Advocates Looking for Answers as Seattle Slashes its Bike Plan

Bikers hoping for a new bike lane on 9th Ave N in Seattle were disappointed earlier this month with an announcement by the Seattle Department of Transportation.

1 minute read

May 12, 2016, 8:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Red Bike Light

mar_chm1982 / Shutterstock

"It took only two weeks for Seattle’s Department of Transportation to cut the only significant center city bike lane from their already-scaled-back 2016 plans," according to an article by Tom Fucoloro for the Seattle Bike Blog.

Fucoloro is scathingly critical of the decision to cut the 9th Ave N bike lane from the 2016 schedule of construction. According to Fucoloro, the 9th Ave N bike lane has been promised as a major bike route alternative to the streetcar tracked route of Westlake Avenue. Moreover, delivering "bike lanes there in 2016 was the only silver lining when the city made baffling and devastating cuts to the downtown bike plans earlier this year." Instead, "in just one year, the city went from plans to build a grid of bike lanes downtown that connect to neighborhoods north, south and east to plans to build essentially no complete connections until at least 2018."

The article includes more details about the reasons for the cuts, as well as the public response to the decision.

Thursday, May 5, 2016 in Seattle Bike Blog

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