Community members enjoy a walk during a recent Halloween parade in Beacon Hill on a crisp, sunny fall day. Photo: SDOT Blog stats: 800 words | 4-minute read
At-a-glance:
- Healthy Streets provide a unique community feature to improve health and provide greater spaces for people walking, rolling, and biking.
- We’ve been working with neighbors to determine where Healthy Street can be made permanent.
- Learn more about plans for:
- We also have an opportunity for community members to “Adopt a Planter” in their neighborhood.
- Thank you for your interest in Healthy Streets in Seattle!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our evaluation processes for Healthy Streets! Over the past year, we’ve been working with neighbors, collecting public feedback, and evaluating community use trends to determine if and where more Healthy Street locations should become permanent.
We’re excited to announce updates for Alki Point, Beacon Hill, and the Central District. For Healthy Street locations becoming permanent in 2024, neighbors can choose to replace the standard concrete sign base with new planters. SDOT installs the planters during construction of the permanent Healthy Street, and then neighbors are responsible for maintaining the planters. Neighbors can now sign up in four locations detailed below.
Neighbors can also visit our Healthy Streets webpage and click on your neighborhood Healthy Streets to read the latest status updates.
What are Healthy Streets?
Healthy Streets are closed to pass through traffic, but open to people walking, rolling, biking, and playing. People driving who need to get to homes and destinations can still drive on these streets. The goal of this program is to open up more public space for people to use—improving community and individual health.
Alki Point
In 2022, we reached out to neighbors and shared early design concepts with community members at an in-person event, and collected comments on the proposed design. In 2023, we evaluated community feedback on the proposed design to consider possible refinements.
We’re happy to share the updated design plan based on what we heard strongly from the community, which is to construct an additional walking/biking area along the beachfront and to connect the existing bike lane on Alki Ave SW along Beach Dr SW.
The updated design also includes:
- 0.25 miles (approx) of new walking/biking space
- 3 new ADA parking spaces
- 3 new speed humps
- On-street parking removal where needed to allow for new walking/biking space
Construction is expected to begin next year. We’re also evaluating additional design elements and paint-and-post crossing improvements for one block of the permanent Healthy Street on Beach Dr, from 63rd Ave SW to 64th Ave SW.
Please visit the Alki Point Healthy Street webpage for the latest information.
Beacon Hill
As previously announced, we’ll start construction on pedestrian and bike improvements at 18th Ave S and S College St as part of the Beacon Hill Healthy Street, including:
- New crossing lights, also known as Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs)
- New curbside push buttons for crossings
- New raised curb
- Marked crosswalks
- ADA-accessible curb ramps
- Drainage and stormwater improvements (in coordination with Seattle Public Utilities)
This work will take place in 2024. It was originally scheduled to take place in November 2023, but has been postponed to due crew availability and other scheduled work.
Please visit the Beacon Hill Healthy Street webpage to learn more about what to expect during construction.
Central District
The following segments of the Central District Healthy Street are becoming permanent:
- E Columbia St, from 12th Ave to 22nd Ave
- 22nd Ave, from E Union St to E Columbia St
These locations were selected based on our evaluation of how much they’ve been used by people walking, rolling, and biking, as well as consideration of community feedback and comments we’ve received during recent neighborhood outreach.
We will continue to evaluate and reach out to neighbors on other segments of Healthy Streets in the Central District, and are making updates to the temporary Healthy Streets signs until this evaluation is complete.
Please visit the Central District Healthy Street webpage for more information.
Adopt a Planter – sign-up by January 18, 2024!
For new permanent Healthy Street locations, neighbors can choose to replace the standard concrete sign base with planters. Planters are then maintained by neighbors. Planter adoption is now open for the following permanent Healthy Street locations:
If you are interested in adopting a planter, but don’t see your Healthy Street on this list, the planter sign-up form will open later for additional Healthy Streets. Sign up for email updates to be notified when additional planter forms are made available. Please note that you can sign up for both general Healthy Streets program updates and updates about specific Healthy Street locations – we recommend signing up for both if you’re interested.
Editor’s Note: December 20, 2023: We updated the street names (to remove ‘east’) on several Central District Healthy Streets, for clarity and accuracy.