White Center Now: The blog about White Center

That’s the mailer sent out by King County Road Services Division with an update on the upcoming sidewalk construction on the south side of SW Roxbury between 28th SW and 30th SW. Here are the key points:

Work scheduled from late May-July, if weather cooperates

· Area is SW Roxbury Street between 28th Avenue SW and 30th Avenue SW

· One lane of road will be closed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., each day

· Flaggers will direct two-way vehicle traffic

· Pedestrians will be detoured

· Roxhill Elementary bus loading areas will be moved to west edge of the school property

· Businesses along this section of SW Roxbury Street will remain open and access provided at all times. Access points will be provided for the gas station, the auto parts store/latte stand and auto repair shop.

The annual Spoke & Food bicycle-to-dinner benefit is tonight – and Proletariat Pizza in White Center (9622 16th SW) is participating. 5-9 pm, Proletariat and other participants around the region are donating 20 percent of their proceeds; this year, the beneficiary is the Hunger Intervention Project. The first 20 bike riders at each Spoke & Food location get backpacks!

It’s “Bike Everywhere Day” – formerly “Bike to Work Day” – and if you’re biking, you have a “celebration station” to visit in White Center: Dubsea Coffee in Greenbridge, SW 99th/8th SW. It’s co-sponsored by the YES! Foundation and the Major Taylor Bike Club, and bicycle riders are invited to stop for free coffee, bananas, treats, bike checkups, and info about bicycling in WC. 6 am-9 am.

It’s been years since the county warned North Highline residents that the roads were in sad shape and bound to get sadder due to money trouble. Late today, the county announced the results of work by its Bridges and Roads Task Force to try to figure out how to fix that. The package is a big one, with reports and recommendations – read about it here. Short version – it suggests regional, even statewide solutions, that range from new taxes to trying to cut road-repair costs via prison labor; the full final report is here. The task force members are listed here (no NH names jump out at us, but let us know if we missed someone).

Interested in the changes planned for SW Roxbury – all the way from 4th Avenue to 35th? The Seattle Department of Transportation plans a public “walking tour” along the entire length tonight, and all are welcome to join at any point along the way – walking the full distance or just meeting up at a certain point with comments and/or questions. Here are the times/places listed by SDOT:

5:30 pm – 4th/Roxbury
5:50 pm – 8th/Roxbury
6:15 pm – Delridge/16th/Roxbury
6:45 pm – 26th/Roxbury
7:15 pm – 30th/Roxbury
7:45 pm – 35th/Roxbury

Just look for team members in brightly colored safety vests!

If you haven’t been following the plan for safety improvements, here’s one of our reports from West Seattle Blog on the unveiling of the plan last month.

ORIGINAL 6:24 PM REPORT: According to the Cascade Bike Club‘s map for Bike To Work Day events on Friday, local businesses are presenting a “commute station” in downtown White Center again, 6-9 am.

10:26 PM UPDATE: Apparently not – Caffe Delia indicates the map info is inaccurate. We HAVE direct confirmation of the West Seattle Bridge station, at least, if you’re headed that way.

The Seattle Department of Transportation‘s final plan for SW Roxbury – for which it has curb-to-curb responsibility – went public last night at a meeting in West Seattle. Here’s the presentation:

SDOT's SW Roxbury plan

The biggest changes are rechannelization – one lane each way plus a center turn lane – west of 17th, a speed-limit drop to 30 mph from 15th SW east, and 300 feet of sidewalk where none exists, east of 30th SW. Read details of the meeting on our partner site West Seattle Blog.

West of White Center, SW 107th east of 26th SW is in for special treatment – the only North Highline-area road on the list referenced in this King County announcement:

More than two dozen of King County’s busiest roads will get a surface treatment that provides tires with better grip and reduces the likelihood of skidding, thanks to a $3.2 million federal grant.

The surface treatment and additional guardrails will be installed on roads that King County’s Department of Transportation identified as high-crash locations outside of cities – in Highline/North Shorewood, on Vashon Island, outside Woodinville, in the Snoqualmie Valley, south of Issaquah, near North Bend, north of Covington, and between Auburn and Black Diamond.

“Drivers throughout unincorporated King County will be safer thanks to additional guardrails and an innovative solution to slippery roads,” said Executive Dow Constantine. “By focusing federal funds on the busiest roads with the most accidents, we will make the most of this investment in our region’s safety.”

