Sidewalk repairs ahead.
North Seattle still has a number of streets that lack sidewalks. A subject of frustration for many who live in these neighborhoods, there are even some arterials that don’t have sidewalks yet. Greenwood Avenue, a little north of its business district, is such a place where bus riders, kids going to and from school, and neighborhood residents walking to do their grocery shopping a few blocks away don’t have a sidewalk.
SDOT plans to tackle a substantial piece of the problem next year when it constructs sidewalks along the east side of Greenwood Avenue North between NE 92nd and NE 105th streets. (The west side of the street has some sidewalk gaps, but not as many as on the east side. It is hoped that sufficient funding can be secured to include the construction of these west side missing sidewalk segments, but as of this writing, the funding has not been identified.)
Specifically, the project will install a six foot wide concrete sidewalk with curb and gutter, a five foot wide planting strip, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) mandated curb ramps at intersections, and minor drainage, grading, and paving improvements to provide a continuous sidewalk along the east side of Greenwood Avenue.
While the project will make for a safer and more aesthetically appealing streetscape, it will create parking challenges for some businesses and apartment buildings. Because of this, SDOT is working closely with individual property owners to address their access and parking needs to the greatest extent possible.
As the project name itself suggests, the project also includes significant transit improvements, specifically the construction of two new in-lane bus islands (at N 92nd and N 97th streets), along with the closure of some stops and the relocation of others to provide more appropriate spacing between them. The in-lane bus islands, similar to those on Dexter Avenue North, permit buses to load and unload while still in the travel lane, improving their speed and reliability.
The existing bike lanes on both sides of Greenwood will remain, with the bus islands routing bicyclists between the bus stop and sidewalk, substantially reducing conflicts between buses and bikes.
The $2.5 million project, primarily financed through the voter-approved Bridging the Gap measure and the Neighborhood Street Fund, is expected to begin construction in early 2015 and take about six months to complete (up to ten months if the project eventually includes sidewalks on the west side of Greenwood).