This is great.

Closing part of the second avenue protected bike lane doesn’t seem consistent with a safe connected all ages and abilities bike network in the city center, Vision Zero, or our climate goals. @MayorJenny @LewisforSeattle @CascadeBicycle @seattledot pic.twitter.com/1uO9dPksud — Lee Pyne-Mercier (@leepyne) February 9, 2020

A group that wishes to remain anonymous posted an official-looking “Notice of Proposed Street Use Action” sign at the north end of the 2nd Ave bike lane near Denny Way, informing the public that “the City of Seattle has decided to remove this portion of the Second Avenue protected bike lane to make room for more cars.” It continues:

This will allow more people to drive to events at the new Seattle Center Arena at the cost of safety for pedestrians and people on bicycles. If you have comments about this change please contact the following parties: Mayor Jenny Durkan – Twitter: @mayorjenny

or email: [email protected] Rob Johnson, Oak View Group – Twitter: @heyrobbyj

Email: [email protected] Councilmember Andrew Lewis – Twitter: @lewisforseattle

Email: [email protected] Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez – Twitter: @cmlgonzalez

Email: [email protected] Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda – Twitter: @teresacmosqueda

Email: [email protected]

And, unfortunately, the sign is true. As reported previously, current transportation plans that are part of the arena remake would close this section of the bike lane, routing people biking onto the sidewalk just south of Denny Way.

The sign is amazing because it makes a couple important points at the same time. For one, of course, it alerts people that the city wants to remove a section of one of our city’s best protected bike lanes. But it also highlights the double standard regarding how much public notice and public debate is needed to add a bike lane versus how little public debate there has been about removing one.

I mean, just compare this to the years of organizing required to get bike lanes added to the Eastlake RapidRide J project. Even after years of packing meetings to get the bike lanes included in the plans, people still have to turn out to show support for the bike lanes in various open houses and town halls. Meanwhile, essentially nobody was aware of the city’s plans to remove this stretch of bike lane until Ryan Packer at The Urbanist reported about it in late October.

On top of this, Mayor Jenny Durkan and now-Councilmember Alex Pedersen have cited a supposed lack of public process as a reason to delete the planned, designed and contracted bike lanes on 35th Ave NE. And while there definitely was a public process for 35th, the decision to delete this section of the 2nd Ave bike lane was never a significant part of the arena’s public process. So it deserves to be revisited.

The justification for deleting the bike lane is that the planned parking garages will be able to empty their cars faster if they have two lanes on 2nd Ave rather than the current one lane at Denny Way. But why should people biking and walking be put at risk at worst and inconvenienced at best just so some new parking garages can empty faster for the hour or so after major events? That’s not a good trade for the city and it doesn’t help us meet any of our transportation, Vision Zero or climate goals. People who park in the garages can just wait their turn to leave. That’s really not asking much. Who drives to a major event and expects to be able to get out of the parking garage quickly?

It could even improve the post-event traffic crunch on nearby streets by metering cars more gradually rather than overloading the street network all at once.

So yeah, do what the sign says, though I would add [email protected] to your list since he is the Transportation Committee Chair.

And good work, anonymous sign makers!