Alki Point Stay Healthy Street: "Make it permanent!"
- Aug. 27, 2020
Story and photo by Loren Schwartz (Stay Healthy Alki Point)
The change resulting from making Alki Point/Beach Drive a Stay Healthy Street was immediate and transformative.
At once, it made the street safe and inclusive. Prior to the Stay Healthy Street designation, Beach Drive was a route fairly exclusively designed for motorists. It seems planners hadn't anticipated the amount or type of traffic and behavior that these streets and parks were going to experience.
The street closure (to vehicle through-traffic) and opening (to walking, biking, running, rollerskating, skateboarding, and more) has been dramatic and positive to everyone who uses the street and parks. And neighbors in the area are eager to keep it this way.
Folks may not be aware, but neighbors have been clamoring for more street and park safety on Beach Drive for years.
The campaign to make Alki Point a permanent Stay Healthy Street has included multiple community-led steps:
- Creating an online petition, which enabled us to gather names, addresses, and comments from people.
- Using data from the petition to create a presentation and map that clearly demonstrates people from all over the city, and beyond, are using the Stay Healthy Street — and they're loving it!
- In addition, to better tell the people-focused stories of this street, neighborhood volunteers came together to create a video.