So-called high-friction surface treatments bond aggregate materials to the top layer of a roadway, channeling away water and providing tires with more grip to reduce the likelihood of skidding and loss of control. The county has identified 24 locations for this treatment and four locations for guardrail and other improvements based largely on crash history and average daily traffic. Sites throughout unincorporated King County were chosen where the risks of running off the road are greatest.

“My district includes hundreds of miles of winding rural roadways where curves or hills create greater risks for skidding off the road,” said King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert. “These new roadway treatments help tires grip the road in dangerous areas. I am encouraged to hear that other transportation departments are also saying that this is an economical way to measurably improve safety.”

“Those that rely on the King County road system will be happy to know that with the help of federal funding we’re going to deliver targeted safety improvements to make our roads safer,” said Councilmember Reagan Dunn. “We’re looking forward to having these improvements on Kent-Kangley Road, south of Issaquah, near Shadow Lake and near May Valley road.”

The county’s Road Services Division is scheduled to install the high friction surface treatments and guardrail in 2016. The agency has had to reduce service for roads and bridges in the unincorporated areas of the county significantly as revenues declined during the recession, and as a result, there is a growing backlog of county road needs. Recent strategic planning deemed safety as the most important consideration for allocating precious road dollars. With this federal safety grant, driving will be safer at these 28 locations.

The funds are provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation and administered by the Washington State Department of Transportation.

We obtained the information about SW 107th by checking with King County Transportation Department spokesperson Jeff Switzer.

Traffic/transit/travel alert!

North of here, Highway 99 is closed from the West Seattle Bridge to the Battery Street Tunnel until 6 pm today and then again 6 am-6 pm tomorrow for its twice-yearly inspection, and from the BSTunnel north to lower Queen Anne, it’s closed all weekend, until very early Monday. So plan your travel accordingly! Find details on the closures here. If you use Metro, here’s the reroute info for the routes from WC/West Seattle that use Highway 99.

Maybe you’ve seen the sign warning about lane closures at 15th/Roxbury next week; we heard about it through a reader tip. That led us to chase down details, and the King County Department of Transportation tells us it’s part of a more-extensive project:

King County has issued a permit for fiber optic installation on 15th Avenue Southwest between Roxbury Street and 107th Avenue Southwest, moving east on 107th Avenue Southwest and then south along 12th Avenue Southwest to Southwest 114th Street in the White Center area. Most of this work will involve attaching fiber to existing utility poles, so traffic disruptions should be minimal with possible intermittent lane closures.

There is more extensive work being planned at the intersection of 15th Avenue Southwest and Roxbury that will involve 200 feet of underground installation taking up to five days, half in the city, half in King County. That more intensive work will require the closure of one southbound through lane on 15th Avenue Southwest north of Roxbury and a northbound left turn lane on 15th Avenue Southwest at Roxbury. Work is planned 9 am to 3 pm weekdays March 2 through March 6. Traffic control will be in place around the work zone.

Bikes parked outside the King County Sheriff’s Office White Center Storefront tonight hinted at what was happening inside – the community meeting about more bicycle parking in downtown WC.

Katie Meyer was there for WCN. She reports that it was a full house, at least 40 people.

She reports that bike parking stations in several locations were proposed as an alternative to the “bike corral” planned on the street in front of Proletariat Pizza and Caffé Delia, both of which support it. This alternative could result in even more bike parking than the corral, and it apparently still would qualify for the King County grant money that was planned for the corral. So a new plan will be crafted and discussed.

It also was noted during the meeting that concerns about the bike corral seemed tied to other local issues, so Elizabeth Gordon, co-proprietor of Uncle Mike’s Barbecue and a North Highline Unincorporated Area Council member, urged everyone to attend NHUAC’s next meeting on September 4th (7 pm, North Highline Fire District HQ), so those issues can be raised and addressed there.

By Tracy Record
White Center Now editor

It’s been five months since County Councilmember Joe McDermott‘s newsletter touted a county grant for “bike corral” parking in downtown White Center – but the corral’s not in place yet. One more community conversation is planned for next week.

The corral would triple bicycle parking in downtown White Center, which has an increasing population to serve, especially with more development on the drawing boards right across the city/county line in the South Delridge area. Immediately north of the business area, the city of Seattle is working on a project that is expected to make the busy Roxbury arterial friendlier and safer for bicycle riders and pedestrians.

