Western Washington Mobility Improvements Design Feedback Survey

Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback on the proposed designs for Washington Street. The Western Washington Mobility Improvements project, from Line Street to Webster Ave, will include reconstructing all sidewalks, repaving the road, and installing traffic upgrades to improve the safety and comfort of people walking, wheeling, biking, and driving. Construction is expected to begin in 2023. 

Overview of Proposed Designs for Washington Street

The City is proposing to implement protected bike lanes on both sides of the street, expand bus stops, install new crosswalks, and build raised crosswalks in addition to repaving the street and reconstructing the sidewalks. Review the detailed designs on the project website. 

The side of the street that has parking will have raised bike lanes and floating bus stops, and the other side will have concrete curbs to separate bikes from traffic.

Some bus stops will be consolidated or relocated, and larger bus stops will be constructed to provide more space for people waiting for the bus and reduce boarding delay. The bus and bike lane that starts at Hawkins St and heads into Union Square is proposed to remain.

There will be raised crosswalks across Washington Street at Hawkins Street and Perry Park to make it safer for people crossing, in addition to new raised crosswalks and curb bump outs across many of the side streets that intersect with Washington Street. The intersection of Dane Street, Calvin Street, and Washington Street will now have a crosswalk at each corner of the intersection, four crosswalks total, as well as pedestrian signals for each crossing. 

Fully accessible parking will be installed near Kingman Road and parking on Edmund Pettus Bridge will be switched to the south side of the street to add spaces for a pickup and drop off zone at the Argenziano School. A new landscape zone will be added at the intersection with Dane Street, and new trees will be planted along the street.

Other Ward 2 Mobility Safety Improvements

When the City is reconstructing a street, we have the opportunity to make more comprehensive safety improvements in the surrounding area such as improving particularly unsafe intersections and utilizing speed humps to calm traffic nearby. In this project, the City is aiming to make mobility improvements at the following intersections in Ward 2 to make it safer for all roadway users.

• Somerville Ave & Central Street – Expand bus stops and shorten crosswalk
• Washington Street and Washington Terrace – Add new crosswalk and expanded bus stops
• Oak Street and Houghton Street – Install accessible curb ramps and crosswalks

The City aims to install speed humps on streets where we see documented speeding, a proportionally higher number of crashes, and more general traffic overall. In this project, we also prioritized streets where there might be more children traveling, especially to school. Speed humps are made of asphalt and often reduce vehicle speeds to 10mph to 15mph. The City selected Perry Street, Calvin Street, and Dane Street for these reasons.

For more information on the Western Washington Mobility Improvements Project, check out the September 28 meeting recording and presentation slides. 

We now want to hear from you! Please let us know your feedback on the proposed designs. What did we get right? What did we miss?