Adkins

E Union — your safer bike riding route to the E Union, hopefully

Protected bike lanes on E Union won’t fall through the cracks. Seattle Department of Transportation officials say they are working on a plan for adding a protected area on the busy street for riders after the upgrade dropped out of the Madison Bus Rapid Transit plan and was also left off the drawing board for the city’s Bike Master Plan “five-year” projects.

The plan for E Union’s protected bike lane addition “very plainly went sideways,” SDOT chief of staff Genesee Adkins said at Tuesday’s meeting of the Seattle City Council’s transportation committee as she introduced a session reviewing the department’s bike plan projects (PDF).

“This was an oversight and we’re working right now to rectify it and find a way to build a facility for all ages and abilities on Union,” Adkins said.

Protected, separated bike lanes similar to the Broadway bikeway along a route paralleling the Madison BRT project have long been a bike and pedestrian safety talking point during the transit project’s planning process. But a much reduced version of the bike facility was what made the cut with the latest designs for the BRT project. Bicycling advocates spoke up and are now looking forward to more details of the plan.

48 minutes in, SDOT reconsiders Protected Bike Lanes on E Union St to Madison Valley due to advocates effort. https://t.co/GBbealskdF

— MadPark Greenways (@Mpgreenways) April 5, 2017

Apologizing for the “confusion” the situation caused in the bicycling community, Adkins told the council committee Tuesday that more information will be available soon. “We hope you’ll accept this important footnote,” Adkins said, “and allow us a little bit of time to sharpen our pencils and try to make this a reality and make this happen. And, one way or another, to sort this out.”