If you can do it in New York City, you can do it anywhere (Image: NYC DOT Shared Street Design Manual)
A new state law allowing “shared streets” designed, engineered, and constructed to emphasize pedestrian and bicyclist safety — including 10 MPH speed limits and the ability for those walking and rolling to safely cross a street anywhere they want — is about to get off on the right foot in Seattle.
The Seattle City Council’s transportation committee is taking up legislation Thursday to change the city’s municipal code to line up with “first-in-the-nation” shared streets law passed in Washington last year.
The city isn’t ready to start identifying which streets could be in line for the overhauls but the bill, once passed, will update the muni code to allow the city to designate streets where pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicle traffic share a portion — or all — of the same street.
“CB 121176 does not designate specific locations as Shared Streets,” the central staff presentation (PDF) on the bill for Thursday’s session emphatically emphasize.
But it would establish new rules for the new designation including an important shift in priorities.
“Under the state provisions for shared streets, pedestrians have right-of-way over bicyclists, bicyclists have right-of-way over vehicle traffic, and the maximum speed limit is 10 miles per hour,” the council’s summary on the bill reads.
The change will open up a new era of pavement markings and paint, bike resources, planters, and bollards in Seattle.
The city’s adoption of official Shared Streets will come after several baby steps and experiments in trying to more safely encourage increased pedestrian and cycling activity.
The existing Healthy Streets program born out of the pandemic continues in several pockets of the city including the Central District but that mix of elements that leans heavily on signage and jury-rigged barriers has made for some uneasy and inconsistent shared experiences.
Seattle drivers are already a frustrated lot. Recent years have seen a proliferation of safety and transportation initiatives in the city that have constricted Seattle’s roadways with bus-only lanes, nearly ubiquitous “no right turn on red” signage, and bike lanes, not to mention an explosion of programs that have replaced paid street parking with restricted zones for everything from delivery pick-up to musician loading zones.
Meanwhile, evidence from traffic safety organizations, insurance data, and psychological studies shows that drivers began taking significantly more risks during the pandemic and many of those dangerous habits have persisted long after traffic volumes returned to normal.
Capitol Hill is ahead of the game on Shared Streets. Two years ago, Pike and Pine between Capitol Hill and downtown were transformed into new one-way configurations — west on Pine, east on Pike — with many “Shared Street” elements. Add 10 MPH speed limits and you are mostly there.
Don’t expect that kind of limit on Pike or Pine or Broadway anytime soon, however. The legislation being proposed, for now, will only apply to non-arterial streets.
That arterial restriction also means, for now, the program won’t bring scenes like the E Pike People Streets pilot from a decade ago that completely closed the heart of the Pike/Pine nightlife district to vehicular traffic on select weekends — much to the chagrin of businesses in the area and the neighborhood chamber of commerce.
Meanwhile, the city has held up the configuration of the E Barbara Bailey Way stretch along Capitol Hill Station north of Cal Anderson as an example of its early attempts at the shared street philosophy. Its main unique physical feature is its “curbless” sidewalks that make the area more pedestrian friendly when it is shut off to traffic for events like the weekly Sunday Capitol Hill Farmers Market.
The neighborhood is also lined up to be part of the city’s $9.2 million “Low-Pollution Neighborhoods” pilot that could bring new pedestrian, street, and “green space” projects to the area.
According to Thursday’s presentation, the Shared Streets legislation would authorize the Seattle Department of Transportation to establish procedures for designating official Shared Streets with plans to have the new process in place by June.
The procedures and guidelines will also be subject to State Environmental Policy Act review, the council review notes, which could add additional time for rollout.
Special Seattle-only elements might also be added including an amendment that would specify that “pedestrian diagonal crossing” and “bicyclists riding more than two abreast” would be allowed on Shared Streets.
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