The city has awarded the construction contract and says work will start early next year on the project to overhaul the streetscape of Pike and Pine between Seattle’s upgraded waterfront and Capitol Hill.
Gary Merlino Construction will take on the $17.45M job on the $39 million project that will overhaul the streets, improve crosswalks, upgrade bike lanes, and widen sidewalks on Pike and Pine from 1st Ave to Bellevue Ave.
The work will take about 18 months, the city says:
Pike Pine Streetscape and Bicycle Improvements (a part of the Downtown Seattle Association’s Pike Pine Renaissance program) includes improvements to crosswalks and sidewalks, more greenery, protected bike lanes, and new seating, all with a more consistent character and identity from end to end. The project will make Pike and Pine Streets one-way streets from 1st Ave to Bellevue Ave, with Pike St being one-way eastbound and Pine St being one-way westbound. In addition, it will add and shift existing protected bike lanes to create a continuous bike lane on Pike and Pine streets between 2nd and Melrose avenues. Bikes will be separated from traffic by a planted buffer or curbed island.
CHS reported on the project here last October as the state signed off on a more ambitious version of the plan that will include expanded sidewalks and planter boxes on the Pike I-5 overpass after a feasibility study determined the structure could bear the weight of the new infrastructure.
The design will nearly double the width of the sidewalk on the north side of Pike, matching the plans moving ahead for the bridge over I-5 on Pine. The planter boxes separating the bike lanes from other traffic lanes will also be different than the ones SDOT has installed on bike lanes around town like 2nd Ave, planning them to be more durable and with a dedicated maintenance budget coordinated with the Downtown Seattle Association.
Once these changes are implemented, Pike and Pine will be fully one-way all the way to and from Bellevue, with further conversion to one-way operation all the way to Broadway still a possibility.
With an early 2023 start, the work is expected to be completed in late 2024.
You can learn more about the project at waterfrontseattle.org.
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With Madison construction ongoing and now this is it sounds kind a traffic Armageddon. Impacts to buses too for non drivers.
ok
So don’t drive. Easy.
Awesome. I walked downtown yesterday during rush hour and avoiding the cars now is ridiculous. It’s time to start fencing them into smaller spaces where they can do less damage.
Some traffic enforcement would help. You must be referring to cars turning right, blocking intersections. There’s no enforcement of those traffic violations so people get used to that.
I wish Pike/Pine and Broadway were no-cars-allowed places where we could have a pedestrian/bike paradise with outdoor seating, greenery, pop up shops and more.
Bus/Tram could have a single lane to continue servicing the negihborhood, but no cars.
The alternative routes around these streets be just fine.
What other routes would replace them? Denny is already overloaded much of the day during the week and on weekends. Roy->Eastlake ave cannot handle much more traffic than it currently gets. Madison gets terribly backed up going downtown off first hill…
I agree a pedestrian paradise would be lovely but reality is reality.
If people in cars don’t like traffic, they will adjust and change their behavior, and they should not be the priority. The reality is we need to stop basing every decision on cars. They aren’t compatible with good cities. Whether it will take someone in a car a few more minutes to go somewhere in their climate controlled, 1-2 ton tank at the expense of thousands of other people who need a safe, walkable city to live in, should not be the deciding factor.
Your’s is such a black and white way of looking at these issues. Your language is burdened with descriptions of drivers in tanks, enjoying their climate controlled, presumable elitist, environment. It seems your not just motivated by a desire to increase transportation options, your also motivated to punish the vast majority of people in this city whose primary means of transportation is their car.
We can improve transportation options across the board without the baggage you bring to the table. A pedestrian improvement does not have to be at the expense of vehicle drivers, and vice versa. Well designed streets and projects that balance interests and keep the overall goal in mind can achieve necessary improvements while benefiting all transportation modes. Dispense with the ideological baggage and get on with the improvements.
Congestion tolling is the economically rational way to solve traffic jams. We could turn the whole city into nothing but highways and parking and it still wouldn’t alleviate traffic.
As with all such decisions – there needs to be a strong presence to address the risk of ableism taking away transport services many need (not want). Able people often forget the vast ways in which people are mobility challenged and how impactful poorly thought out projects like this can impact them. And you can’t just say, well, move somewhere else. Many disabled people do not have the financial resources to make alternative choices.
Outdoor seating for the homeless and druggies to congregate and turn into an encampment or open air drug market cause that’s what will happen.
Sadly, that seems likely. It’ll look nice and pretty when it opens, then will not be maintained, paint will fade, graffiti will appear, and the bodies lying there passed out on the sidewalk like they do on Broadway will proliferate.
I don’t understand why they feel the need to do this. You can already walk downtown on Pike and Pine. I used to do it all the time, when I was younger. Wondering if this will make it take longer to get downtown via car or bus.
An extension “to Broadway” … gosh, this city thinks small. The entire area south of Cal Anderson and north of Madison should be restricted to delivery traffic, accessible (handicap) parking, and residents. We need about 100% more emphasis on pedestrians/rollers and micro mobility such as electric scooters or bikes.
Ugh, no thank you! We should ban scooters, and change the laws so that bikes are required to stay on the street, not the sidewalk.
And no, I’m not a driver! I’ve never had a driver’s license.
These look great. I hope they have sufficient barriers at the ends to prevent cars & trucks from entering, otherwise it’s going to happen all the time. I’ve seen enough cars drive through the Broadway bike lanes and trucks parked in them to know that paint isn’t enough.
Not a bad idea, but so far SDOTS plant separation boxes have become invasive weedy nightmares. They don’t have they capacity to maintain them.
The article does say the new boxes will have a dedicated maintenance budget. Maybe that will lead to improvements at so many of the others. They look pretty rough.
This will keep the transfer walk between Link and eastbound buses one block or 400 feet forever; it will probably get eastbound (hill climbing electric trolleybuses) stuck in traffic at Boren Avenue; it will force westbound cyclists to transition to Pine Street via Melrose. Instead, the project could have matched the Capitol Hill segments with two-way transit on Pine Street and two one-way PBL on Pike Street. This could have improved transit flow and reduced the transfer walk and still improved bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
In an intro to urban planning college class I took years ago, we learned that one-way streets are often sold as being safer for pedestrians because they really only need to look in one direction to cross. However the one way street increases drivers’ speed due to lack of obstacles to them.
Like I used to live on the one-way stretch of Queen Anne Ave and it was often impossible to cross with drivers barreling down the one-way road like they were riding a log boat down a log flume ride. I can’t imagine a one-way Pike or Pine being any safer.
If this is good for anyone then it’s gonna be great for freight.
Can’t wait for the widened sidewalks to accomodate more tents!! Yipee. They need to stop with these projects if they aren’t going to enforce the laws.