One of so many scooters around Denver’s downtown Union Station.
Seattle got out in front of most other U.S. cities when it encouraged private bike share companies to launch their services in summer 2017. The city’s experiment in dockless bike share has been wildly influential on how other cities have embraced so-called “micromobility” services like bike and scooter share. Seattle’s initial permit framework sort of became the template for crafting a framework elsewhere.
And bike share boomed in use in Seattle, even if the profitability of the endeavor is still rather uncertain. Bike share has helped propel biking to record levels across the city, and perhaps has even inspired people to go out and get their own bikes. As we reported previously, bike counts on the Fremont Bridge have continued climbing sharply even as the number of bike share trips plateaued likely due to a reduction in bike fleet size and increase in price.
But while other cities experimented with electric scooter share services, Mayor Jenny Durkan has resisted following suit. So the city is in an odd position as a leader on private bike share, but a hold-out on scooter share. That may all change soon, though, as the city is currently conducting public outreach ahead of a scooter share pilot program set to launch in spring next year.
The city is hosting a public forum on scooter share 6–8 p.m. today (Wednesday) in the Bertha Knight Landes Room in City Hall. You can also provide feedback via this extremely short online survey.
The city’s RapidRide H project on Delridge Way SW is shaping up to be one of the most disappointing so-called “multi-modal” improvement projects in the city. With a huge need for people to bike along this rare, relatively flat and continuous street spanning the neighborhood from the West Seattle Bridge to White Center, the project’s bike elements call for a mix of strange half solutions and downright non-solutions. It would even remove an existing northbound bike lane that serves Chief Sealth High and Denny International Middle Schools.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. By taking advantage of unused road space, the project could be better. And by prioritizing safety over car parking, it could be great.
First, let’s look at the 30% design (large PDF) and talk about the problems that need solving.
The city’s incomplete plan
Under the current plans, the city would build a fairly long bike lane that only goes south. A bike lane that only goes one way isn’t really a thing. It’s half a thing. Trying to go north? Good luck!
Planners are trying to create two very separate bike routes, one for people headed in each direction. This is very unconventional, and not in a good way. The plans also call for attempting to route people biking onto various side streets, often with very steep inclines between those side streets and Delridge if they connect at all. Here’s an overview (note that minor streets are omitted, so there are blocks between these lines that are not shown):
It looks kind of alright on paper if you’ve never been on these streets. But West Seattle is not flat like a map. (more…)
Register to vote online. The online registration deadline in King County is Monday (October 28). So make sure all your friends and family get registered while it is still as easy as signing up online. After that, you can register in-person at King County’s Renton and downtown Seattle Election offices up to and including election day.
If your registration is current, you should have already received your ballot in the mail. If not, go to King County’s My Voter Information site and check that status of your registration and request a replacement.
The single most important vote on this ballot is NO on I-976. Tim Eyman’s deceptively simple initiative is sure to get a lot of votes because it basically asks people if they would like to pay less to register their cars. It does not detail the massive cuts to vital and popular infrastructure maintenance and transit service in communities across the state that this initiative would force, work that voters and elected leaders have already planned and funded. That’s the frustrating thing about these anti-tax initiatives: People are willing to fund improvements when asked about those improvements. But when solely asked whether they want to pay a tax, of course a lot of people will say no. This initiative only asks about the tax mechanism, not the vital work the tax is funding.
This is a long-winded way of saying, this one’s going to be close. We need every single vote we can get. So if you encounter someone who for whatever reason doesn’t care about the rest of the local elections on this ballot, tell them they at the very least need to vote NO on I-976.
For Seattle voters, check out our City Council endorsements:
Yet again, we have a race where neither candidate is great on biking and safe streets issues. But Andrew Lewis is the better of the two, as you can see for yourself in this KCTS clip from a recent Seattle City Club debate:
I gotta be honest, I considered changing my planned Andrew Lewis endorsement to “no endorsement” after reading his comments to Erica C. Barnett in a recent interview, which expand on his stance in the debate video. In the interview, he suggests that the problem with the Missing Link is that there wasn’t enough process. No really. Then he says that he thinks bike lanes in general should go through more process and that it’s “fine” if they are meandering and indirect.
“I’m thinking of specific conversations that have been in the news in other districts, like the Missing Link of the Burke-Gilman Trail and 35th Ave. NE up in Wedgwood. I think that part of the concern in those discussions was that there is broad-based support for connections, but the route that was picked by the city was controversial. I would want to step back and have a little bit more of a process with all the stakeholders and then, at the end, have a recommendation. And it might sometimes lead to a route where I, as a biker, might not find it to be the most convenient route. But if it’s safe, I’ll use it and I’ll be thrilled, and if I have to dogleg over a block, go up, and then rejoin whatever the route is, I’m fine with that.”
