The Yesler Way bike lanes are open, connecting the downtown network to the waterfront and ferries – UPDATED

UPDATE 3/31: The kid and I rode the new bike lanes Monday evening. They already feel as though they have always been there. It’s hard to imagine the city has been forcing people to merge into traffic for these blocks all these years. For the most part, things were obvious and uneventful. It was simple and low-stress to get from the waterfront bikeway to the 2nd Ave bike lane, which is the way it should be.

The updated signal at 1st Ave and Yesler Way may need some signage and timing adjustments. People were still turning across the bike lane even though those turns are no longer allowed. SDOT staff should monitor these turns and make signage changes as needed. Also, because no turns are allowed across the bike lane, it seems like the walk signal for the adjacent crosswalk should show a Walk phase rather than the Don’t Walk hand during a green light. People were treating the green light as a walk signal anyway, since that’s how it has been forever. I didn’t have time to stick around and observe it longer. There is a new all-way walk phase, but I can’t figure out why the north crosswalk shouldn’t also show Walk during the Yesler green phase. This would also clear up confusion for people biking since there is a “Bikes Use Ped Signal” sign. So if the signal is on the Don’t Walk hand, does that mean bikes are supposed to stop even though there is a green light? I think just about everyone on a bike would go on a green light if there’s no bicycle signal to instruct otherwise.

Moments after this photo, the person driving tried to turn right even though no right turns are allowed here. Several people made the same turn in Bob Svercl’s video. SDOT will probably need to do something extra to make sure folks know not to turn here, especially since this will require a lot of people to change their habits. It also doesn’t help that at least as of press time, Google Maps is still instructing people to make this turn. I have questions out to SDOT and will update if I learn more.

Original story:

Thanks in part to Mayor Katie Wilson spraying some of the construction markings herself, SDOT has completed and opened the short but vital stretch of bike lanes on Yesler Way. People can now bike from the waterfront bikeway to the 2nd and 4th Avenue bike lanes without ever leaving a protected biking space.

Crews began work on the historic underground elements of the project in early March. The crux of the three-block bike lane project was reworking and updating the traffic signal at 1st and Yesler, one of the oldest intersections in the city. Pioneer Square was famously constructed with an old street level about one floor down from the current street level. The result is some very interesting and quirky old “areaways” underneath the street, some of which you can see for yourself on the Underground Tours. But for public works projects, this means the street is really more like a giant bridge, and even something as seemingly simple as changing out the traffic signal can get complicated. Three blocks is not very far, but the project hinged on updating the traffic signals at that one intersection.

The old signals at 1st and Yesler did not even have walk signals. People walking were expected to go with the green light, which was very old school and fell short of all kinds of accessibility laws and best practices. For example, a yellow light does not give people as much warning as a blinking Don’t Walk signal, so people who move more slowly could easily find themselves in the middle of the street when the light changed. Now, not only are there walk signals, but people walking and biking in the area should expect to find a new all-way walk and bike phase. Because it’s a spot where the grid shifts and there is a high-demand plaza on one corner, this should be a pretty good spot for an all-way walk phase.

I have not yet had a chance to try the new bike lanes myself (hopefully I can do that later today). But it’s very exciting to see this long-awaited connection get prioritized under Mayor Wilson’s administration. The bike lanes on Yesler between 2nd and Occidental have ended abruptly for more than 11 years. Now that they finally extend to the waterfront, people will find it difficult to imagine it any other way.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Surely Seattle cops will follow the mayor's orders . . .

https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/immigration-news/mayor-katie-wilson-announced-executive-order-other-actions-preparing-for-immigration-enforcement/281-2ea8d57c-54b8-4e72-974c-3aaef6ed7206

#Seattle #PNW #ACAB #ICE #FuckICE #KatieWilson

Seattle's Mayor Katie Wilson posted the below video in response to the recent news of Renee Good's murder at the hands of ICE agents.

