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The case of the disappearing bike rack, solved
From the “in case you wondered too” file: Dave emailed to ask what happened to the on-street bike rack on the northwest corner of California/Oregon, by Dumplings of Fury and its north neighbors. He used it to park on Sunday, April 27, but found the rack missing this past Sunday. Our photo from yesterday shows the bicycle marking on the street but the rack (and other infrastructure) missing; here’s what it looked like in a 2023 Google Street View image:
First we asked the West Seattle Junction Association if they were aware of the removal. They weren’t. So we then asked SDOT, which is accountable for installing and maintaining these racks; spokesperson Mariam Ali checked around and then replied to us Tuesday, “Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We didn’t remove the bike rack at the northwest corner of SW Oregon and California SW, and we’re not sure what happened to it. Our crews will install a replacement.”
However, when we took a closer look at the scene Wednesday before writing the story, we thought there had to be more to it – couldn’t have been a metal theft, as the wheel stops and bollard were gone too. So we asked SDOT about it again, wondering if they had cross-referenced all the permit filings in the area, etc. That turned out to be the key, said spokesperson Ali:
After receiving your follow-up question, I connected with another team we hadn’t checked with earlier and confirmed that the bike rack was removed as part of the construction project at 4448 California Ave SW to accommodate traffic rerouting in their traffic control plan. Once construction is complete and they’ve completed any restoration work, they’ll reinstall the bike rack at the same location.
Concurrent with that update from SDOT, WSJA told us they’d just received the same explanation. So bottom line: The bike rack on the northwest corner of California/Oregon was removed as part of the mixed-use project on the northeast corner (background is in our coverage of its groundbreaking), but will be reinstalled when construction is complete (expected next year).