No bike lanes in Sammamish Town Center
July 20, 2010
By Caleb Heeringa
Town Center might end up being bikable, but you’d better start working out those legs now.
Interim street standards for Town Center, part of broader development regulations being discussed by the City Council and Planning Commission, call for bicyclists to be incorporated into regular lanes of traffic and state that “dedicated bike lanes within Town Center are not recommended.”
After questioning from Councilwoman Nancy Whitten at a joint council and commission meeting July 13, Senior Transportation Program Engineer Jeff Brauns told the council that intermixing bikes with traffic would help slow down traffic speeds and conform better with the city’s vision of a dense, pedestrian-friendly Town Center.
“(Town Center) is our central core,” Brauns said. “We want to bring things in tighter and denser. By adding bike lanes we are increasing our footprint … if we add bike lanes it will speed up cars.”
Brauns clarified that he was talking about the retail core of Town Center, which is proposed to be located on Southeast 4th Street, but said that as written the standards would apply to the entire Town Center area, including major arterials like 228th Avenue Southeast.
He said the standards were guidelines that the city could change going forward.
The idea of not installing bike lanes in a downtown area being billed as bike-friendly doesn’t sit well with Scott Frericks, who owns Pacific Bicycle Company on Northeast 8th Street with his wife Kristie.
He called the middle section of 228th, including the stretch slated to run through the middle of Town Center, a “disaster.” Traffic travels at 35 or 40 miles per hour, forcing all but the most stubborn and strong of bikers to use the sidewalks, which Frericks said is unsafe due to drivers pulling out of driveways.
“I don’t want to be out in traffic because that makes people mad and I don’t want to be on the sidewalk because that’s unsafe for me,” Frericks said.
Though there will likely be significant street upgrades and additions necessary to accommodate Town Center, Brauns said that for the most part the city doesn’t envision making any major changes to 228th.
Brauns also reasoned that bike lanes in the retail core of Town Center could be a recipe for car and bike collisions if they were places between the traffic lane and on-street parking.
Though the street standards don’t set requirements for speed limits in Town Center, Brauns pointed to the 15 mile per hour speed limit in Redmond Town Center as an example of what the city pictured.
Frericks, who has been bike commuting for decades, said experienced bikers don’t have a problem with keeping up with 15-mile-per-hour traffic, but beginners might be turned off by having to share the road.
The standards also address myriad ways to slow down traffic and cater to pedestrians, including:
u Sidewalk width – minimum of 6 feet in residential areas, 10 feet in front of offices and 15 feet or greater in front of retail stores, so as to facilitate open-air restaurants, cafes and sidewalk sales.
u 10-foot wide lanes (the normal is 11 feet), to reduce the length of crosswalks.
u Smaller block lengths – Between 250 and 350 feet long, which facilitates more crosswalks and slower traffic.
But with so much emphasis on keeping traffic moving slowly, Whitten said she worried that the plan may cause congestion in other parts of Town Center, including 228th.
“This whole (Town Center) plan is contingent on using Southeast 4th to move cars through and I don’t feel this (street standard) plan accomplishes that,” Whitten said.
Though Sammamish is no Seattle or Portland when it comes to bike-friendliness, Frericks said that in the 16 years he has run his bike shop, the amount of regular commuters and recreational bikers has increased significantly.
“It used to be that there were two or three other (bikers) out there and we all knew each other and would wave and say hi,” Frericks said. “Now I stop at an intersection and two or three other people usually stop with me.”
Reporter Caleb Heeringa can be reached at 392-6434. ext. 247, or cheeringa@isspress.com.
Other Stories of Interest: environmen, Sammamish City Council, Sammamish Planning Commission, Town Center
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Re: No bike lanes in the town center
It is amazing how city council members continue to cling to the illusion that they have created plan that will give Sammamish a core retail town center along SE 4th between 228th and 218th. The city has absolutely no money to construct the necessary infrastructure for the so called core area. At the July 20 City Council meeting the newly elected city council members Odell, Curley and James admitted and showed a willingness to confront the city’s lack of funds. Two of the remaining old guard, Whitten and Cross, are in complete denial. They act as if city coffers are overflowing with money. Gerend and Petitti from time to time acknowledge the self deception.
The city doesn’t have $11 million for Beaver Lake Park upgrades, no $6 million for a Sammamish Landing, no money for any major infrastructure projects. How about the aquatic center?
A recent infrastructure plan for the West side core area of the town center avoided any mention of what that plan would cost the city if it was implemented. The total lack of interest in how much the plan would cost shows there is no real intention to move forward with implementation.