It’s amazing what people working together to make their neighborhood better can accomplish.

Over the past four months, caring neighbors in Montlake, Madison Park, Laurelhurst and Capitol Hill have come together as a community. They’re asking for the SR 520 replacement project to help reconnect our neighborhoods and make it safe, comfortable and convenient for everyone, from an 8-year-old child to his 80-year-old grandmother, to bike and walk in their neighborhood.

In response to this groundswell of overwhelming community support (and nearly 1,200 people like you writing the Seattle City Council telling them to get SR 520 right!), the City Council introduced a Resolution calling for the city to work with WSDOT to improve walking and biking connections in Montlake and to figure out how to build a shared use trail on the new Portage Bay Bridge.

But wait, it gets better. Councilmember Conlin has introduced an amendment to help ensure the biking and walking improvements work for people of all ages and abilities. This means they’ll build protected bike lanes and neighborhood greenways instead of just slapping some paint on the road and calling it good.

Specifically, the resolution and Conlin’s amendment call for the Washington State Department of Transportation to:

• Develop options for a shared use trail on the new Portage Bay Bridge, while working to minimize the width of the bridge and its overall visual and environmental impacts;
• Redesign the north/south biking and walking connections from the University of Washington to south of Lake Washington Blvd to make them work for kids and families;
• Collaborate with city agencies and stakeholder groups to improve the project design before it is finalized; and
• Create an interim plan that ensures biking and walking connections will work during all stages of the project as it gets built in phases over the coming years.

Just a few months ago the plans for SR 520 had us poised to repeat the mistakes of the past, further dividing our communities and making it more dangerous for people to walk and bike in their neighborhood. Now, we’re poised to get SR 520 right. All because people worked together to make their neighborhood better.

Join thousands of your friends and neighbors and tell the City Council to pass the 520 Resolution and support Councilmember Conlin’s amendment to make it safe for kids and families to bike and walk on their neighborhood streets.

The first steps to ending an addiction are coming clean, admitting you have a problem and asking for help. Last month, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) took these first steps.

When asked at a City Council meeting how they would work to make the Seattle side of the SR 520 corridor safe for people of all ages and abilities to walk and bike, Julie Meredith, the SR 520 Program Director for WSDOT, explained that their main focus is moving cars and admitted when it comes to walking and bicycling, “We don’t excel at that.” 

All you have to do is look at the dark, scary and dangerous trail under the Portage Bay Bridge to know WSDOT has a serious problem when it comes to making it safe for people to walk and bike.

But they did more than admit their problem; WSDOT asked the City of Seattle for help. Fortunately, the City of Seattle has the ability to help WSDOT get this project done right – but they need to hear from you today.

Thanks to “overwhelming support” from the community and nearly 800 people like you writing the City Council telling them to get SR 520 right, the Council is already working on a Resolution that will call for the City working with WSDOT to improve walking and biking connections in Montlake and build a shared use trail on the Portage Bay Bridge.  

But there’s no guarantee that the Council will pass this Resolution. They need to hear loud and clear that everyone, from an 8-year old child to his 80-year old grandmother, should have the freedom to safely walk and bike in and through the Seattle side of the SR 520 corridor.

Tell the Seattle City Council and Mayor McGinn to help WSDOT make critical biking and walking connections with the SR 520 replacement project >>

Repeat the mistakes of the past? Or plan for a better future? The choice couldn’t be clearer.

The SR 520 bridge replacement project provides a golden opportunity to reconnect our neighborhoods and give everyone the freedom to easily and safely bike and walk to where they need to go.

But right now, plans for the Seattle side of the SR 520 corridor do not include critical biking and walking connections.

We’re poised to repeat the mistakes of the past, further dividing our communities and making it more dangerous for people to walk and bike in their neighborhood.

Fortunately, the community is standing up and demanding a better future. Over the past two months the community has shown “overwhelming support” for making it safe, comfortable and convenient for everyone to bike and walk in and through the neighborhood.

Over the next month the Seattle City Council will provide direction to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) on how to proceed with the project. The Council’s direction will determine whether we repeat the mistakes of the past, or plan for a better future. And the direction our representatives take is up to us.

Tell the City Council to reconnect our neighborhoods and make critical biking and walking connections with the SR 520 replacement project.

If we’re going to spend billions of dollars on a bridge that will last for generations, we have a responsibility to make sure we get it right. That’s why last year the Seattle City Council asked WSDOT to facilitate the Seattle Community Design Process and hear directly from the community how to improve the project.

In response to the draft design preferences for the Seattle side of the SR 520 corridor, the community spoke loud and clear and showed:

• Overwhelming support for a 14-foot shared-use path along Portage Bay Bridge.
• Overwhelming support for protected bikeways with direct, convenient and safe access to main intersections, neighborhoods and existing trails throughout the project area.
• General concern about bicycle and pedestrian connectivity and safety in and around the Montlake lid area and on Montlake Boulevard.

But like any project, there are a few vocal opponents to the investments that would provide everyone with the freedom to easily and safely bike and walk to where they need to go. We can’t let the narrow interests of a few stand in the way of investments that would benefit so many. That’s just not how democracy works.

Join thousands of your friends and neighbors and tell the City Council to make critical biking and walking connections with the SR 520 project.