White Center Community Clashes With County on 16th Avenue Road Project

by Agueda Pacheco Flores

Community voices and perspectives took center stage at last week's meeting of community members and project planners, where County staff working on an upcoming roads safety project struggled to alleviate worries surrounding the changes coming to 16th Avenue Southwest.

Safety improvements along the four-lane road have been needed for some time. The section on 16th Avenue Southwest between Southwest 100th and Southwest 107th Streets is known for speeding. Despite the good intentions surrounding the project, there are concerns regarding the County's transparency, its approach to engagement, and the bike lane design that emerged as the winner of two competing designs. The project has shaken the community, which has historically had to deal with being underinvested in as an unincorporated area.

In an email to the Emerald, a spokesperson for King County wrote, "the goal of the project is to make it safer for community members to cross the street by slowing speeds and increasing pedestrian crossing visibility. Bike lanes do slow traffic speeds."

Helen Shor-Wong, anti-displacement program manager at the White Center Community Development Association, said the project brings up fear of gentrification as well as questions surrounding whether these spaces will remain with BIPOC business owners, especially when so many businesses were lost due to the fires in 2021.

"[The community business owners] were looking into the proposal and what did they see? They saw, as people who are investing or trying to invest in the area, that there was no parking on their side of the street due to this plan, and I think that's sort of a shock to the system," Shor-Wong said.

Discussions at the County level about improving the 16th Avenue Southwest passage began in 2021. According to data provided by the County, there were more than 20 pedestrian-involved collisions on the street between 2011 and 2023. In 2022, the County began its engagement campaign with the community via outreach, mailers, and an online survey. At the time, the County provided two options: one design with bike lanes and parking confined mostly to the east side of 16th Avenue and one design with more parking on both sides of the thoroughfare. Shor-Wong said the original two designs still provided more parking, but the later bike lane design reduced parking. The final proposal was revealed earlier this year, with construction set to start in the summer of 2025.

The bike lanes have come under serious fire from the community, particularly the businesses along 16th Avenue Southwest. The design has also inadvertently pitted cyclists and business owners against each other.

At the White Center Food Bank, nearly all the seats were taken by the time the meeting began at 6:30 p.m. The meeting was moderated by Kimnang Manickam-Seng, a prominent figure in the local White Center community. As recently as last week, Manickam-Seng penned an op-ed for the West Seattle Blog outlining the issues around the County's engagement with the project.

"This project raises important questions about whose needs are being prioritized and whether community engagement is genuinely influencing outcomes in White Center," he wrote.

At the meeting, though the County tried to steer the community toward discussing the slides being presented, audience members took charge. One community member (who did not identify themself) asked whether there had been any study conducted to compare safety in Capitol Hill's Pike and Pine bike lanes, which share a similar design and have resulted in safety problems of their own.

Another member asked how the County was making sure the survey was representative of community needs, to which King County's Roads Services Division Director Tricia Davis responded that surveys aren't perfect.

Another community member, Amy Bovenkamp, who has a business and owns property along 16th Avenue Southwest, pointed out that the community has asked for better sidewalks, and yet the new design does not change the width of the sidewalks. She also corrected County staff, who identified the funds as coming from a state grant when in fact the $1.9 million comes from federal COVID relief money, the national Highway Safety Improvement Program, and local funds.

"This feels like a federal money grab that feels misguided," Bovenkamp said to cheers and claps.

The owner of Rat City Bikes, which is located at the intersection of Southwest Roxbury Street and 16th Avenue Southwest, Aaron Goss, chimed in during the meeting to show his support for the bike lanes.

"I have customers from all races, colors, and creeds," he said, adding that study after study have shown bike lanes improve pedestrian safety.

Anh Nguyen, who owns John's Hair and Nails, a legacy business on the street slated for improvements, said he never heard about the project until the final design had been released. "It doesn't make any sense to us," he said.

A recording of the community meeting has yet to be released on the project website, but the County's slide presentation from the July 24 community meeting has been posted.

White Center community members can continue to provide feedback on the project through the County's survey, available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Khmer, until Aug. 7, 2024. The County plans to share the latest project survey results and additional updates in mid-August.

📸 Featured Image: White Center residents and small business owners turned out for a meeting with King County on Wednesday, July 24, raising concerns about the traffic safety project design along 16th Avenue Southwest, a main thoroughfare in the neighborhood. (Photo: Agueda Pacheco Flores)