The corral is proposed for 16th SW in front of Proletariat Pizza and Caffé Delia, both of which are excited about it. The space is currently used for two diagonal motorized-vehicle spaces. If converted to bike-corral space, it would park up to 20 bikes.

Proletariat’s proprietors are hoping to clear up misconceptions and concerns they say are being voiced by nearby businesses who don’t like the idea. They contacted WCN to let us know about the meeting next week. It’s being hosted by the White Center Community Development Association, which was involved in seeking the grant to fund the bike corral, at 6:30 pm Tuesday (August 26th) in the King County Sheriff’s Office storefront space in downtown White Center.

The $3,000 grant is to come from the Community Service Areas‘ grant funds, set up when King County changed its relationship with unincorporated areas a few years ago. The rationale voiced in the grant document:

The White Center Community Development Association (WCCDA) along with local White Center residents are requesting funding for the “Bike, Shop, Eat White Center” project; the primary goal of this project is to grow bicycling in White Center as an alternative method of transportation for local families and residents. Funding to purchase the bicycle corrals will increase bicycle parking in the White Center business district, which will encourage residents to ride their bikes to local shopping and dining destinations. Part of our project proposal includes a bike ride led by experienced volunteer bicyclists; open to all in the White Center community to learn about safe riding techniques as well as bike and route safety. The ride would include stops at Greenbridge Library, the new bike corrals, and other neighborhood stops.

There are several benefits for the proposed project; increased physical activity for local residents, greater knowledge of bicycle and route safety, building community, and boosting the local economy.

As part of the grant application, proposers had to explain how certain goals would be met – here’s how they replied:

Promote the engagement of local residents in community or civic activities: by promoting bicycling as a healthy, local activity in White Center, we are helping to build community around alternative methods of transportation. Some local residents have expressed interest in hosting safety rides to teach others on riding safely and selecting safe routes; as White Center continues to grow into a family friendly neighborhood this is a way to engage with multiple generations while encouraging healthier habits.

Educate local residents about issues impacting them: One of the assets we have in White Center is its small-town feel; with shopping and dining destinations just a few blocks from home, many people still drive the few minutes rather than use it as an opportunity to walk or bike. The White Center/Boulevard Park neighborhoods have some of the starkest health statistics compared to the rest of King County. Data from Seattle King County Public Health indicates that access to exercise and obesity is a challenge for residents of the White Center/Boulevard Park areas for residents of all ages. Our project would be one of the ways to address this issue in White Center.

Implement a community enhancement project: A majority of the funding request for this project would be to purchase bike corrals for the neighborhood’s business district to more than TRIPLE existing bicycle parking. With the addition of bike corrals to the downtown core along with resident-led bike rides around White Center to educate those new to bicycling, we hope that this will begin a positive cultural shift that will support the local businesses and promote healthier habits.

North of White Center, West Seattle’s first official bike corral was installed in The Junction just last month. Seattle now has 26 bike corrals, according to the city website. Portland has four times that, according to its website.

Looking back at downtown White Center’s history, the angled parking dates to 1992. Branching out into a multimodal transportation system was foreseen in the 2007 “We Create White Center” report, which includes the goal (on page 15) “Create a community that supports and encourages bicycling as a mode of transportation,” and recommends “increased bicycle racks” (on page 95). That was years before County Executive Dow Constantine made “confronting climate change” one of his signature goals.

The storefront, site of next Tuesday’s 6:30 pm meeting, is at 9609 16th SW.

Though the city/county line runs down the middle of Roxbury for most of its length, Seattle is accountable for taking care of what’s between the north and south curbs. So it’s leading the way on the SW Roxbury safety project, for which North Highline Unincorporated Area Council and neighboring Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council led the campaign. The Seattle Department of Transportation unveiled its proposals on Thursday night, at the first of two meetings (the second of which is in White Center on Monday). Here’s a sneak peek via the slide deck:

The biggest part of the proposal is from downtown White Center westward – proposing “rechannelization,” or what’s also more conversationally known as a “road diet,” for the segment between 17th and 35th, converting it to one lane each way, with a center turn lane, and five-foot-wide buffers (shoulders) on each side. For full details on what’s being proposed – but far from finalized – on the full stretch, see our report on West Seattle Blog. Bring questions/concerns/ideas/etc. to the Monday meeting (August 4th), 6 pm at the Greenbridge Y, 9720 8th SW.

