- LADOT makes the case for road diets using good graphics to help explain that the new design benefits people using ALL modes of transportation.
- You know our nation’s best scenic bike routes need? Giant too-wide-for-the-road trucks hauling oil refinery equipment.
- SDOT rocked the grant process in 2010, bringing in $87 million. One of those grants will bring the W Thomas St. pedestrian and bike bridge to fruition, so that’s rad.
- Handmade bikes.
- Every year, a group of Cherokee cyclists retrace the Trail of Tears.
- Immigrants in LA are often cyclists, but they are often invisible in the cycling community.
- Streetsblog gives Seattle kudos for pursuing a “rational” pay parking structure based on demand. Speaking of free parking, it’s an environmental disaster in it’s own right.
- A horse silhouette for your bike?
- Cycle & Style’s list of the top ten advances in cycling in the past decade.
- Cycling is up 70 percent along London’s new bike superhighways.
- Do you ride in Mountlake Terrace? The city wants your feedback on the bike lanes on 236th Street SW.
- The P.I. asks: What the deal with cars in bike lanes?
- This summer, Apple will announce that all new Macbooks will come with bicycle generators… (we can always dream)
- The Bicycle Story interviews Sally from Raleigh.
- New crosswalk paint at University and 1st. Publicola wants more of it, though (I dunno if it’s so bad).
This is an open thread. What’s on your mind? Remember when it was snowy for like three hours? That was cool.
Comments
3 responses to “Bike News Roundup: Nothing says ‘scenic’ quite like oil refinery equipment”
Thanks for the kind words! The City of Fresno, CA also has some great resources on road diets., albeit less bike oriented.
Mountlake Terrace? Why that street is just up the uhm street from my place. I went to look at it last night on a dog food run and went opposite way by mistake So I’ll try and go again Sunday when I get back from a parts run down to Minneapolis West. Heck I’ll even take some blurry pics to share.
So this sorta goes with something I wanted to do after I, for the first time since I moved out there a few years ago went outside of the apartment to do more than just walk across the street to the bus or ride down the hill to BG for my commute to work.
This is the first time I have ever lived outside of a city core in a world where you are expected to drive for anything beyond the end of the driveway. When I come home I pass the 24 gym with a packed parking lot and everyone walking on a machine looking out of the window. I have spent my life not understanding the appeal of walking on a machine during day light in an affluent neighborhood, not that bad don’t happen in nice neighborhood it’s just lower percentages.
Well I set out on New Years day not because it was New Years it was just one of my days off. Started by using the two blocks of new bike lanes in front of the apartment, what a great start, open door, mount bicycle in the new bicycle lane and set off. There is only two blocks of this bike lane which just ends because of the lanes needed to funnel cars onto Ballinger Way and the I-5 ramps. Hop on the sidewalk as there is no shoulder and self preservation is a must for me so no taking a lane as that would just put out in a 45 mph zone with the crazy jockeying you have to do to hit the ramps. So Half a block of sidewalk and then that’s it, back the half block to a crosswalk where there could be a sign saying that it ends but that costs money and lord knows what kind of impact study fees associated with informational sign placement. Okay a couple of minutes and I’m across and heading to the next crosswalk to get to the otherside of Ballinger so I could cross under I-5 and head to the Interurban which I had not been on yet. Well it is really really long no I mean really long light. To get to the other side of the freeway It is 4 walk signals and four “you are on your damn own” to get across on/off ramps. That whole process was just under 15 minutes of serious unpleasentness to get back on the side of Ballinger with a what is called a sidewalk, super narrow blacktop that has big linear slip cracking so night time would be all kinds of suck. Once across the last off ramp crossing and onto the “sidewalk” again no I will not take a lane in 45mph traffic. The last crosswalk signal timed just right for me so no waiting to cross back over Ballinger one last time which is the 3rd time in less than a mile. Whew onto the Interurban in a lovely forested path up the hill. There was one more little side streetish connector to the rest of the trail but it is marked/signed and has a proper bike lane Yeah! For the stretch of trail I was on there was only one place that had no signage at the end of the path but it is under construction and signage is probably still to be placed although temp signage would be usefull.
I have now traveled a block in suburban shoes and I definitely won’t be going back that way and now have a better understanding of walking on a maching looking out of the window. Who enjoys lovely walks in the neighborhood with no sidewalks or at the bare minium very unsafe ones and there is just simply crossing the street, sheesh I can’t wait to move back into the city!
Indeed!
Shoreline/Mountlake Terrace is not a friendly place when you aren’t behind a windshield.
I’ve taken 236th across I-5 in the past to get to the interurban, and it’s a little friendlier than 205th, but not much. Don’t try riding through the golf-course – they get pissy.
The interurban kinda peters out and restarts a few times going north, and it’s right under high-tension power lines. Not exactly pleasant.
Going south is better, now that they’ve made some attempt to finish it. Actually haven’t ridden the whole thing since they finished it, as I moved out of shoreline and back into the city – so I could ride more!
Good luck.