pedestrian

A small white bus seen from the side. There's a logo on the side with the tagline "Little cities, little buses. SVT does rural right."

Action Alert — Car-Free Access to King County Parks and Trails

King County transit trekkers! Please take about 10 minutes to e-mail King County Executive Dow Constantine to support the inclusion of transit access in the next county parks levy. Here’s the what and the why, followed by the how.

I am fortunate and endlessly pleased to live in a region that has so many parks and trails, and a growing regional network of railtrails. While it is often challenging to reach some of those places, it’s always worth it. King County Parks has been doing a great deal of good work, and I’ve seen small changes that mean a lot to me. For example, their park maps increasingly feature information about nearest transit routes and stops.

The next parks levy can fund much more impactful features for nondrivers and the many of you who would happily leave the car behind if it were easier to figure out how — or if — it is even possible. Now is the time to tell the county exec that’s what you want. A few quick facts for background:

  • A county parks levy gets proposed to King County voters every 5 or 6 years.
  • The current levy expires in 2025 and the new levy will go up before voters in August of 2025 (or maybe November? But, in 2025 for sure.)
  • The levy makes up about 80 percent of the total budget for King County Parks.
  • According to this overview of the current (2020-25) levy, two of the four stated main goals for that levy are
    • Make Parks and Recreation More Accessible
    • Improve Regional Trails and Mobility
  • King County Executive Dow Constantine plays a key role in shaping the levy that will go to voters.
  • While the official “engagement” process has concluded, you can still e-mail Constantine to tell him you want transit access to our parks to be a key part of the levy that will go on the ballot in August of 2025.

Plagiarize This

Here’s a quick e-mail I put together for you to borrow liberally from when you e-mail the county executive. There are a bunch more points that can be made about climate and traffic safety and salmon, and you should include those in addition or in lieu of what I’ve offered here if you want to. Short is probably better, but I’ve never let that stop me and it should not stop you. It’s smart to include mention of Trailhead Direct because the county executive has championed that program.

When you write, feel free to bcc me at hithere AT transittrekker.com

Email: kcexec AT kingcounty.gov

Subject line: Our next parks levy must invest in transit access to our parks and trails

Body:

Dear Executive Constantine:

I am a King County Voter writing to urge you to ensure that the next parks levy invests heavily in transit and nondriver access to our county parks and trails.

[Here, write a sentence or two about why this is personally important to you. For example, I will write: I have never had a driver’s license. I am pretty resourceful about getting out on our fantastic regional trails and to our parks — but it’s much harder than it should be.]

A significant percentage of our population cannot drive or does not have access to a car, and those of us in that category are more likely to be low income, people of color, or people with disabilities. Two of the four goals of the current parks levy relate directly to this: 1) making parks and recreation more accessible and 2) improving regional trails and mobility.

Here are a few key things that relate to these goals that I hope to see addressed in the next parks levy:

[REVISED to reflect new weekend service to Tolt MacDonald.] Until this month, August 2024, neither of the County’s two camping parks in county system had weekend transit access: Maury Island Marine Park on Maury Island and Tolt MacDonald Park in Carnation. Thanks to the hard work of Snoqualmie Valley Transportation, weekend service is launching this month. Weekends are peak recreation time, especially for working families. The next levy could fund, in whole or part, weekend transit service to these parks or to trail systems near these parks, and, in the case of Maury Island Marine Park, more direct transit service to the park entrances. It could also fund more direct service (“one-seat” rides, for example) from regional transit hubs to these parks. Trailhead Direct has been a wonderful program — not to mention incredibly popular. Please build on that interest and success via the next levy. It would be a boon for communities and visitors to extend its service to year-round.

Many transit stops are within reasonable walking or rolling distance from parks, but lack safe routes, forcing people to walk or bike on road shoulders, which are often very narrow, creating another barrier to access for those who cannot drive (or for those who would prefer not to). The levy should identify these transit stops and hubs and develop a plan to fund and build safe walk/roll routes to parks. In many cases it might be possible to do this as part of existing plans for trail enhancement or expansion so that our trail system works in tandem with our transit system to create broad access to our parks.

Finally, parks communications should expand efforts to highlight transit and non-motorized access to parks and trails. For example, maps at trailhead and parks kiosks should prominently identify nearest transit stops as well as transit hubs within a given distance to the trailhead. And, the levy should fund an ongoing communications campaign that highlights transit access to our parks and trails and encourages residents to use these climate-friendly as well as people-friendly ways to enjoy our parks and trails.

Increasing transit access and safe routes to and between our parks and trails is one of the best investments we can make for equitable and sustainable access to our parks system, so I encourage you to put forward a parks levy that puts robust resources into these features.

Thank you/Sincerely/Etc.

The featured image on this post is a Snoqualmie Valley Transit bus on layover in Carnation, WA. The bus stops within a couple of blocks of a trail that leads directly into Tolt MacDonald Park, a bountiful King County park that has lots of camping options but that was not served by weekend transit at all, until a few weeks after I wrote this post.

Action Alert — Pedestrian Access on the Bridge of the Gods

While house-sitting this week in Hood River, OR, I took the bus to Cascade Locks to check out transit hiking conditions at the southernmost Washington trailhead of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). My assessment? Mixed. And in some cases — decidedly not great. And a lot of that is because you have to cross the Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia River to continue on the PCT, whether you are traveling northbound or southbound.

I did some preliminary digging to see if I could understand why authorities have not done the most minimal separation — simple concrete curbs and a few flex posts? — to afford pedestrians real space while crossing the bridge. I didn’t find the fulll answer to that question, but did find that there is local support for a pedestrian bridge, some preliminary funding and studies were secured, but due to some byzantine federal rules about toll bridges (vehicle drivers pay tolls) the pedestrian bridge addition is on indefinite hold. As I said in my Twitter thread, I don’t know numbers for locals who cross the bridge on foot, but I do know that in 2023 people should not have to walk in a lane of traffic to cross a major river.

Just a couple weeks ago, the Pacific Crest Trail Association published a Call to Action to urge legislators in both Oregon and Washington to fund the bridge. It’s a short read and easy to sign on. Please sign and share.