Broadway Street Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge Needed to Connect Neighborhoods to the Waterfront

Dan Burwell and his family live in the Columbia Neighborhood. He participates in the Bellingham Sustainable Transportation Roundtable.

Editor’s Note: The former Georgia-Pacific property was initially called New Whatcom. Since the draft environmental impact statement was issued, the name has been changed from New Whatcom to The Waterfront District.

The city of Bellingham has an ambitious and laudable goal of reducing the percentage of trips by car and increasing the proportion by walking and bicycling. “According to the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS)...commuting both to and from work constituted only 19 percent of all daily trips...” (Downs 2004). If our city follows national statistics, this means approximately 80 percent of travel trips within our city are for recreation, shopping and other errands. Most of these trips can be moved out of the car and onto the sidewalk or bicycle path if more priority is given to pedestrian and bicycling facilities.

If car travel-promoting facilities such as parking lots and structures and extra car bridges are the priority for waterfront development and redevelopment, then more traffic and less walking and bicycling will result. That is why it is important to re-think some of the current transportation priorities for New Whatcom (formerly Georgia-Pacific) redevelopment. Thanks to Wes Frysztacki for informing us about some of the problems and fallacies associated with the massive amounts of parking proposed by the Port of Bellingham for New Whatcom (Whatcom Watch, June 2009, page 4). A broader look at access to the waterfront, developed and redeveloping, is needed.

Do you want to visit Zuanich Park, dine at a Squalicum Harbor restaurant or stroll down to New Whatcom from the Columbia, Lettered Streets, Cornwall Park, Sunnyland and Birchwood Neighborhoods? You currently have a choice of two routes. One is to follow the Eldridge-Holly corridor to F Street and then cross several tracks, hoping that a freight train won’t make you wait for many minutes. The other is to go west on Eldridge to Seaview Ave, a short, steep, winding access road unfriendly to pedestrians, baby strollers and bicycles that takes you onto the rutted and potholed end of Roeder Ave at the east end of Little Squalicum Park.

The railroad and bluff present a great divide between the neighborhoods and the waterfront. Constructing a pedestrian-bicyclist bridge would cost millions less to build than any of the several car bridges proposed for New Whatcom. It could deliver large numbers of nearby neighbors to the waterfront with greater safety and comfort than other existing or proposed facilities. This pathway has great potential as a community connection to waterfront parks, shopping, a new aquarium and other transportation options including buses, trains and ferries,in addition to cars. It could also promote pedestrian and bicycle use with connecting trails east and south through the waterfront area to Boulevard Park, Taylor Dock, Fairhaven, Post Point and Larrabee State Park via the old Interurban Trail.

City residents need to keep pushing for pedestrian and bicycle facilities. The emphasis on parking spaces and road alignments is too dominant. Accessibility via intermodal transportation options is paramount to a successful redevelopment of the waterfront.

Bellingham has the opportunity to be at the forefront of national transportation planning and design in promoting a more holistic and efficient way of getting places. America’s over-dependence on the car is too heavily accommodated in current planning. Walking and bicycling are not just for exercise. Walking and bicycling are good ways to commute, shop, and visit parks and people. Providing these options via routes accessible to pedestrians and bicyclists will provide better access for all, including less congestion for cars. “Better” means:

• More direct non-motorized routes

• More efficient land use (a bike/ped path is 12-feet wide; a 2 lane arterial is at least 24-feet wide)

• Less energy consumed

• Less pollution generated

• More transportation options to choose from

Promoting alternative transportation by constructing connections such as a Broadway pedestrian-bicyclist bridge and pathways for non-motorized transport will encourage our community to be healthier. It will also encourage a better appreciation of the beauty of our city.

For examples of recent pedestrian access bridges, check out the Missoula, Montana Pedestrian Bridge crossing the rail lines connecting downtown areas to the Clarkson River (see link below). The trail and bridge system between Santa Monica and Culver City California is another example of pedestrian connection between two central city areas, one with a waterfront. Stockton California’s pedestrian bridges link the city’s event center with a new marina.

These examples should be examined when deciding how best to plan for intermodal transportation options for our city. The Columbia, Lettered Streets, Cornwall Park, Sunnyland and Birchwood Neighborhoods need a pedestrian and bicycle connection bridge to and from the Waterfront. §

• Missoula, Montana’s Pedestrian Bridge: See example 3 at http://www.pedestrians.org/bridges.html

• National Household Travel Survey http://nhts.ornl.gov/publications.shtml#reports

• Downs, Anthony. Still Stuck In Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion. Revised. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004. Print.