According to The Urbanist, bicycle safety upgrades planned to be made by the City of Bellevue have been put on hold. This affects the Downtown Bellevue, Wilburton, and BelRed neighborhoods.
The program, Bike Bellevue, serves to enhance the city’s multimodal transportation system and help make it safer and more equitable, sustainable and accessible for everyone. It is the next step in improving the safety, connectivity, and comfort of the bicycle network in the city.
Bike Bellevue has received both support and opposition from the Eastside community. Some want to be able to bike more safely and easily as a form of transportation, and others don’t want street space taken away from cars.
As explained by The Urbanist, Bike Bellevue has been removed from calendars outlining the planned agendas for Bellevue’s transportation commission this year. Bellevue Transportation’s Gillian Hagstrom was quoted explaining that the city if taking time to review the community’s input and consider best next steps for outreach and advancement of the project. A study session is planned for March 25th.
The program builds on planning undertaken through the 2009 Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation Plan, the 2016 Bicycle Rapid Implementation program, the 2020 Vision Zero Strategic Plan, and the 2022 Mobility Improvement plan.
Bellevue City Council approved the project’s principles in 2023 and from there, staff have been working with the Transportation Commission to prepare recommendations for implementation.
This was a smart move. The COB spent a lot of money expanding sidewalks and removing trees and grass on the North side of NE 12th between BelRed and 108th for the express purpose of allowing bicycles safe riding space and to link to the existing bike path on 108th. I still have all the meeting notes, diagrams and more specifically noting bicycle use on the large sidewalk. Ideas removing a car lane with a growing infrastructure on NE 12th go against what was promised.
Thank you, Betina! This is helpful background information. Those of us who live near the Spring District are very concerned about the traffic impacts of so much development and so many changes simultaneously happening in this area.