It's like people who whine about the tracks on the missing link/45th while ignoring the fact that there is a perfectly safe, track-free route a whopping one block away. I think it's because most cyclists are also drivers and when they're on the bike they tend to navigate as if they were in a car ignoring that cars and bikes are not the same in traffic. Roads that are slower for a car are often faster for a cyclist – amazing how many cyclists fail to grasp this concept!

It's an old bridge and I'm hard pressed to think of any solutions that would actually be cost effective. In a more perfect world they tear the bridge down and replace it with a new bridge featuring wider sidewalks for cycling, light rail lines, and no loss of car lanes. Sadly, this is Seattle and that would involve numerous elections, community meetings, lawsuits and take at least two decades!!!

Alternative is to ride in motor vehicle lanes of course, but very narrow and sure to induce anger on driver's part.

Ballard Curmudgeon – what do you propose? Fremont Bridge, or can the bicyclers go on the roadway?

Barring such an extreme “solution”, it seems like what needs to be done is to make the bridge as safe as possible. I think these changes help.

If you want to rebuild the bridge, I'm all for it, but what you've done is made an old bridge very very dangerous for bikes and pedestrians.

…and stairs usually aren't considered a bicycling facility. There are some bikes (hand crank bikes for parapylegics, or electric bikes with 50 pounds of batteries for example) which aren't practical or physically possible for their operator to carry down the stairs.

With the previous design, before they added a new sign (I think earlier this year), there was nothing to indicate to drivers that they need to yield to cyclists.

Also, in the few hours that I was doing the bike count, I only saw two cars yield to cyclists, and they were already nearly stopped for the gridlock of turning traffic headed over to SPU.

Regarding the actual photos, the slot in the wall looks too short, it needs to be longer by a few feet to the north. I can see someone snagging a pedal because of the way you turn to get through the slot.

1. One of the hardest things to do riding a bike is to look behind you and judge the distance and approaching speed of oncoming traffic. I've been riding for years and I am still not great at this. The proposed curb cutout makes everyone perform this action and while there are surely some of you here that can judge perfectly each and every time most of us cannot.

2. Another difficult thing for many cyclists is starting from a dead stop, which is what they will have to do at this intersection. With what I mentioned in #1 and the general speed of traffic this is very dicey.

3. I also walked down the stairs and across and up the other side of Emerson. While the steps are steep this is not impossible. A decent solution would be to pave a ramp in the middle of the steps so cyclists can walk their bikes. I thought of this because a few people mentioned that it's a pain to carry their bikes up and down the steps. I agree with you and I bet paving a ramp would cost less than cutting the barrier and installing turtles and lights to try and slow down cars.

4. I also am sympathetic to the median problem for trucks. I've been on the 17 bus when it's had troubles making the turn. Please go ahead and make that median smaller so traffic can get through.

5. It also wouldn't hurt to install a couple of lights in the underpass to make people feel safer walking through it.

6. As for pedestrians I feel if they can walk across the bridge they can take the stairs and use the underpass. This is a common solution in most cities for this scenario.

I hope you will see this as thoughtful input for the safety of everyone. I love Ballard and plan to live, cycle, walk and occasionally drive here for a long time.

Have a good night everyone,
John

Get a few of the tiny double-ended ped/bike ferries that Vancouver BC uses in False Creek and run them as a water shuttle between the 14th Ave boat ramp (Ballard) and Fisherman's Terminal (Interbay). The former should (eventually) be easily accessible from the BG “Missing Link”, and the latter provides decent connections to the Interbay bike trail and onward along Elliott Bay *without* having to ride on 15th.

couple hundred bucks for supplies – badda bing badda boom, problem solved.

No one has been asked to send their kids down this route. It is recognized that the sidewalks are narrow, and negotiating this crossing is not for the faint of heart. This was identified early on in the process as a real 'conflict' zone between ped/bikes and vehicles, so folks talked through a bunch of low cost solutions, and it appears SDOT has costed out some high end big ticket options as well.

My hats off to SDOT for this slow, vetted process of improvement.

Slow Down…You're in Ballard