West Seattle Blog… | SURVEY: Sidewalk/curbside dining and shopping in Seattle – what’s the future, post-pandemic?

(WSB file photo)

In and around West Seattle, the pandemic has seen an expansion in dining and shopping on the sidewalk / roadside. The city will continue to issue free permits for a while – but then has to decide on future policy. They ask for your help through a survey. Here is the announcement and the link to the survey:

As you may know, over the past year SDOT has given local businesses free permits to allow sidewalk cafes, sales displays, and sales carts and carts on our streets and sidewalks. The participating companies have expressed their great appreciation and new applications will be accepted until the end of 2021. This program is designed to help businesses recover from the effects of COVID-19 and the limitations on indoor customer capacity.

We are now planning what will happen when the free approval program ends on May 31, 2022. Will we return for pre-COVID approval with the appropriate design standards, rules, and approval fees? Or are we going to take what we’ve learned from this program and heard from our community and make some changes? Which changes would have the most positive effects and on which communities or on which groups within communities?

As part of our effort to learn more, we created a survey for the general public and business owners. This is only part of our outreach plan, but an important one. … The survey will remain open until August 15, 2021, but please remember to complete it immediately – it is designed to last 10 minutes or less.

Surveymonkey.com/r/CafesDisplaysVendinginPublicSpace