(Image: @flyguy84)
When you look at it from the corner of Harvard and E Olive Way, it might feel a little like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly but Seattle City Hall has the money needed to paint official crossings at the site of Capitol Hill’s rogue crosswalk.
Monday, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, announced a round of grants to communities across her state including a $30 million ask from the City of Seattle that includes a line item to fund the E Olive Way crosswalk work.
The $25.6 million grant comes from the Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets for All program created by Cantwell to “help local governments carry out Vision Zero plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, including for cyclists and pedestrians.”
“Fatalities on our roads are increasing at a historic rate,” Cantwell said in the announcement. “This Safe Streets for All award for Seattle will help improve 117 intersections where 60 percent of the fatal and serious pedestrian collisions occur, create 1.4 miles of new sidewalks, and four miles of protected bike lanes.”
The city said it plans to improve “the most intersections in southeast SODO where the highest number of serious pedestrian and bicycle accidents occur.”
The federal funding will also boost SDOT projects to add new ADA ramps and bumpouts to the E Olive Way crossing, new ramps and bumpouts, a pedestrian island, and new crosswalk markings at Harvard at Seneca, new ramps and bumpouts to join the new 4-way stop at 10th and Pike, and another set to join the new 4-way stop at Belmont and Pike.
Seattle’s full funding proposal including a roster of planned improvements can be found here (PDF).
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
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Before this grant, How did they have money to remove things but not add them or officialize them lol. Hahaha
“This Safe Streets for All award for Seattle will help improve 117 intersections where 60 percent of the fatal and serious pedestrian collisions occur”
But from the linked doc, it looks like many of these intersections will only receive ADA wheelchair ramps and ADA-accessible crosswalk pushbuttons — and not any material changes that would actually make Seattle safer to walk in. Those, God forbid, might inconvenience car drivers.
It’s great that that feds are helping to pay for Seattle’s ADA compliance gaps, though.