A grassroots organization is looking for interested community members to get involved in their mission to advocate for an improved Aurora Avenue/state Route 99 in Seattle.
Tom Lang, the Aurora Reimagined Coalition’s founder, spoke at the Queen Anne Community Council on Feb. 1 and explained ARC’s history and purpose before discussing projects planned for Aurora Avenue in Seattle.
ARC is an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that formed in 2021 and is made up of neighborhood groups, businesses and residents representing communities along Aurora. Lang said many members are from neighborhood greenways associations.
“We’re really grassroots right now and really trying to keep it like that because we think the most effective thing we can do is gather people together and not try to make it too formal of an endeavor but instead make it organic as much as possible,” Lang said.
Members are interested in an improved Aurora because it touches on a large number of Seattle neighborhoods, including Queen Anne, and influences how people move throughout the city.
“It’s a dividing line for some neighborhoods,” Lang said. “In other neighborhoods, it’s, for lack of a better place, the heart of a neighborhood.”
Its strategy is to bring together the community, public agencies and stakeholders to “catalyze transformative change along the Aurora Avenue corridor” with a vision that:
• Puts people first with an equitable design for all people walking, rolling, biking, riding transit and driving;
• Supports thriving businesses;
• Fosters diverse communities; and
• Mitigates the impacts of climate change and reduces the urban heat island effect, ensuring more people can live and work along the corridor and travel safely to destinations beyond.
“Everyone moves up and down the corridor in some way,” Lang said. “We want to make sure that people are put first and not anything else.”
BUSY CORRIDOR
He said a lot of change is taking place or will take place on Aurora, necessitating a transformation. He said more than 1,000 homes, including multi-story apartment buildings and townhouses, are being built or are approved, and urban villages, like in Bitter Lake and Fremont, will only continue to grow. Lang said the E Line, which travels the corridor, is the “busiest bus line” in the entire state, and 12 public schools and more than 30 preschools and daycares are within a half-mile of Aurora.
“There are hundreds of students that cross Aurora every day, so we need to make those crossings safer and more pleasant for our students and families,” he said.
Lang then spoke briefly about a $2,5 million study for Aurora being conducted by the Seattle Department of Transportation and is funded by the Washington Department of Transportation and SDOT. Because Aurora Avenue is part of the larger state highway, WSDOT must sign off on any improvements, as well.
Lang said Seattle Metro is also a big part of this project and is looking at things that can be done to enhance bus system along the corridor, improve station/bus stop access and lighting, and make the E Line faster and safer.
“I think this is one of the things that can really apply to Queen Anne’s segment in particular,” he said.
Lastly, Seattle Public Utilities and City Light are also interested in making improvements during any construction phases, as well.
“So, people are paying attention to this project,” Lang said. “A lot of different agencies are interested in what’s going to come out of the study, period, and what actually ends up happening.”
Lang said, in addition, there is a $50 million fund for an Aurora Licton Urban Village segment of the highway, from 90th to 105th, that was put into the state budget by the Legislature last year. It will fund a number of projects as a demonstration project of what can be done up and down the corridor in different neighborhoods.
He said ARC is advocating the $50 million demonstration project include ADA accessible sidewalks and crosswalks; bike opportunities for all ages; transit reliability; resiliency in a changing climate; and belongingness/community connection.
“We want to make sure that communities are not divided by the highway, especially if you look at Fremont and Queen Anne, as you are aware, it really does divide the neighborhood,” Lang said. “We want to make sure we can connect the neighborhoods, reconnect them and produce a sense of belongingness in the corridor itself.”
The planning for the $50 million demonstration project will not begin until after the entire $2.5 million corridor study is complete.
EASY IMPROVEMENTS
ARC has identified a few project ideas that could be implemented in the Licton Springs Urban Village, but Lang noted that many things can be done that don’t require reducing lanes of traffic. Some easy improvements could be adding in crosswalks, add pleasant places for people to congregate, plant trees, etc.
There’s a lot of things we can do to fundamentally change the highway but as soon as people hear ‘change,’ they get nervous because change is difficult and strange,” Lang said. “We want people to think of the change as a positive and is all about how we change it.”
He said ARC encourages everyone to “think big” and transformational and not to be afraid of the change, which is coming, regardless. Lang said, based on the growth and the current projects under way and the city-wide interest by organizations and Seattle government departments, ARC thinks it is important to stay ahead of the change and advocate for changes and funding for projects that will benefit the neighborhoods and people living along the Aurora corridor.
“We want to embrace the change and make sure it’s a positive one for everyone,” Lang said.
For its SDOT’s $2.5 million Aurora corridor study, SDOT has divided the Aurora corridor into different segments to study, and ARC has followed the same idea because each neighborhood has different needs and challenges, Lang said. SDOT, however, is looking at the entire corridor as a whole and how everyone moves up and down and across the corridor as a whole, and segment by segment. The study should be complete late next year or 2025. During that time, SDOT should be able to bring 90 percent design to three spot improvements. They won’t be done until more funding become available, but 90 percent design is a big start, Lang said.
In Fremont, Lang said ARC is going to advocate for a spot improvement at the 41st street pedestrian bridge, which needs to be seismically retrofitted. He said ARC members don’t know if the bridge will stay or go, but they think what would be better than a non-accessible bridge is a crossing that knits back together the neighborhood, allowing people to get from one side to the other easily.
QUEEN ANNE
For Queen Anne, Lang said ARC envisions a reconnected street grid, such as a crossing at Raye Street that would allow people to walk or bike safely over to Canlis and on to Thomas Wales Park. People can go down to Lake Union from there. He said people driving would also be able to turn safely on and off from 99 and reduce congestion at the five-way stop. He said Aloha would be another ideal location, as well as Galer.
“So, there’s a lot of things that could be fixed in the Queen Anne neighborhood, but fundamentally, the idea is let’s reconnect the neighborhood and not make Aurora a dividing line in the future like it has been in the past,” Lang said.
Ultimately, Lang said that SDOT and WSDOT will have ultimate authority over any projects that take place along the corridor, and ARC’s function is just to advocate and gather momentum from residents to put pressure on elected officials at the city, county and state levels to fund improvements that SDOT comes up with and to make sure those projects are designs that the community wants to see.
GET INVOLVED
Members of the Queen Anne Community Council will participate in future ARC discussions and invite residents to watch out for outreach to form a working group representing Queen Anne and Uptown.
Coalition members would like more engagement from the community as a whole. Those who have questions, ideas, concerns or would like to join the coalition can email AuroraReimaginedCoalition@gmail.com. People can also join the ARC Google Group, groups.google.com/g/aurorareimaginedcoalition, or attend a volunteer orientation March 16 to participate in upcoming business outreach days.
Visit got99problems.org/ for more information about the Aurora Reimagined Coalition.