Take this Bellevue Vision Zero survey from Eastside Urbanism

Community advocacy group Eastside Urbanism is running an online survey right now to help them identify the top community priorities they should push for in their advocacy for a stronger Vision Zero Action Plan in Bellevue.

A majority of Bellevue's City Council shamefully bent the knee to demonstrate loyalty to their true boss the landowner Kemper Freeman Jr. by kneecapping the city's Bike Bellevue and Vision Zero plans back in 2024. It was a horrible insult to the public to see their elected leaders throw out years of public outreach and the work of their own professional staff in order to appease the desires of one or two major landowners at the direct expense of the public's safety, but this work is too important to give up. People who care about their neighbors have continued to organize and push for the city to improve safety and accessibility for everyone in Bellevue.

The Eastside Urbanism survey goes through some of the potential infrastructure and policy solutions the city could implement and asks respondents to rate them by importance from 1-5. I was going to note some of my suggested answers in this post, but then I changed my mind. I am interested to see how familiar folks are with each of these concepts and to see their takes on them without my prodding.

I sort of hate when city project teams send out surveys like these asking the public for their thoughts on vastly different types of interventions because I don't think the public should need to have an understanding of technical design concepts. Regular people don't know which intervention has better safety outcomes in different situations, and they shouldn't have to. That's a job for a professional who is up to date on accepted safe designs and has been tasked with prioritizing safety above all else.

However, it is useful to know in general how people feel about each of these sometimes esoteric infrastructure concepts. This information could also let advocates know which quality interventions need to be better explained to the public. I look forward to seeing the results.