Sustainable Crown Hill Meeting With Jodie Vice
Focus: Residential Traffic Calming
November 26, 2007

Attendees:
 Jodie Vice, assistant with Jan Drago’s office
Sustainable Crown Hill: Carol Barber, Michael Huber, Bert Hopkins, Carol Kennedy, Dennis Galvin

Highlights:
1. Sustainable Crown Hill (SCH) presented group’s background and current objectives in traffic calming
2. Discussed current plans for Crown Hill business and 15th Ave corridor
3. Jodi Vice provided recommendations for:
• How to proceed with community planning
• City council’s role and what members are involved in relevant committees
• Focus of Mayor’s initiative and how it would interface with SCH
• Contact information for Squire Park neighborhood

Bert: Welcomed Jodi and gave overview of community involvement:
1. Crown Hill Business Association Economic Development Plan along commercial district of 15th Ave NW and Holman Rd. The objective was to embrace the past of the community and move forward with a viable economic community with aesthetic appeal.
2. Small Faces and adjoining city park: In conjunction with the pro-parks levy, there had been lots of community involvement in deciding how the park adjoining the school would best meet the community’s needs. A plan was within weeks of being implemented when the school was surplused, which put the park on hold. We are currently 1/4th to 1/3rd of the way to having the money needed for the park. The community feels strongly about having the park as a central focal point in the neighborhood.
3. Crown Hill Neighbors Association: started with the community involvement around saving and planning for use of the park. This association comprises the Crown Hill Community Council and reports to the Ballard district council
4. Sustainable Crown Hill: Carol Barber started late spring to early summer, 2007. They have several community based projects. One project is to reclaim the streets for pedestrians, thereby creating the opportunity for increasing community engagement and decreasing dependence on cars.
5. As a community we have focus, and a great potential for moving our community into the future. We want to build a large vision for the Crown Hill community. In the next 18 months, we want to comprehensively formulate that vision and develop specific plans for traffic calming and promoting pedestrian activity.
6. We want to know how we can work with the city in order to get things done.

Update on what has been done to date, and primary areas of concern:
1. Bridging the Gap funds: We did not get any long term project funds, but we did get some small project funds for traffic circles
2. City Repair Seattle – where Bert and Michael met, Bert had done several workshops in the past. (I didn’t really know the context of this)

Carol Barber stated that as much as the mayor wants to bring and improve sidewalks in Seattle, there is not sufficient funds to do so. She stated that we, as a community, want to decide how to solve our traffic problems, and how to make it more pedestrian friendly, and what we want from the city is the necessary support, and to open up a dialog on implementing creative ideas. We would appreciate some flexibility in the bureaucratic process to assist in implementing solutions, which will ultimately be at a lower cost than the engineering solutions that the city would tend to implement.

Jodie confirmed that Seattle needs a total of 526 miles of sidewalks and there are not sufficient funds for that.

Carol B: proposed that Crown Hill be a pilot project for the city in traffic calming and increasing walkability from the grassroots/ community level.

Dennis: Stated that we cannot address the traffic on Holman Rd as that is a designated arterial and truck route, but we want to influence the interface between the commuter traffic on Holman Rd and the residential streets that intersect with it.

-I couldn’t quite follow this discussion- but I think it would be valuable for it to be explained-
The zoning of Holman Rd and 15th Ave NW was discussed. The DPD (?) said that 15th would no longer have “p-zone” [I assume p-zone is zoned for pedestrians?], especially since Safeway got the gas station it was decided it longer needed to be a p-zone. The zoning that was discussed: across street it is L-1 and applying for L-3?

It was pointed out that no parking is allowed on 15th Ave NW between NW 65th St. and NW 85th St, so the traffic has essentially 3 lanes both directions. North of NW 85th St. it becomes two lanes, but the traffic continues to increase speed along Holman Rd. and much of the traffic diverts onto side streets, continuing at high speeds. Trucks and cars are observed to turn left onto Mary Ave to head north, versus going through the stop light to turn onto 15th Ave. NW, the designated arterial.

