King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation have been meeting with community members and business owners in the Luna Park area as part of a collaborative effort to mitigate the impacts of the establishment of Metro's RapidRide C Line service set to debut in the fall of 2012. They have sent a letter to the area merchants and residents that details the changes requested and thus far implemented in the plan.
The merchants have been concerned about the perception of a lack of parking and the potential loss of business as well as the location of the RapidRide bus stop as the West Seattle Herald reported on Feb. 2.

Here is the letter:

Dear Luna Park Merchants and Residents:
King County Metro Transit (Metro) and the City of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) thank you for voicing your concerns about the loss of on-street parking related to the planned northbound transit lane on Southwest Avalon Way between Southwest Yancy Street and Southwest Spokane Street.

As you know, the Avalon transit lane is part of a collaborative MetrolSDOT effort to implement Metro's RapidRide C Line service.

Metro and SDOT have met with community members on numerous occasions during the past six months to discuss and understand your parking concerns. As a result, we have significantly altered the transit lane design to balance local impacts on your area with.the need to improve transit services. We have worked with you to reduce the days and hours of transit lane operations (and corresponding parking restrictions) to the time period that will yield the greatest transit speed and reliability benefits for the most riders. The original proposal was for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and we have reduced that to weekday morning peak hours only. We have also shortened and reconfigured the project to preserve many of the parking spaces across from Luna Park that would have been affected under the original plan.

The parking spaces that will be restricted during weekday morning peak hours have been consistently available to local business customers only since 2009, when SDOT implemented two-hour parking restrictions on the east side of the street in this area.

Prior to that time, the parking was largely occupied by all-day users and thus was unavailable for short-term use. We recognize some of your customers have become accustomed to using these spaces and will have to find alternatives once the transit lane is implemented.

In our effort to further address the needs of businesses and residents, Metro and SDOT have expanded and significantly modified the project scope. The plans now include an extended center left-turn lane to improve access to parking on the west side of the street closest to the commercial area. We have also agreed to create additional on-street parking on the west side of the street by closing one or more unused driveway cuts and
adding new signs to improve the turnover of parking to serve short-term customer parking needs.

Additionally, with this letter we commit to reassessing whether an additional RapidRide stop at the existing northbound stop at Southwest Charlestown Street would be warranted to meet the needs of more riders.

The intent of this and other West Seattle transit priority improvements is to improve the quality of transit and to encourage more people to ride the bus to, from, and within West Seattle, including to the Luna Park area. During the morning peak hours, 75 buses carrying about 1,900 passengers will use the transit lane on an average weekday. Parking restrictions will be implemented on weekdays only from 6-10 a.m., on the east side of Southwest Avalon Way, north of Southwest Bradford Street. The restrictions will affect approximately 355 linear feet of curb space that is now legal for parking at all times of day.

Implementation of the transit lane is consistent with the voter-approved Transit Now initiative that established the RapidRide program. It is also consistent with the City of Seattle's Comprehensive Plan and existing city policies that give transit the highest priority for the use of curb space in the public right of way.

The final design of the transit lane is underway. Some elements of construction activity, including on Avalon, may begin as soon as late spring 2011, with completion about a year later. RapidRide C Line service will begin late in 2012.

We appreciate the creative thinking and time you have contributed to help move this project forward in a way that will balance the needs of your unique community with transit riders. We believe this new proposal addresses those needs and will continue to keep you informed as the project progresses.

Sincerely,

Kevin Desmond
General Manager
Metro Transit Division

Peter Hahn
Director
Seattle Department ofTransportation