In the Hall

Say good-bye to the city’s bicycle and pedestrian
programs.

The Seattle Department of Transportion plans to get rid of its
groundbreaking bicycle and pedestrian divisions later this year,
folding their functions into the department’s traffic management
division.

SDOT officials say this is a good thing—that it will allow
them to integrate bike and ped planning into every project they
undertake. “We’ll be taking more of a multimodal view and breaking down
the silos that [bike and ped advocates] are in now,” says SDOT traffic
manager Eric Widstrand, who will head up the transition. “I look at
it as a positive—we’re taking pedestrian and bike
needs into account across the board.” Instead of having a single
advocate for bikers and pedestrians, in other words, planners would
include them automatically.

That’s the theory, anyway. The reality, some advocates worry, is
that it may be too soon to take away their dedicated voice at City
Hall. After all, the Bicycle Master Plan just passed a year
ago—and it’s still the source of constant, heated negotiations
between cyclists who want to implement it and drivers who want to water
it down. And the Pedestrian Master Plan just passed this week.
Shouldn’t the city give those plans a little time, see how well they
work, before eliminating the offices that made them happen?

“That is something that is going to be a challenge,” says Lisa
Quinn, executive director of Feet First, the pedestrian advocacy group.
Although Feet First generally supports the change, Quinn says she hopes
SDOT will “still have a point person” on bike and pedestrian
issues.

David Hiller, advocacy director of the Cascade Bicycle Club, urges
caution. “I said years ago that I envision a day when… we wouldn’t
need a special division” to advocate for cyclists’ concerns. “Are we
ready for it?… Are the protections in place to preserve the
thoughtful and complete consideration of the needs of people who have
been left out, from an institutional standpoint, for generations?
That’s a good question.“

The proposed changes come at a time of major budget cuts across the
city—none deeper than those at SDOT, which Mayor Greg
Nickels has proposed cutting 5.4 percent, or between 15 and 30
positions. Although SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan said he “couldn’t say”
if the cuts would impact bike and pedestrian advocacy positions, they
come just as the city’s best-known bike advocate, former bike and ped
program director Peter Lagerwey, announced he plans to retire this year after 25 years at the city. (Lagerwey will reportedly join
Toole Design—the firm that narrowly won the contract to design
the Bicycle Master Plan.)

Will Lagerwey be replaced? If Sheridan knows, he isn’t saying. “I
don’t have the answer. However, the budget issues the city is facing
obviously create complications.”