The Melrose palm is staying

Changes are coming soon to Capitol Hill to improve walkability and the biking — and we’re not talking about melting snow and ice.

The community vision for a safer, more vibrant for Melrose Ave — the change coming soonest — has been a decade in the making. Recognizing safety concerns, community members started doing outreach to neighbors to gather ideas for what a better Melrose would look like, eventually developing the Melrose Promenade project at the base of Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, a plan for the total re-orientations of Pike and Pine into one-way streets is also underway with a longer wait for the start of that construction.

The changes to Melrose, currently expected to begin construction in June, include a redesigned intersection at E Olive Way with a new signalized crosswalk on the west end of Melrose as the Seattle Department of Transportation reconfigures the I-5 on-ramp, SDOT community outreach lead Sara Colling said.

There were 141 reported collisions on Melrose between Roy and University from 2013 to 2018, with almost all of the serious injuries being suffered by people walking or biking on the short stretch between Denny and Pike Pine.

New protected bike lanes between Denny and Pike Pine will attempt to improve safety on Melrose. They will be one-way lanes on each side of the street protected with plastic posts and pavement markings.

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“A lot of people in the area don’t have cars, so this is a way to prioritize people who live there,” Colling said.

Brie Gyncild, co-leader of Central Seattle Greenways, has been making deliveries for a local food bank and says the new changes will make it much easier to bike on the mile-long Melrose, which is included in the city’s Bicycle Master Plan.

“It wants to be friendlier,” Gyncild said. “It’s a convenient route but not an enjoyable route.”

These lanes going north and south will serve as a connection to the couplets on Pike and Pine between Second Ave and Melrose currently being designed. The east-bound bike lane will travel along the north side of Pike and the west-bound lane on the south side of Pine, with planted buffers or medians to serve as protection from cars, according to SDOT’s Steve Pearce.

The new Pike and Pine will be one-ways from First Ave to Bellevue Ave to give more room for pedestrians, who will have wider, reconstructed sidewalks, and bikers.

“The future Pike and Pine streets will be safe and comfortable for all users, with shorter, more visible crosswalks, wider sidewalks, better lighting, more greenery, protected bike lanes and more seating and street activity,” Pearce said in an email.

Gyncild argued that “we don’t ask drivers to drive on a mile of good road” then a mile on roads filled with ditches and potholes. “We don’t expect them not to have a network.”

The Pike/Pine streetscape project is currently in a State Environmental Policy Act-mandated comment period until Feb. 25. Construction is slated to begin Fall 2022 and wrap up in late 2023.

In 2019, temporary protected bike lanes were added to Pike, to help riders and drivers stay safe in the meantime.

There is also a new greenway between Lowell Elementary and Meany Middle School that looks to calm traffic and increase visibility for students walking and biking to school primarily on Republican, Gyncild noted.

The Melrose project is expected to take about seven months, stretching into early 2022 with the tentative June start date subject to change as SDOT awaits the release of grant funding before it finds a contractor. SDOT began doing community outreach on the project in 2018, seven years after the seedling of an idea and two years after it was selected by the Puget Sound Regional Council for $3 million in funding. In 2012, a $20,000 city grant allowed the Melrose Promenade Advisory Committee to host public workshops and hire design consultants.

Beyond the bike lanes and new I-5 on-ramp, the project also includes safety improvements at several high-traffic intersections: Denny and Melrose, Pine and Melrose, and where Minor, Pike and Melrose meet. Each of these intersections will get curb bulbs and ramps that extend the sidewalk into the street to increase visibility and improve accessibility.

At the Minor/Pike/Melrose intersection just south of Melrose Market, SDOT will convert the colorful crosswalk on the north side into a raised crosswalk that similarly increases pedestrian visibility. On the west end of the block, the sidewalk will be expanded with an 18-foot-wide section.

Another raised crosswalk is planned for the south side of Pine and Melrose.

As for parking, some spots will be removed, especially between Denny and Olive, while adding restricted parking between Denny and John for residents and short-term visitors. There will be a couple loading zones near the Denny and Melrose intersection and several between Pike and Pine.

Gyncild said the project had felt “dormant” for a couple years, but now this is a “big step forward” not just for the vision of the broader Melrose Promenade project, but for a generally more walkable and bikeable Capitol Hill.

“This is a long slog,” Gyncild said. “It’s exciting to actually see things happen after they’ve been on the drawing board for so long.”

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