Wilson's administration compiled a webpage with resources for people who see ICE activity in the Seattle region.

https://www.seattle.gov/iandraffairs/programs-and-services/immigrant-rapid-response-program

#Seattle #KatieWilson #ICE #FuckICE

CM Saka will continue to chair Transportation Committee, Rinck joins as Vice-Chair

With the elections of Eddie Lin and Dionne Foster as well as the reelection of Alexis Mercedes Rinck, the new Seattle City Council is taking shape. Amid all the other committee leadership changes, Councilmember Rob Saka will remain Chair of the Transportation Committee while Councilmember Rinck will join as Vice-Chair and Dionne Foster, Bob Kettle and Eddie Lin as members. Starting January 15, they will meet the first and third Thursdays of each month at 9:30 a.m. in Council Chambers.

Because Foster sent former Council President Sara Nelson packing with a landslide 62-37 win, the Council had to elect a new President. With new Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson sitting in the Council Chambers audience like a regular Seattle resident, the Council voted unanimously to select Joy Hollingsworth for a two-year term.

Here’s a tip to any of you who are new to following local city government: The committee meetings are typically much more interesting and enlightening than the full Council meetings. Except for the most controversial votes, full Council meetings contain a lot of boring grandstanding and backpatting while the actual decisions have mostly been made previously in committees and are merely formalized during full Council meetings. With rare exceptions, Council actions that get a full committee recommendation are almost certain to pass the Council without further significant changes. Committee meetings are also where the really interesting agency briefings happen, proving a chance to hear from SDOT staff, for example, as they explain the rationale behind agency decisions and field questions from committee members.

Not only will some of the committee members change, but many of the names and governing responsibilities of the committees will also change. The groupings don’t even always make sense. For example, the Transportation Committee will now be grouped into the Transportation, Waterfront and Seattle Center Committee. Under the previous chair Alex Pedersen, it was the Transportation and Utilities Committee. Under Mike O’Brien it was the Sustainability and Transportation Committee. It’s a little odd that Parks and Seattle Center will be in different committees since I usually think of them being linked together, but committee assignments are based, I assume, on a secret ritual probably involving robes and chanting and psilocybin, and we all just need to trust in this process. The mushrooms always reveal what’s best.

Here are the committee assignments for 2026–27:

• Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments – Chair Strauss, Vice-Chair Rivera
• Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights – Chair Foster, Vice-Chair Lin
• Human Services, Labor, and Economic Development – Chair Rinck, Vice-Chair Foster
• Land Use and Sustainability – Chair Lin, Vice-Chair Strauss
• Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods – Chair Rivera, Vice-Chair Hollingsworth
• Parks and City Light – Chair Juarez, Vice-Chair Kettle
• Governance and Utilities – Chair Hollingsworth, Vice-Chair Juarez
• Public Safety – Chair Kettle, Vice-Chair Saka
• Transportation, Waterfront, and Seattle Center – Chair Saka, Vice-Chair Rinck

#SEAbikes #Seattle

If anyone on here is at Katie Wilson's swearing in ceremony, can you please urge her/her team to join the Fediverse so we can follow them (or at a minimum turn on bridging from Bluesky)?

#Seattle #SeattleMayor #KatieWilson

Mayor-elect Wilson shakes up SDOT leadership + City needs to get back on pace to keep up with the transportation levy’s demands

With Mayor-elect Katie Wilson less than two weeks from assuming office, we are already seeing signs of change within SDOT leadership. Interim Director Adiam Emery will not continue in that role, with Wilson tapping Angela Brady of the sprawling Office of the Waterfront, Civic Projects and Sound Transit to take on the Interim Director role.

Essentially every new mayor picks a new SDOT Director. Transportation is a massive part of the city’s budget, and SDOT’s work inevitably becomes political because the streets are the part of the public realm people interact with most.

