Letter to the Editor: Save Our Roads Explained
Monday, April 16, 2018
To the Editor:
When we became aware of the City of Shoreline’s plan to “rechannelize” Richmond Beach Road from four lanes to two lanes (with a middle turn lane) plus bicycle lanes, the reaction was immediate. In conversations with our neighbors there appeared to be near-unanimous opposition. Ginny Scantlebury called for a meeting and the 4 or 5 attendees, all local residents, decided to take action. We would write and circulate a petition, present it to the Shoreline City Council and speak individually with council members. Almost 500 signatures were gathered in a short time. (We now have well over 800.) As we asked neighbors to sign a petition we were all struck by the support from the vast majority of residents that we approached.
The petition was duly submitted to the Council and several members of the group spoke against the “rechannalization”. Sadly, the Council, despite acknowledging strong community opposition, responded with a unanimous vote to proceed. In a feeble attempt to deflect criticism, the Council stated its intention to “monitor” the traffic after the work is complete. The group, now called Save Our Roads, decided to continue the fight, dug into their pockets and paid for the Save Our Roads signs. We intend to keep the pressure on the council as we believe that Council members who were elected to be our representatives should do just that especially when the people they represent are so united against their plan.
To all our current supporters of Save Our Roads, thank you for your generous contributions of time and money. If you’d like to join our group, Save Our Roads, please email us at : saverichmondbeachroad@gmail.com, and if you’d like to contribute to our sign fund, please mail a small check to: Save Our Roads, PO Box 60113, Seattle, WA, 98160. The fight continues.
Ginny Scantlebury, George Mauer, Richard Shilling
representing the Save our Roads board
Shoreline
Posts
21 comments:
Save our roads...at the expense of our citizens. I never thought safer streets would be such a controversial topic. Go cling to your outdated transportation somewhere else and let Shoreline move forward with safe, modern street design that provides options for everyone.
Personally, I think more people are at risk walking from Richmond Beach Road to the Saltwater Park along 20th. The side of the road is full of massive puddles you must walk around and put yourself in the path of speeding cars jetting out of the park. How about spending money on sidewalks along this stretch? We don't need a committee process to know that this stretch is dangerous. Save our roads? How about "Save our Pedestrians?"
Anyone thinking about running for Shoreline City Council:
You have been handed a gift-wrapped platform on which to overwhelmingly win the Richmond Beach and Innis Arden votes.
Why can't bike lanes be built on side streets? Why build the on major roadways? We already have too many cars and too few lanes for driving.
Exactly what options should we consider? Riding my bike uphill to work, in the rain, in the dark, even with bike lanes, is ridiculous. My only option is to drive as it would take me an hour to walk to the nearest bus stop nearly 3/4 of a mile away, then take two or three buses to get to work. You cannot change the shape of RB Road and putting bike lanes will not make people ride their bikes. In all my trips up and down 8th NW, I have seen ONE person riding a bike in the new bike lanes. A waste of taxpayer dollars! Elected officials once again IGNORE the voice of the people - the majority - and continue to rule with their own agenda. You too, have an agenda, and ignore the voice of the people.
As someone who drives the speed limit on the way to the park, I am usually the slowest vehicle on the road. Perhaps if you all had SLOWED DOWN and reduced the number of accidents you wouldn't be facing this realignment. There was great opposition to one lane on 15th NE - but guess what? It's SAFER!
It's not about the bike lanes. If it was about the bike lanes, they would connect to the Interurban instead of ending at Dayton (and therefore are effectively useless). It's about SAFETY and breaking up a dangerous, high-speed quasi-highway carving through neighborhoods.
Do you know the causes of the accidents on RBR? Distracted drivers. The number of accidents is guaranteed to increase with this re-channelization. Anyone who feeds you statistics that show the number of accidents has been reduced by re-channelization efforts in other cities is lying to you.
Expect more rear ending.
I live in RB and I fully support the 3 lane road. It really works where I have seen this transition. I have provided my input to the city council on this matter via email. Please consider that you do not speak for everyone when you make the assertion that the channelization is opposed by the majority of residents. Change is not always bad.
When the "rechannelization" happens, there will be double the wait time when you reach the four way stop at the "Little Store." Good times.
Change is not always bad, as long as the change is good.
I look forward to using the middle lane to enter RBR! Having to cross two lanes of hurried traffic is very dangerous and stressful. Let's all just relax and be safe out there!
Have any one of you traveled Greenwood Ave N from 85th St to 105th after they changed it from two lanes to one with a bike lane? If you have, then you know how many light cycles it takes to get through the light on 105th & Greenwood! I would also like to know how many of the council members have to drive RBR from Aurora to 20th EVERYDAY? If you don't live down there, I really don't feel you have a right to vote for the re-channelization, it does not affect your everyday life. In addition, for those of you who do live west of 8th Ave, how many bicyclists do you see biking up the hill? I have lived in RB for 16yrs & in that time I have seen maybe 10-15 bikers attempting to bike up that hill max! The ones that I have seen are walking their bikes, which is why there are so few, they can't make it up the hill. I mean really people the mere frustration drivers will experience with the re-channelization will create more accidents not less!
I predict there will be 10-15 cyclists per day on that route once it is made safer with bike lanes and more once the light rail is in place. It's a shame the lanes won't be installed on the last portion of RBR as that would make it more popular and direct to said light rail with cyclists like me and diverting over to the 195th bike corridor discourages use of the RBR corridor.
This re-channelization is the most ABSURD thing I've ever witnessed in a city. If the reason truly is "Safety" there are multiple other options than causing a complete and total traffic nightmare. You've just added 20-30 minutes to my daily commute! Put in speed bumps instead!! Absolute absurdity and I question the juddgement and IQ's of the city council.
OK we have made it to June and guess what? The re-channelization is working ! yes some backups at peak hours but nothing like opposition had predicted! I challenge people who are still in opposition to this to be open minded and get used to it. and lets please deal with facts only not made up numbers of what we think the delays and indecent rates are.we can measure these things and come up with actual results . I think some will be supervised.
Drive Safe.
Dave from RB.
Loving the change! The road is just plain nicer to drive along now. Feels like you are driving into a nice neighborhood instead plummeting along a highway. It has also greatly improved the intersection at 15th, for those of us that drive on 15th.
Agree about the need to improve 20th for pedestrians! It's pretty bad walking to the beach with kids along that stretch.
The road is sooo much better now....love it!
Only issue I'm having is the fact that from the stoplight and subsequent left turn from Dayton to the one lane interchange has now become a proverbial racetrack! Frustrating and dangerous. After the bottleneck, the road is just fine. I run with a stroller down RB through that stretch, both before and after the work. I never felt unsafe, however I can see that it has become safer yet.
I live in N Seattle, I thought Shoreline had more common sense!
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