Seattle Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School is celebrating upgrades to pedestrian and bike safety near the new schools opening this fall just off Aurora Avenue North at North 90th Street (Robert Eagle Staff Middle School and Cascadia Elementary School).

From 1-5 p.m. on Aug. 26 at Greenwood Park, 602 NW 87th St., bring your bike for a bike rodeo, helmet giveaway to the first 50 people who don’t already have a helmet, free basic bike repair, music, food, story time with Seattle Public Library, raffle for bike gear, prizes and gift cards from local businesses, and a scavenger hunt. Learn more about bike safety and skills and the safest routes to school.

The following day, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, Licton-Haller Greenways and Greenwood-Phinney Greenways are hosting a Safe Routes to School Celebration and Ribbon Cutting at the corner of North 92nd Street and Ashworth Avenue North, behind the new schools.

After the ribbon cutting, a bike and walking parade will celebrate the new trail and improved Safe Routes to School.

Seattle Department of Transportation is planning major upgrades to the intersection of Holman Road NW and 13th Avenue NW, including a new pedestrian and bicycle signal, additional lighting at the nearby bus stop, and a possible new public plaza on the NE corner, where the pedestrian bridge stairs are now.

But the proposal also calls for demolishing the pedestrian bridge. Many community members have expressed concern that many pedestrians feel safer using that bridge while crossing to and from Crown Hill Center and nearby Whitman Middle School, so SDOT will hold a public meeting with City Councilmember Mike O’Brien to discuss more about the plan.

The meeting will be from 5:30-7 p.m. Wednesday, July 19 at Crown Hill Center, 9250 14th Ave NW, in the gym.

“You’ll get to learn more about why the current design is recommended, have your questions answered about why we’d consider removing the pedestrian overpass, and discuss how the street would operate with these changes,” according to the press release.

You can more about SDOT’s plan on its blog, which includes numbers of how many pedestrian use the overpass and the street crossing at various times of the day.

SDOT will soon begin improving the intersection of Aurora Avenue North and North 92nd Street to make it safer for pedestrians and bikers.

SDOT crews will add a new signal, curb ramps, and add a median island to reduce cut-through traffic.

The improvements are designed to help the Safe Routes to School connection between the existing neighborhood greenway on Fremont Avenue North and the new school complex on the east side of Aurora. The plan is to turn on the new signal in September in time for the first day of school (Sept. 6 for Seattle Public Schools).

During construction, be prepared for vehicle lane and parking restrictions, as well as pedestrian detours on sidewalks. Normal work hours are from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday with some night and weekend work.

Mayor Ed Murray has announced that 12 Neighborhood Street Fund projects, including in or near our neighborhood, will receive funds from the Move Seattle Levy for safety improvements.

All the projects first came from concerned neighborhood groups. Those projects were then reviewed by the city’s 13 district councils, then vetted by the Move Seattle Oversight Committee, then submitted to Mayor Murray.

• Aurora Avenue at North 85th, 90th, 95th, 100th and 105th streets will see restriping of all four existing crosswalks at each intersection “with distinctive background color and striping marking the entire crosswalk area.” Multiple points along that route also will see “distinctive art signage,” including both sides of the pedestrian bridge at North 102nd Street. Two “deficient” curb ramps at North 100th Street will be moved and curb ramps repaired. This project was motivated in part by pedestrian/cyclist safety for students at the three new schools opening next fall at the former Wilson-Pacific just east of Aurora Avenue at North 90th Street.
• A pedestrian activated signal will be installed at the Holman Road overpass near Dick’s Drive-In since the overpass is not ADA accessible, and the road’s curve makes it difficult for all pedestrians to cross at street level. The area is close to several schools, parks and transit.
• 6th Avenue NW will be turned into a Safe Routes to School route with pedestrian/cyclist safety fixes along the street between NW 45th and NW 85th streets, because schools are near both ends of 6th Avenue NW.

Several Greenways groups, including Greenwood-Phinney Greenways, are joining together to host a Rally and Remembrance for Safer Streets at 12 p.m. Sunday at the Northgate Community Center 10510 5th Ave. NE. They’re calling on the Seattle City Council to fund $3 million in safety improvements next year.

Join Lake City Greenways, NE Seattle Greenways, Green Lake Greenways, Licton-Haller Greenways, Greenwood-Phinney Greenways, Maple Leaf Greenways and many other community groups and people to highlight the unsettlingly high numbers of serious injuries and fatalities on our streets in the past year.
We’ll gather on Sunday, October 9 at NOON in front of the Northgate Community Center to talk about the urgent need for safe streets.

There have been two tragic bicycle fatalities and a spate of serious-injury pedestrian, bicycle, and car crashes in North Seattle in the past few months. Lives have been taken and others irrevocably altered by these events.

Our City has committed to Vision Zero (zero serious injuries or fatalities by 2030), but the $2.4 million budgeted for this life-saving agenda is not sufficient. #WeCantWait for more serious injuries and fatalities to spur City action.

