part of the City for a week afterwards.
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Alki can be such a beautiful place. But too often a walk along the water is ruined by loud pipe motorcycles, tuner cars with glasspack mufflers, and boom box cars. Having it quiet is completely underrated.

Alvis June 12, 2008 (7:35 am)

It’s been a while since I checked, but I seem to remember that Alki has absolutely no Sunday bus service. Let’s make sure that free public transit vans are brought in to fix that transportation failure on the Sunday when private vehicles are banned.

Buddy June 12, 2008 (7:51 am)

Great idea… except if you live on one of the side streets that connect to Alki. If there are no cars allowed on Alki, that means no parking on Alki… which means people will still drive down here and park along 59th thru 63rd, leaving even less space for residents to park their cars. I like the concept, but we need to considder the side effects. Create some resident only zoned parking and I’m all for it.

pam June 12, 2008 (9:08 am)

Genius. And yeah, the addition of appropriate transit and RPZ parking are great ideas. The bus service at Alki is less than adequate all the time, so making a car free day when there’s none would really, um, harsh the mellow.