It’s time for the weekly bike news roundup. If I missed anything, let me know in the comments below. This is an open thread.
First up, look who was spotted with a bike in Seattle:
Pacific Northwest News:
- Wheelha.us | Home is where your bike is – New Seattle family biking blog!
- food hipster 206 seattle lifestyle and food blog , Six Strawberries Hook Up Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Fans – Macklemore buys fans bike-delivered ice pops.
- MadPark Greenways (Mpgreenways) : Montlake Hub missing links
- West Seattle Blog… » Video: North end of Delridge Way SW, rechannelized
- Officials: Road rage leads to bike, Jeep crash | Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
- Eastlake Ave. | The DUCK is planning to land in your back yard; what you can do – Should we be concerned about the Ducks moving to Fairview Ave E have a negative effect on the Cheshiahud Loop?
- Club election results « Cascade Bike Blog
Halftime show! Check out this old-timey Seattle traffic footage:
— Advertisement —
National & Global News:
- How Not To Design A Separated Bike Lane : TreeHugger
- What Went Unsaid at Last Night’s Debate | Streetsblog New York City
- Why the sedentary life is killing us – The Globe and Mail
- There IS a Bicycle Economy, Two Cities Find : TreeHugger
- Boston’s Over-the-Top “Bike Safety” Campaign | Streetsblog.net
- Bikeleague.org Blog » (Infographic) Bike Commuting Growing Faster in Bicycle Friendly Communities
- How Lance Armstrong Beat Cycling’s Drug Tests – NYTimes.com – We don’t really write about doping, but this story is ridiculous.
Comments
13 responses to “Bike News Roundup: David Byrne with a bike in Seattle”
love the video! But it’s remarkable how few PEOPLE show up – the guy in the suit jacket and hat running the weird paving machine… somebody on a motorcycle in Fremont which I thought at first was a bike – and then at the end all the little kids in the wading pool. Where did you find this? Were there dates attached? Sad to see that cars took over our city so long ago!
So we’re celebrating the Linden Ave. Cycletrack as the city’s first. But is it, really? I don’t know there’s a reasonable definition of “cycletrack” that includes that and excludes a short section of the BGT that parallels Northlake near Gas Works Park. Or that excludes the parts of the beach path around Alki (the one you can’t ride in when the weather is nice because too many people are walking and skateboarding in it).
There’s at least a case for calling parts of the Duwamish Bikeway along West Marginal Way a cycletrack, a case for calling some of the northern parts of the BGT and Sammamish River Trail cycletracks (though they aren’t in Seattle proper), a case for calling the western end of the BGT a cycletrack, and maybe a case for calling the BGT along Pacific in Wallingford (but not east of I-5 — after that it’s definitely a trail) a cycletrack. These are maybe weaker cases. But the Cedar River Trail in Renton is definitely a cycletrack, albiet one with an asenine 10 MPH speed limit, and there are cycletracks along parts of Garden Ave N, N 8th St, and Logan Ave N in Renton.
The Linden Ave Cycletrack will be… the first cycletrack of significant length (almost a mile) with regular intersections? Or just the first cycletrack built since the term “cycletrack” made it to America?
(Mostly, the point of this post is to recognize that bike infrastructure, like history, didn’t start yesterday, and that projects quite similar to the Linden Ave Cycletrack have already been done around here.)
There’s a marked and raised cycletrack on Brooklyn Ave NE between NE Pacific St and NE 40th St. It’s somewhat defunct at this point, but a good reminder of where we once were in this city. Anybody know the story behind it?
http://goo.gl/maps/inxjI
I’ve biked past there dozens of times and never once noticed that. Seriously great catch! Since it’s split across the roadway by direction of travel and up on a curb, I guess I’d classify it as a protected bike lane implemented on the sidewalk, but it’s certainly in the category of ingenious uses of road space for bike facilities. It’s probably quite usable at low speeds (assuming it’s not blocked), though having a downward curb as your edge is not really ideal (most sidewalk-level cycletracks have some buffer between the path and the curb), and wouldn’t meet today’s standards.
Wait, that’s supposed to be a cycle track? There are road signs and things in the middle of it. I wonder if the city/UW could clean it up, move the signs out of the way and sign/paint it to make it official.
Could be worth pursuing in the future, perhaps as a broader conversation about a vision for the entire Brooklyn corridor. Right now there’s so much construction in the area that even a spruced-up cycletrack wouldn’t have a ton of value.
I’m confused. Are you referring to the extra few feet of sidewalk between the trees and the roadway? That just looks like a road-narrowing project to me. Is it actually marked/signed somewhere as being for bikes?
New post up on Central Seattle Greenways blog about the destruction of the UW and University Link southern bikeshed due to the new SR-520 plans: http://centralseattlegreenways.com/2012/10/sr-520-design-will-discourage-walking-and-biking-to-the-uw-and-university-link/
From all the diagrams I saw it looked like you’d have plenty of options to get across 520 that didn’t involve the dark, sketchy Arboretum path. Is there no way across on the “lid”? Is 24th Ave E going away?
Excellent questions Mr. Dimond!
As currently design the bicycle paths are routed underneath the highway on the east and the west. The trails on top of the lid are currently designated as soft surface pedestrian only (page 25 of this PDF http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9B962F85-DC6A-425F-8B11-28343C86BB57/0/2012_0914_SCDP_DraftReport_Chapter5_GeographicAreas.pdf). It is possible to reconfigure the lids/lid paths to accomodate both biking and walk in a direct and safe manner.
Why not 24th? 24th ave e, while a pretty good bike route now, will be considerably worse after WSDOT is done building the new interchange. 24th will serve as both a car off ramp and as a turning and cross street for two lanes of HOV and bus traffic. 24th is going to see considerably more traffic and perhaps more importantly will be a major on/offrap area for the new interchange (page 31 of the pdf above). Non but the fast and fearless bikers and the brave pedestrians will want to use the new 24th ave unfortunatley.
David Byrne doesn’t appear to be wearing a helmet. Although he is walking his bike, so his helmet could be in his other hand.
In the video attached to this NYT opinion piece from earlier this year, he says wears his helmet when he’s in “perilous city traffic”, but when he feels safe he doesn’t feel the need. Of course, that’s in his hometown; maybe he doesn’t bring the helmet on tour.
As a serious biker, he should know the helmet laws of the cities he is planning on biking in. Although as a serious biker, he should just always wear a helmet.