By Maureen Hoffmann
President, Walk/Bike (WABI) Burien
A big THANK YOU to the City of Burien Public Works department!
This time, they not only glued road bumps to the sweeping curve, but they doubled the number of feet covered, and made them reflectors, too.
WABI Burien is often working on endeavors behind-the-scenes, for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists. In 2014, I sent a letter to the City Manager, explaining the danger at the sweeping curve just a block down the hill from the hairpin turn (at SW 156th and Maplewild). Here is the bulk of that letter:
For years now, going up around the curve where SW 156th turns back into Maplewild has required one to be on high alert. Routinely, motorists coming down the hill are on or over the line and into the uphill lane.
If it were simply a matter of moving off the road, and onto the shoulder to get out of the way, that’d be one thing. But, there is no shoulder to the road, except the pedestrian walking path, and, right at the edge of the white fog line, the road drops 7”, forming a drainage gutter. A sudden drop into that 7” gutter wouldn’t be as bad as being hit head-on, but it could still cause damage or injury… Motorists cut into the curve and speed once they hit that first straightaway.
…A repetitive string of raised “turtles” or lane marker bumps on the center line would create both an audible and palpable reminder to motorists to get back in their own lane. The boom-boom-boom-boom-boom… when driving over the bumps could not be missed. This seems like a simple and inexpensive solution.
Maplewild serves all the residents of the hillside down to Three Tree Point. It gets a lot of use by motorists, cyclists and pedestrians… If we can address this corner right now, that would be one positive step.
In recent years, all of those road “turtles” had come unglued, and pedestrians had stacked them on top of the guard rail posts. On May 11, I contacted Maiya Andrews, Director of Public Works and asked her about reinstalling the road bumps. She put the project in the queue, and it was completed today! Thank you, City of Burien!
Motorists: Please stay in your lane, and drive at safe speeds along Maplewild’s steep, blind curves.