Before outgoing Mayor Bruce Harrell picked Emery for the interim role, she was a Deputy Mayor in his administration. So it is not at all surprising that Wilson would make a change. But Brady will be the second interim director in a row, and the department is coming up on a full year without a permanent director following the February 2025 departure of Greg Spotts.

Though 2025 was a huge year for bike project completion, development of new projects has slowed compared to the heightened pace set by Spotts. Emery’s SDOT has not applied the brakes on project delivery, but it is no longer accelerating like it was. It is vital that SDOT does not fall behind in developing and delivering projects promised to voters who approved the ambitious 2024 Transportation Levy. Failing to scale up delivery after the Move Seattle Levy passed in 2015 was a disaster for the department, which went through an extended period of rudderless leadership amid the extended Mayor Ed Murray scandal followed by Mayor Jenny Durkan’s year-long hesitancy to pick a new SDOT Director. The department does not seem rudderless under Emery like it was in 2017–19, but they have a lot of work to get done before the levy expires in 2032. Under-delivering in the early years will make it nearly impossible to catch up in the later years, and the department is already behind on some of the 2025 projects outlined in their first levy delivery plan. However, to put things in perspective, a year after the Move Seattle Levy passed we wrote, “The biggest story for biking in Seattle in 2016 can be summed up in one terrible word: Delayed.”

SDOT needs a leader with a focus on efficient project development and delivery, someone who can make sure there is always an ambitious yet achievable number of projects in planning/outreach, technical design and construction. The next director, whether interim or permanent, also needs to be willing to take on big and difficult projects like a safe remake of Rainier Ave between S Jackson Street and MLK Way, one of the projects that was supposed to go into planning in 2025 but is behind schedule.

Brady has been working on the Central Waterfront project since 2012 and was the project manager for the Mercer Corridor Project before that. In 2022 she became the Director of the Waterfront Program, which Mayor Harrell expanded in February of this year to become the somewhat confusing mashup known as the Office of the Waterfront, Civic Projects and Sound Transit. Seattle Bike Blog has been quite critical of both the Mercer and Waterfront projects over the years, though it’s hard to say with such massive projects whether Brady is responsible for the many issues on those streets. Most of the problems for both projects stem from there being just too many damn traffic lanes, decisions that came baked into those projects before they were handed to city staff. So I am hopeful that selecting Brady is not a signal that Mayor Wilson wants to see more projects like the eight-lane Mercer Street or nine-lane Alaskan Way.

Wilson has also hired Alex Hudson to serve as a transportation advisor, the Urbanist reported. Hudson is the Executive Director of Commute Seattle and was previously the ED of Transportation Choices Coalition before running for Seattle City Council District 3 in 2023, which she lost to Joy Hollingsworth 53–47.

Wilson’s transportation decisions are being guided in part by a transition team (PDF) that includes representatives from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and Cascade Bicycle Club/Washington Bikes. Lee Lambert is the Executive Director of Washington Bikes, which not only endorsed Bruce Harrell for mayor but also paid to send mailers promoting that endorsement to Seattle voters. Including him in the transition team is a signal that Mayor-elect Wilson does not plan on holding a grudge, which is great. Anna Zivarts, author of When Driving Is Not An Option and friend of Seattle Bike Blog, has been co-leading the transportation-focused group of the transition team.

But beyond agency leader decisions, Wilson also acknowledged the recent hit and run killing of Alley on Beacon Hill and pledged, “Making our streets safer, especially for the most vulnerable road users — people walking, biking and rolling — will be a high priority for my administration.”

https://bsky.app/profile/wilsonforseattle.bsky.social/post/3ma2uc5jhdk2q

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Egypt and Iran tell FIFA to cancel World Cup Pride Match, calling it 'contrary' to values

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/sports/egypt-iran-cancel-pride-match

World Cup LGBTQ+ Pride Match will feature two countries where being gay is illegal

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/sports/world-cup-pride-match-countries