Everett Considering Removing Parking Along Majority Of Madison In Favor Of Bike Lanes

In 2023 Madison Street is scheduled to be repaved as part of the annual street resurfacing program in the city of Everett, Washington. Right now, the City is considering eliminating street parking on both sides of Madison between Commercial (at the Interurban trail) to the east and Gateway Terrace on the west. Buffered bike lanes would run in each direction, replacing the current street parking.

The City of Everett has launched a survey that is open until April 18th to get feedback from residents on the plan that is being called Active Connections: Madison Street.

Here’s a bit of background from the city: Street resurfacing is scheduled for Madison Street in the summer of 2023. Crews will grind down and remove old pavement, install new traffic signal detection wires, and repave and restripe roadways. Currently there are intermittent four-foot-wide striped bike lanes on both sides of Madison and intermittent on-street parking. Everett’s Bicycle Master Plan gives the existing bike lanes on Madison a fair rating, which means that these facilities are generally considered too narrow for the traffic volumes on the particular street to be convenient for bicycle travel.

Where there are no bike lanes on Madison, the Bicycle Master Plan proposes building bike facilities as a connection priority, or highest priority, proposed project. Connection priority proposed projects complete gaps in Everett’s existing bike facilities, helping to create a complete network by connecting existing facilities to each other.

Here’s what the city says is the goal of the project: To make it safer and more comfortable to bike on Madison, connecting bicyclists to the Interurban Trail, the upcoming Fleming Bicycle Corridor, and Sievers-Duecy Boulevard. Building buffered bike lanes would make Madison a safer, more protected bike facility, creating a multimodal transportation connection that accommodates a wide range of abilities, confidence and comfort levels of bicyclists.

Again, the survey runs until April 18th.