Gather with us, your North Seattle Greenways groups and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, as we mark these tragedies and needless injuries. Call on the City Council to add $3 million to the budget.

We need to implement safety improvements on major streets in our city, including NE 65th, Lake City Way, Greenwood Ave N, 35th Ave NE, and many others.

Seattle Department of Transportation must also tackle a backlog of 400 spot improvements across the city identified by communities and SDOT for which there is currently little funding.

Our October 9 gathering will be followed by a walk/slow ride to the site of a recent crash.

Please bring flowers from your own garden, or a homemade sign with your message about safe streets. We will have ready-made signs, a map for you to add your ideas and trouble spots, postcards for your messages to the City Council, and a petition (also available at http://bit.ly/2dp6hUR).

The City of Seattle has released an updated draft of its Pedestrian Master Plan, which is the 20-year blueprint for making Seattle more walkable and accessible. Anyone can comment on Seattle Department of Transportation’s plan from now through Aug. 12 by emailing comments to PMPupdate@seattle.gov.

Through the Pedestrian Master Plan, SDOT prioritizes pedestrian investments throughout the city including new sidewalks, curb ramps, crosswalks, and other improvements that make it easier to walk in our neighborhoods.

Seattle is consistently recognized as one of the nation’s safest and most accessible cities for pedestrians. It is tied for the second-lowest pedestrian fatality rate in the country, and is fifth in the country for the percentage of people who commute to work by foot according to the 2016 Benchmarking Report from the Alliance for Biking & Walking. The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center also ranks Seattle as the only platinum-level Walk Friendly Community in the nation. However, there is always more the City can do to make Seattle more walkable and accessible.

The updated PMP establishes the policies, programs, and project opportunity areas that will further enhance pedestrian safety, comfort, and access in all of Seattle’s neighborhoods, while remaining a national leader. It lays out the key strategies and actions that SDOT will use to achieve its vision of making Seattle the most walkable and accessible city in the nation, and it establishes the performance measures to gauge success. The update will help ensure that SDOT focuses resources on areas where walking conditions are challenging and where improvements are needed to help residents walk comfortably.

Seattle Department of Transportation says the Greenwood Avenue North Transit and Sidewalk Project is progressing on schedule and will soon move into the next phase. Crews are finishing installation of new sidewalks on the east side of Greenwood Avenue north of North 100th Street.

Construction activity in March and April will include work on both the east and west sides of Greenwood Ave N. On the east side, crews will first install bus islands and remaining improvements and then conduct final paving, including filling gaps between the roadway and curb. Work between N 97th St and N 105th St will be completed first, then crews will shift the traffic detour south to complete the work between N 92nd St and N 97th St.

Once the east side work is complete, crews will shift southbound traffic to the center lane to make room for a safe work zone on the west side. Bicycles will continue to merge with traffic and King County Metro will provide temporary bus stops for N 97th St and N 92nd St. Northbound traffic will use the regular northbound lane.

West side work will include installation of bus islands and curb ramps at N 97th St and N 92nd St, a curb ramp at N 102nd St, and other improvements at N 95th St. Crews will then conduct final paving, including filling gaps between the roadway and curb.

Final steps in the project will include planting trees and adding soil to landscaped areas. Sidewalks on the east side of Greenwood Avenue will remain open, but intermittent pedestrian detours may be needed on the west side. Most of the remaining work should be completed over the next 2 months, but it will take until June for crews to finish up all cleaning and inspections.

Licton-Haller Greenways is hosting a follow up to an online survey conducted in January and February about safe routes to the three new schools being built on the old Wilson-Pacific site at 1330 N. 90th St., just across Aurora Avenue from Greenwood. The meeting is from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, March 6, at the Phinney Neighborhood Association, 6532 Phinney Ave. N. in the Blue Building, on the second floor. It is wheelchair accessible via the elevator.

This focus group will look at maps to explore issues and brainstorm potential solutions. Anyone whose child will attend any of the schools, as well as nearby businesses and residents, are encouraged to attend.

Several community groups are working together to make safer routes for children to get to school at the three new schools opening in the fall of 2017 at Aurora Avenue North and North 90th Street.

Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Cascadia Elementary School (Advanced Placement Program) and Licton Springs K-8 will serve about 1,700 students total, including students from Greenwood and Phinney Ridge. Many students will have to cross major streets, including Aurora, 85th, I-5 and 105th/Northgate Way.

The groups already conducted safety audits of the area, and now would like community input on pedestrian safety so they can provide that information to the city’s School Traffic Safety Committee, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Police and the City of Seattle.

Take the survey here. The survey is being conducted by Licton-Haller Greenways, Greenwood-Phinney Greenways and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. At the end of the survey, you can enter a drawing for raffle prizes for gift certificates from Woodlands Pizza, Fred Meyer and other local businesses.