The intersection of NE 55th Street, Ravenna Boulevard NE and 22nd Avenue NE will be seeing some improvements soon. The intersection will be reconfigured to be safer for pedestrians. New pedestrian ramps will be added and the crosswalks will be restriped. SDOT has a PDF of the new design, which also includes a bioswale and new green space. This project is being funded by Bridging The Gap and the Neighborhood Projects Fund.
Though described primarily as a pedestrian improvement, these changes will make the intersection safer and easier to navigate for all users. I don’t imagine anyone enjoys navigating that intersection now, whether they’re on foot, on a bike, or in a car.
Either way, it’s kind of ironic that these old streetcar intersections, which at one point were integral to non-vehicular transportation in Seattle, are now such a liability to non-vehicular users due to their huge size and odd angles. I hope SDOT does more of these sorts of projects. The paint, Bott’s dots and delineators that they’ve relied on for decades don’t do much at all to cut these sorts of intersections down to size—we need more curbs and concrete like this.