You’re probably seen the new all-way intersection at 19th Ave E and E Lynn St near St. Demetrios Greek Church, which includes stop signs, sidewalk restoration, curb ramps, and other changes, some of which are still in progress. (In case you missed it, here’s a sheet from the city describing the new intersection.) These changes, which were years in the making, should go a long way to speed calming and pedestrian safety in Montlake once completed. At press time, landscaping and street striping are still to come.
The Montlake Community Club extends a big thanks to the entire community for your advocacy in making this happen. In particular, our thanks go to Montlake resident Lionel Job and former resident Rainer Metzger for their work as the Montlake Greenways group, which Lionel started in 2011. Later they both joined the MCC Board. Under the Greenways umbrella, Lionel and Rainer worked to improve both 23rd & Boyer and 19th & Lynn by canvasing neighbors for support and tireless advocacy. Rainer applied 19th & Lynn to the city’s Large Neighborhood Street Fund program in late 2012 which eventually failed at the Neighborhood District Council level months later. He applied again in 2013, and again the district council favored other proposals over Montlake’s. But in the meantime, the Greenways team brought the 19th and Lynn proposal to Brian Dougherty, who ran the Safe Routes to School Program at Seattle Department of Transportation; Brian agreed it was a city priority for improvement, and for that, we are all very thankful. Brian designed the new configuration and was able to find other city funding internally and put the project in SDOT’s long queue of street works… and five years later here we are. Rainer now lives downtown and told the Flyer he is happy to hear the project is near completion.
Click the image to see the city’s sheet about the intersection
Carolyn Janko says
This is a great change to our neighborhood! I don’t know how many times I’ve barely missed being in an accident while trying to turn left from 19th onto Lynn when returning to my home on E Howe St. We still have a quite a way to go, however, with all of the pass-through drivers taking shortcuts through our Montlake neighborhood. I’m hoping for “10MPH Residental Street” allocations to our neighborhood. The “speed” bumps barely make a difference.
kclayman says
Please all send your comments about things you’d like to see to Montlake.traffic@seattle.gov so that the city can keep track of what we would like.