Landon Halverson

This is going to be a long rant, but this story pisses me off immensely so forgive me. It stems from another interview today with John Curley. It's eleven minutes long and you can view it here: tinyurl.com/bdhduv78 I've been warning people about SDOT's plans for Eastlake Avenue off and on for years. But now that the project is well underway, what I'm hearing makes it even worse than I thought. Unfortunately , the only people who tend to pay attention to these things are the transit nerds and the MAMILs (Middle Aged Men in Lycra). Or as a friend calls them, the "Spandex Liberation Front." Drivers take what we have for granted and don't pay attention 7ntil it's too late. This was supposed to be another Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, like the one they finally finished on Madison. But what they're doing, and the way they've treated my former neighborhood, is absolutely infuriating. And it comes at an exorbitant cost while any benefits are far outweighed by the costs to the public. It turns out SDOT pulled a bait and switch. Most of this project is actually going to be.... a bike lane. In fact, two bike lanes, one on each side of Eastlake Ave. How are they going to squeeze these bike lanes in there? By permanently removing about 350 parking spots that small businesses there count on. The total cost is projected to be $156 million. $28 million of that will be for replacing a water main. So $128 million goes for the BRT and the bike lanes. But check this out: the bike lanes get the lion's share of the 5.2 mile route (3 miles). Perhaps there are factors I'm not aware of and I'm oversimplifying it, but lets do some back-of-the napkin math. Three miles out of 5.2 is about 58%. 58% of $128 million is $74 million. If my math is right, that works out to nearly $25 million per mile of bike lane. That is an insane amount of money to spend on what is still just 3% of the commuters. That's despite years and years of "investments" in their goddamn bike lanes. Did I mention Eastlake is an arterial and a good backup option when I-5 is slammed with traffic? Back to John Curley. He interviews his buddy who owns the 14 Carrot Cafe, right there by the Zoo Tavern. Both businesses been on Eastlake for many decades. I've had a few meals at the 14 Carrot, and the Zoo is a great dive bar. Since they've already eliminated all the parking spaces, 14 Carrot's owner says that not just his, but all the businesses on Eastlake have been badly hurt by this project. Their sales are down 30% to 45%, and there are almost two years left to go before its complete. Yet during neighborhood meetings, the city and bike activists with outfits like the Cascade Bicycle Club dismissed their concerns and reassured them this wouldn't happen. They also moved all the commercial loading zones off of Eastlake and onto the hill. Imagine trying to deliver kegs of beer to the Zoo now. According to the owner, they basically don't see any bicyclists on Eastlake, as they prefer to bike on Fairview. He mentioned the fact that bikes get stolen constantly here. As John Curley put it, "We don't like to use the word 'stolen.' We like to use the word 'redistributed to a person who needed it more.'" He mentions the BRT project on Madison. That was another three year project, and it had significant cost overruns. SDOT also did a bike lane on Roosevelt Ave years ago and it's impacted those businesses as well. A bunch of small businesses have already left Eastlake because of this project. And the city shrugged and gave them no help. Ah, but this is about "equity" and combating climate change, they tell us. If anything, it is going to make it worse, and not just the pollution from tearing up the street. Cars will be stuck in traffic and idling more, which releases a twice as much CO2 per mile. You can read the remaining part of this post in the comments...

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