M aple Valley is moving ahead with a plan to make it easier for residents to leave their cars in the garage and still get around town.
The Maple Valley City Council last night agreed to place an update to its Non-Motorized Transportation Plan on its consent agenda, which would allow landscape architects to develop the plan this year — with help from the public.
This access walkway to the Green to Cedar Rivers Trail near Lake Wilderness was part of Maple Valley's original Non-Motorized Transportation Plan.
“Everybody complains about the traffic, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem if people had other ways to travel,” Public Works Director Steve Clark said after the council study session.
The idea is to use a series of community meetings, in part, to identify ways to improve access and safety for walkers and bike riders around Maple Valley, says Clark.
“The city’s goal is to develop a livable, walkable community,” he says. “If you could walk or ride your bike to the store … and you don’t have to walk on a goat path next to the freeway, you probably would do that.”
The city initiated its first Non-Motorized Transportation Plan eight years ago, which led to improvements such as the extension of the Green to Cedar Rivers Trail south of Kent-Kangley Road and the access to the trail from Witte Road along with the addition of bike lanes and sidewalks around town.
“A lot has happened since 2004,” Clark says, noting the city’s significant population growth. “There are a lot of new faces and new neighbors that have come in, and maybe their priorities are a bit different.”
Council has already budgeted $100,000 for 2012 to update the plan. The resolution discussed last night would allow the city manager to execute a contract for just under that amount with MacLeod Reckord, a Seattle-based landscape architecture and urban design firm. The firm would develop a plan for the city based in part on input from the public.
Layne Barnes was among several council members who expressed support last night for updating the plan, even asking Clark to encourage the architects to finish by this November, a month ahead of the proposed deadline.
“I’m very glad to see this come forward,” Barnes said. “It’s one of my passions.”
Identifying clearly defined, community-supported priorities for improvements will help the city seek grants and other funding to get the work done, Clark says.
Examples of new projects might include safety improvements along existing trails and sidewalks for children headed to school, for blind people or for wheelchair users, Clark says. It might also mean slowing down vehicle traffic in some neighborhoods.
“You want to have an environment where people feel it’s safe to get out and ride their bikes,” says Clark.
The community might also choose to add new trails, bike lanes and sidewalks to connect neighborhoods with each other or with the Green to Cedar Rivers Trail that bisects the city, Clark says. The trail is “kind of like the main artery, but how are you going to get to it from the neighborhoods?”
Clark stresses this idea of developing non-motorized connectors throughout the city.
“Not very many communities have something like the Green to Cedar Rivers Trail … if you have that you’re light years ahead of everybody else,” he says. The problem is that too many residents need a car to get there safely.
“How do you take that diamond and make sure everybody is connected to it?” he says. “Then you have a community that really is a destination. … As it is you have two state highways and one arterial, but there’s more to Maple Valley than that.”
What improvements to trails, bike lanes and sidewalks would you like to see? Post a comment below.
Want to share this story with neighbors? Click the “share” button below to post it to Facebook OR email the link.
Want to receive an alert when a new story appears in the Post? You have three options: Click the “like” button below to receive alerts on your Facebook newsfeed; click the Twitter icon in the sidebar to follow us on Twitter; OR type your email address in the sidebar (to the right of this story) to receive once-a-day digests of new posts.
This is a great trail in the rough. It is dark however. To promote citizen use it needs to convey safety as well as convenience. I think the first thing that needs to be done is to illuminate the trail till at least 8PM. I would venture a guess and say that a majority of trail users work during the day and use, or would use the trail after getting home. In some places it is very dark by 5PM during the winter, which is a personal safety concern.
The only safe non-motorized north – south route is the Cedar – Green trail. Although there have been some recent crime issues. And that route is gravel.
SR169 & Witte Rd are not options due to traffic and configuration. SR169 isn’t even adequate for the existing motorized traffic. It needs to be 4 laned with sidewalks & bike lanes.
Also, the “Green to Cedar Rivers Trail” name is misleading and inaccurate. It does not connect to the Green River nor will it for a very long time, if ever.
The trail ends just south of Maple Valley at the railroad tracks.
An accurate name is the “Maple Valley – Cedar River Trail.”
I love to walk around my neighborhood but thats as far as I can go because of the lack of sidewalks. I love that maple valley is looking to create more walk able space. Especially given how busy the steets are getting. It isnt safe to walk on the shoulders with so much traffic and as they build out four corners, this will only get worse.
To me, sidewalks and porches say welcome to our neighborhoods and to our homes. Sidewalks are like the Internet and porches are like a Facebook page, allowing us to connect and communicate and socialize with our neighbors. Sidewalks are one of the oldest mediums for social networking, far surpassing fiber, copper, cable and wireless for creating friendly walkable neighborhoods. If sidewalks are built on both sides of the street and go completely around the block they would foster a greater sense of community. They would allow us to take an evening stroll and create an opportunity to talk with our neighbors who may be doing some landscaping or washing their car. They give us the opportunity to introduce ourselves as just living around the corner. They allow our children to roller skate and ride their tricycles safely while neighbors watch out for them. They allow our children to meet up with their friends and walk to school safely. They can be the safe pathways to our city trails and parks. Without them, we certainly are more of a bedroom community. Like broadband fiber, our sidewalks, our roads, our real social mediums, are being neglected.
I would like to see more sidewalks around Four Corners along 169. There are some on one side (the side where Thrive gym is) but there is no sidewalk between Maple Woods and Four Corners. I see kids walking on the shoulder every day. That sidewalk could connect Maple Woods and Barkley Woods and all the other neighborhoods around Glacier Park Elementary to the Safeway shopping area. That is a huge improvement for the area with little investment.
People (lots of kids in the afternoon) are trying to cross 169 at Les Schwab. If there would be a sidewalk, they could just cross at the light of 169 and 276st.
1. Design a Maple Valley, artistic design, bike rack in small, medium and large sizes. Work with a local fabrication company to make these available. Encourage shopping centers and businesses to install these. Consumers will see them and start to realize that there is a place to secure their bikes and may choose riding over driving.
2. Is there a way to easily link the bike trails to the commuter parking lot?
I know we’d walk and especially bike more places if there were more sidewalks and bike lanes. With Witte Road almost no shoulder, almost no sidewalks, lots of curves, etc., not to mention 272nd and 169, it just is not going to happen.
On top of that, most places around here do not have bike racks to lock up your bike.