The folks at the Bellevue transportation department are planning to release the details of the 2007 Walk & Roll Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan on Thursday.
The city is basing its recommendations partly on a survey and focus groups from earlier this year. The staff is suggesting where bicycling improvements can be made and how to get them funded.
The meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. N.E., Room 1E-108. If you're like me and can't make the meeting, the draft will be posted online after the meeting at the Bellevue transportation website (2007 Ped-Bike Plan.)
Survey results
The city's report says that 919 bicyclists from Bellevue took the survey. Some of the findings from the bicycle portion of the survey:
— Only 22% of bicyclists rated cycling conditions as good or excellent;
— High frequency bicyclists are more likely to rate the conditions as poor;
— The top five problems cited were: narrow roads, no bike lanes, unpleasant to bike, inconsiderate drivers and roadway debris.
— The most popular improvements for making Bellevue roads safer were: designated bikes lanes (78%), adding paved shoulders (73%), repairing pavement (57%), adding bike trails (56%), and educating motorists (56%).
Safety concerns
The top 10 bicycling locations with safety concerns:
Bellevue Way
West Lake Sammamish Parkway
Along 520
Bel-Red Road
Around downtown
Northrup Way
NE 8th
Along I-90
148th Avenue
Intersections with I-405
The two reports are entitled Draft Community Engagement Summary Report and Focus Groups Summary Report. The .pdf files are available at the Bellevue pedestrian-bike website.
Pictures
The Cascade Bicycle Club has been overseeing watching the report and keeping its members informed about developments in the plan. One cool thing they did was to get Bellevue bicyclists to post pictures of problem spots in Bellevue to a flickr.com pool entitled Bellevue Cycling Facility Photos.
That picture above is a little bit of weirdness that I encounter frequently at the Coal Creek/119th Avenue intersection. The right lane is very narrow and there is no shoulder until the road veers to the left and a long hill begins. The first time I arrived here I used the sidewalk, but that comes to a dead stop in some bushes and there's no curb cut to enter the street.
I have no right to complain, though, because I lived up the hill when the notice was posted for public hearings on the changes, and I never got around to attending. Had I been there, I could have pointed out the bicycle-unfriendliness of this situation.
That's why you should make an effort to participate in these draft studies.
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