Two meetings are set for the Seattle Department of Transportation to go public with how Roxbury might be made safer – dating back to the joint call a year ago by the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council and the Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council. SDOT has announced two meetings at which it plans to show “several different engineering options to improve safety for all modes.” The first one is on the West Seattle side, Thursday, July 31st, 6 pm at Southwest Branch Library. Second one is on the White Center side, Monday, August 4th, 6 pm at the Greenbridge YWCA.The project’s official page is here; check out the maps linked from the left side, including this one showing speeds, volumes, and intersections with the most crashes.

Announced on Caffe Delia‘s Facebook page:

Hey folks, do you want to make downtown White Center a more walkable, bike-able, lovable place?

Then check this out:

Please join local residents and business owners along 16th Ave to discuss the need for a bike corral in White Center. We’d like to encourage more families and cyclists to ride into our neighborhood by adding a bike corral in downtown White Center!

Current bike parking isn’t quite enough to meet the needs of a family and the racks we do have – when in use — tend to obstruct sidewalk access for people in wheelchairs or with other mobility challenges. Studies have proven what we know to be true, increasing cycling in a neighborhood tends to create an economic benefit for business owners while improving the health of our community. We’ve already secured funding for this bike rack from King County, so please! Join us for a conversation to learn about the benefits of a more bikable downtown White Center and how you can be a part of this exciting improvement.

Location: Luso Food and Wine (9614 16th Ave SW – near the corner of Roxbury and 16th)
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Date: Tuesday, June 17th

Next Friday – May 16th – is this year’s Bike To Work Day, and as the map from the Cascade Bicycle Club shows, there are two “commute stations” in White Center again this year, at Dubsea Coffee in Greenbridge, and on 16th SW in the heart of the main business district. Click either marker on the map for details on what you’ll find.

The first meeting was in White Center, and now the second big meeting about the in-the-works safety project for SW Roxbury is happening on the West Seattle side of the street – tonight, 6 pm, at Roxhill Elementary School. More details here, including the Seattle Department of Transportation‘s recap on what happened during the Greenbridge meeting earlier this month.

A project to make SW Roxbury safer is finally becoming reality, after White Center and West Seattle community leaders, including the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council and (just over the city-limit line, Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council), joined forces to campaign for it. Seattle Department of Transportation is coming to Greenbridge tonight for the first of two meetings, and you’re invited to come speak out – help shape the project! 6:30 pm at Jim Wiley Community Center, 9800 8th SW.

If you have something to say in person about the proposed ballot measure to raise money to hold off Metro cuts and help roads, with a car-tab fee and sales-tax increase, be at Union Station (401 S. Jackson) in downtown Seattle on Tuesday, February 4th, for the only night hearing – 5:30 pm sign-in, 6 pm testimony. The County Council expects to decide February 10th whether to send a proposal to voters in April.

A few months ago, North Highline Unincorporated Area Council joined community groups on the Seattle side of the line in pushing for a safety study of SW Roxbury. This week, the Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council provided an update. From WWRHAH secretary Joe Szilagyi‘s online summary of the group’s Tuesday meeting:

All the studies are done. SDOT has met with both King County Metro and their King County DOT peers several times now. They came up with an extensive list of minor to moderate modifications along the length of Roxbury from 35th all the way east to Olson & 4th that they believe can improve the flow of traffic, bring speeders in line with the posted legal speed limits, and significantly improve the safety of the arterial corridor. SDOT has not heavily detailed the solutions to us, but they emphasized that compared to other arterials, the work on Roxbury shouldn’t be particularly difficult or invasive, and would utilize simpler solutions.

SDOT will run outreach programs to White Center, Arbor Heights, Westwood, Roxhill, North Highline, Highland Park, including at least two public feedback meetings, one in the day and one in the evening, and will run outreach booths at the Roxbury Safeway. The public meetings will be coming in the February to March time frame, at locations and times to be determined.

Additional good news to come out of this: the missing link of the Roxbury sidewalk across the street from Roxhill Elementary School, on the south side of Roxbury between 30th and 27th, is in the process of being funded via a grant with the County. For the first time in as far as most people seem to be able to remember, Roxbury will have continuous sidewalks.

At this point, WWRHAH, HPAC, and NHUAC aside from providing additional feedback are done, and this is fully an SDOT operation now.

NHUAC meets tonight, if you missed our earlier reminder – North Highline Fire District HQ as always, with the agenda including Metro talking about the status of its potential cuts in the White Center/West Seattle area (and beyond) – that means the meeting starts early, with Metro having a mini-open house of sorts to answer questions and provide information.