(Image: CHS)
The Seattle Department of Transportation is finally ready to complete the long-awaited “Broadway and John Street Signal” project. Construction will begin later in June on a two-month project to create new protected left-turns and a “transit only left-turn lane” at the heavily used intersection fronting Capitol Hill Station and the concentration of Metro bus stops serving the area.
Boiled down by time and shifting funding sources, the proposal born years ago from community feedback will finally take shape this month to make the busy mix of pedestrians, bikers, and drivers at the intersection of Broadway, John, and E Olive Way a safer space.
Starting the week of June 19th, crews will begin work to rebuild the traffic signals to have protected left turns “where left turning drivers have the red while people walking and biking as well as oncoming traffic have the green,” SDOT says.
The project will include rebuilding the traffic signals at the intersection of Broadway and E Olive Way/E John, adding new “left turn pockets” and a “separated signal phase” for eastbound traffic on E Olive Way, installing a new transit-only left turn lane for westbound E John, and removing an area of in-street bike parking “to accommodate transit turning movements.”
For people on foot and bikes outside the busy transit station, the changes are hoped to bring more time and safer crossings while the new transit-only lane will help ease the way for buses.
(Image: CHS)
The new transit lane will also bring one of the biggest changes for drivers at the intersection. Westbound cars and trucks will no longer be able to turn left onto Broadway. It is unclear if that will change driver patterns where westbound back-up can be some of the longest on the Hill at busy hours.
SDOT says the new project will “address a crash pattern with left turning drivers” at the intersection that has been targeted for change for more than a decade in anticipation of the addition of light rail and the new station. Shifting funding sources and a boiling down of planned elements has been part of the long process. CHS reported on the impending construction of the project here in 2021 as groups like Central Seattle Greenways continued to champion the project that emerged close to its current incarnation as a “crowd-sourced” proposal from the community in 2019.
Connected plans to turn the intersection into an all-walk crossing format, meanwhile, were shifted to Broadway and Denny.
New signal installation typically costs around $250,000 in the city. The Broadway and John project is lumped into the city’s Neighborhood Street Fund Program spending.
At Broadway and John, SDOT says the work will begin with the installation of two new signal poles on the northwest and southeast corners. Upgrading the signal will also require underground work meaning ripped up concrete and digging. “Since this area is bustling for all travel modes, we staged the construction over a couple of months to keep things flowing smoothly in the project area,” SDOT says.
After the signal work is completed, SDOT crews will stripe the new lane configurations. SDOT says it expects that work to happen in late August or September.
Sidewalks are expected to remain open in the area while there will be temporary lane and curb closures in the area during the work. You can watch the project page for updates.
Work will also need to accommodate nearby festivities around the PrideFest street festival during Pride weekend on Broadway.
It’s been a lot wait
The work at Broadway and John knocks off another of Central Seattle’s most troubling intersections from SDOT’s list. Another notoriously dangerous corner got a makeover finally last October as crews overhauled the intersection at 23rd and John.
Other small but surgical upgrades in the area include the transition of several Pike/Pine intersections to 4-way stops.
Another more significant change is coming to Pike and Pine below Bellevue Ave as the city completes work on an overhaul to improve walking, biking, and driving conditions between the waterfront and Capitol Hill. As part of the plan, the city will install new bike lane protections and rework Pike and Pine in downtown and on Capitol Hill below Bellevue into one-way streets. Downtown, ground was broken on the project earlier this year. There is no schedule yet for the work to complete the $17.45 million Pike and Pine transformation but the work is expected to be completed in 2024.
Work is also wrapping up this summer on the $4.3 million Melrose Promenade’s final pieces including a new bike lane.
As for Broadway, SDOT might finally need to revisit the street north of the new John signal work after years of growth but few changes left in the wake of a 2017 decision to axe a planned streetcar and bike lane extension up the busting street.
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After decades of conditioning too many people are reading the modified intersection lights wrong. I can’t count the number of near misses I’ve seen. This may be a rough transition.
I will just drive the rapidly disappearing alternative routes to avoid this nasty, ill planned, intersection.
I can’t remember off the top of my head – which bus routes will use the left turn lane to turn left onto Broadway from E John?
Some 43 runs turn there, and deadheading 43 routes also do. It’s not many buses per day. But the overhead wires are set up for that turn.
Just the 43 and buses returning to base. Which begs the question – was this project planned when the 43 was a more legit contributor at this intersection? Love that this is finally happening but there are so many more frequent routes that need this kind of help
SDOT: Creating choke points since 1996
A coordinated assault on traffic flow, initiated because someone who seemed woker once said it would solve climate change. Hundreds of thousands of lives now affected in this town on a daily basis. Like if the concept of fascism could be applied to traffic, you’d have SDOT. YOU WILL CHANGE OR SUFFER. Remind me the last time this worked to achieve behavioral change in humans?
Uh, no. Believe it or not, those of us who live/work across the street actually just don’t want to be run over by speeding cars.
Or perhaps, it’s society still learning to adjust to the relatively new and disruptive nature of automobiles. It’s one of the leading causes of death (not even counting their impact on air pollution and climate change) and promote antisocial behaviors, yet the average person is addicted to the ease and comfort they provide them.
Dude there’s like one bus, the 43, that turns left there what, three times a day or some shit, and then buses going back to the terminal? I don’t understand making it transit only. You’re just going to see people OVER USING THE SIDE STREETS as always happens when they do this sort of thing.
Personally I will do the same, I’m not going to sit behind 30 cars going west, I will just go down to Thomas.
Cool story bro?
Or you can be a sane person and not drive in capitol hill, the densest part of the upper left quarter of the entire country.
Yeah … cool story bro.
This comment is baffling. What trip are you making that you NEED to make this left turn at this specific location? Are you driving from the Broadway Locksmith to get to the ballot drop box at Seattle Central?
Anyone going to Dicks from the East….that’s the trip, that’s who’s turning. Try telling me I shouldn’t drive to a drive-in.
No Left Turn from one arterial to another arterial is just dumb. It will just push people around the park and on more residential streets
Here’s another trip, you’re going to Urgent Care on Broadway
It is insane it took “years of research” to determine another bad idea.
Make it an all-walk intersection so card and peds aren’t competing. People will absolutely still turn left here considering people still go E bound through Broadway on Denny where it’s a 1-way with enormous DO NOT ENTER signs, turn left W bound on to denny from broadway, no one gives a damn about traffic signals in Seattle because nothing is enforced.
Agreed. Make it all-walk and improve the crossings. SDOT is so fucking stupid. And the fact that it took YEARS (which is our tax dollars at work!) to even come to this bad decision is an indictment of how inefficient and ineffective city government is.
Can the next mayoral election actually lead to someone that’s a strong manager and administrator to get some necessary operational, systemic and cultural shifts done within these city department?
Between SDOT’s continued lack of good planning, decision-make and implementation (how many years are they delayed on projects on average?)… to the fact that it takes YEARs for the parks department to even come up with a plan to propose new Off-Leash Park areas, you’d think these weren’t these aren’t well-functioning organizations!
The amount of local know how it takes to drive in this city is getting out of hand. No, you can’t make that left from one arterial to another, you must navigate around the park, through a woonerf and take the left on the off the other Denny.