Year in Review: A Safe Streets Takeover, Born Out of Love
- Dec. 16, 2014
A glorious summer day in Wallingford. (And my front yard!)
I love Seattle. I love touching the water, seeing our mountains, our year-round growing season. My parsley and kale are still tenaciously holding on. I love how people identify their neighborhoods with a fierce pride—Alki, Licton Springs, Ballard, Beacon Hill.
We live in a beautiful place where we can sense how we belong to the earth. In three years, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has transformed that sense of belonging into a deep conversation about how we can use the 30% of our landscape currently devoted to storing and moving cars into more positive places for people.
As an organization, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has grown from a scrappy group of six neighbors who met in a church basement in 2011, to an advocacy powerhouse with 20 groups and hundreds of volunteers that influence how millions of dollars are invested in safe street improvements.
We work for you. With just a few dedicated staff, we effectively mobilize and support your movement for a safer, healthier, more equitable, more beautiful Seattle.
In 2014, we worked with you, and with the families of Zeytuna, Sandhya, and James St. Clair, to produce seven Memorial Walks and Rides. Together we honored the victims of traffic violence and looked for practical solutions, and we put pressure on the city to adopt Vision Zero—a future free from traffic violence.
We worked with hundreds of you to get nearly 250 miles of safer streets into Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan.
By speaking up during budget hearings and policy events, we worked with you to ensure millions of dollars went into safe, family-friendly street infrastructure.
Most significantly, we worked with you to change the conversation in Seattle—to get your neighbors, elected officials, and transportation officials behind the idea that streets are for all people, not just for cars.
In 2015 we’ll use your generous, tax-deductible gift to Seattle Neighborhood Greenways to keep working with you as we hold Seattle accountable for 20 mph safe speed limits, Vision Zero, and equitable healthy transportation systems in 2015.
It's a family-friendly, local way to invest in a healthier Seattle. Please give generously and Thank You!
With gratitude,
Cathy
Cathy TuttleExecutive Director
Seattle Neighborhood Greenways