It was again discussed that an engineering option of controlling traffic is not the most viable due to money and bureaucracy.

We want community development with an appreciation for the changing neighborhood demographics to younger families with children. We want to make small infrastructure changes that create safe, artistic and aesthetic corridors for pedestrians.

We also want to revitalize the business community while increasing green spaces and decreasing CO2 levels.

There are several bus routes that serve Crown Hill, but the service on Bus Route 28, along 8th Ave. NW, has been reduced north of NW 85th St. as it is very dangerous for pedestrians to access bus stops north of NW 85th St. It was pointed out that new condos that have gone up on NW 97th St and 8th Ave NW have increased the density of the neighborhood, while simultaneously decreasing pedestrian access to 8th Ave NW due to the increased parking on the street from the condo owners.

Jodie Vice introduced herself:
She is a transportation planner, and worked in that role as a consultant at Otak, Inc. for 6 years. It was during that time that she was the project manager for the Squire Park project. An urban designer was also involved.

She then went to work on the South Lake Union neighborhood. It was during that time that Jan Drago was wanting to focus on transportation, and recruited Jodie to work for her. They are hoping to develop and implement some transportation policies in the next two years.

In January, 2008, Jodie and Jan Drago will be going to Portland, OR, to meet with the commissioner and to learn more about the process neighborhoods have successfully followed for traffic calming and community building.

It was stated an ordinance is needed – I didn’t quite follow the context of this comment.

Department of Transportaion (DOT) – many within the department are skeptical of art and non-engineering approaches, but Jodie stated there are several people within the department that are supportive. She encouraged us to maintain our focus of what we want done. Names she mentioned are: “Sam” Woods and Jennifer Bitta (?).

Specific recommendations from Jodie:
1. Move forward with Small and Simple grants
2. Stay in communication with the DOT
3. Squire Park: use them as an example. She stated they developed a great relationship with the nearby hospital, which funded some traffic circles, artistic way (?), and residential parking zones. She will get us the contact information on a person still actively involved at Squire Park.
4. She explained the relationship between the city council and DOT. The council is about budgets and policy. Jan Drago meets with the director of DOT, Grace Crunican (?), every two weeks. This meeting provides the opportunity for Jan Drago to influence priorities pertaining to traffic.
5. The membership of the city council committee on transportation will be changing; Jodie suggests that we stay in touch with the pertinent members.
6. Pedestrian Safety committee: Jan Drago and Nick Licata will be on. They are looking to hire a consultant in the next two weeks to develop a master plan that will be city wide. The goals will include: land use, access to metro transit, safe walks to schools, and zoning. We should initiate contact at the beginning of the year to have input.

There will be a 20 year plan of funding and policy for sidewalks; how it will happen will be up to the city council.
7. Jodie recommended contacting Sally Clark as she is very involved in neighborhood planning.

Michael mentioned Rob Bernstein as an independent traffic engineer who likes to work with neighborhood groups.

Landscape architect mentioned is Kate _____????

Sequence of steps taken by Squire Park:
1. First step was a large neighborhood workshop that lasted about 4 hours. Parts facilitated by Jan ____???? from Portland. Presented alternatives to engineering approaches to traffic calming.
2. After a grant was written they had smaller focus groups about creating places for people in the neighborhood. This was facilitated by Otak, a consulting firm.
3. She recommended Jim Doer????, former head of department of neighborhoods as a motivational speaker.
4. She will e-mail contact information for Barb Biondo (bbiondo@afevans.com), citizen still involved with Squire Park.
5. Discussed some creative traffic calming features of extending the boulevard out into the street in place of two parking spaces, creating more green space in the neighborhood.
6. Emphasized that the city council wants to be asked for something; they want to know what they can do.
7. We should keep advocating for our vision, year after year.

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