Here is my take on the West Washington issue based on a number of years of observation:
- The street is only wide enough to mark one motor vehicle travel lane in each direction (2 lanes total). - Despite this, the street functions as a 4-lane during the morning and evening rush periods when cars squeeze side-by-side into the single wide lane. - Marking a bike lane would be great for bicyclists, and I have requested it in the past, but would eliminate the unofficial 4-lane use of the street which provides significant capacity increases for motorists. - This would have large impacts on traffic congestion on West Wash, the Outer Square, and the Inner Square, particularly during the evening 4:30 - 5:30pm rush. - Another option would be removing or restricting parking on the street, but parking in that areas is very heavily used, and I suspect that would be difficult to do. As I noted in my email over the weekend, TE and CE do not / can not make changes to roadways that would have significant impacts on vehicle capacity without strong support from the impacted alders and the mayor. Given that this street is a known issue to TE and CE, I suspect that they do not have the political support they need to make the change. So again, direct your comments/suggestions/complaints to your alder, the alder for the area of concern (Alder Verveer in this case), and the mayor. Without their support, projects like this will not come to be. I would also suggest that although city staff do appear to monitor this listserv and often respond or provide info here, it is not an official communication channel for city staff or elected officials. If you want a response from the city about something, use an official channel like a direct email or the Report-A-Problem page, with which I have had great responses on a variety of issues. Kevin -- Kevin Luecke On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 9:13 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Send Bikies mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Bikies digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. > > Re: West Washington ([email protected]) > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: > > <[email protected]> > To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > Cc: > Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 14:06:22 +0000 > Subject: Re: [Bikies] West Washington > I’m right with Robert Nagel on this. This street has been dangerous for > bikes and even for turning cars for years. With the absence of additional > stripes it appears this street is marked as one lane in each direction. And > yet, cars swerve around the primary lane and into the curb/parking lane > repeatedly. When riding westbound as a commuter in past years, I felt like > I had to take the full lane in order to avoid being squeezed into parked > cars. > Eastbound, the problem has always been cars making the left turn into > Broom Street. Other eastbound cars passing the cars lined up for the left > turn, and us westbound cyclists on the downhill remaining cautious of those > cars turning left in front of us. > > Tom > > Sent from Windows Mail >
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