First of all, we’ve been arguing about the Missing Link for over two decades. If that’s not enough process for you, then I just don’t know what to tell you.
Second, bike lanes were picked for 35th Ave NE after a significant amount of public outreach both for the paving project and the Bicycle Master Plan. The bike lanes were the solution that met our city’s goals. The route may have been “controversial” to some, but I think we’ve seen that abandoning the city’s goals by cutting those lanes was even more controversial.
The bike lanes were chosen both because it was the only direct and continuous bike route option and because the city needed to make the street safer for all users. Protected bike lanes would have accomplished both of those goals. The 39th Ave NE neighborhood greenway, which bike lane opponents kept pointing to as an alternative, does not connect to the north and is eight very steep blocks out of the way (four there, four back). That is not an alternative, and it’s not “fine.”
There was no amount of process that would have gotten the opponent group on board with the bike lanes. The result of not putting bike lanes on 35th is that people have continued biking there because it is the only direct and continuous option, but now there are no safety enhancements to help them do so. And speeding and dangerous passing is rampant because the road did not receive the safety benefits of having protected bike lanes, which reduce serious collisions for all road users. This is what happens when leaders don’t stand up for our plans and goals.
But to zoom out from this one project, Seattle needs to make a lot of changes to its streets if we are going to connect our city’s bike network and achieve Vision Zero. That requires our leaders to be committed to our safe streets, transit and climate change plans even when the work is difficult. Especially when the work is difficult.
But his opponent Jim Pugel is worse. For example, he spent his entire answer about bike lanes in that City Club debate complaining about how the arena construction project moved the 1st Ave N bike lane to the other side of the street so that they could stage their construction site on top of the old bike lane. The problem? People want to park cars there. So in Pugel’s mind, people biking should be put at increased risk of injury or death during arena construction so that people driving can park more conveniently. Congratulations, Jim Pugel, you’re worse than Andrew Lewis.
I hope Lewis can learn and change his position on essentially sabotaging the bike plan. He bikes, and he talks about needing to build the bike network. I hope he gets ready to bring the level of political leadership that’s going to take.
District 6 should have been an easy call if not for the damn Ballard Missing Link. Dan Strauss says all the right things about biking policy except for the Missing Link. But that’s a big one.
He has his own idea for how the trail could go partially along the rail line as planned and partially on Leary, and he seems determined to push for that despite overwhelming support for the city’s planned, designed and funded route currently tied up in the courts. Almost nobody in Seattle wants to reopen the Missing Link process and argue about it all over again. Over the past two decades, generations of Seattleites have argued about everything there is to argue about, and then some. We just need to build the compromise design we have and move on to other needs.
I know a lot of you can’t imagine voting for someone who, after decades of arguing over every inch of this trail, won’t support the city’s plans to complete it. I don’t blame you.
Unfortunately, his opponent Heidi Wills doesn’t have a good position on the Missing Link, either. She continues to talk about building an extraordinarily expensive and impractical elevated trail. Sure, at first it sounds fun and all to be up high, but the idea immediately falls apart under any scrutiny. It would cost tens of millions of dollars that A: We don’t have budgeted and B: If we were to find would be better spent on other vital bike network gaps with real life barriers to overcome (like waterways, busy rail lines or freeways). Spending that much money to get over a barrier that is purely political makes no sense. Really, an elevated trail is a distraction that would never happen. It’s an excuse to continue failing to complete this gap and make the area safe for biking and walking.
Wills says she supports dedicated bike lanes generally and talks a big game about walking safety.
But beyond all that, Wills already lost this job once following a corruption scandal. I am surprised she has made it this far, since I don’t see how people are so quick to trust her after that. She had her chance on Council, and I don’t see any particularly convincing evidence that she has gone above and beyond to earn another one.
If you somehow manage to ignore the Missing Link, Strauss is great on transportation. He also has had a scary personal experience that informs his strong support for protected bike lanes, as he writes on his campaign website (PDF):
“I know as well as anyone the importance of a connected network of protected bike lanes – I was once hit by a driver and nearly killed while cycling. Cycling in traffic – and even in bike lanes without protective barriers – is intimidating to all but the most experienced cyclists and is unsafe for everyone, including drivers. Creating separate, protected lanes increases ridership – the Second Ave bike lane saw over 4 times as many riders after it was upgraded to a protected lane – and makes biking for work and recreation a viable option for many more Seattleites.”
I take Strauss at his word on this. Unfortunately, that means I also have to take him on his word about the Missing Link. Given the options, I think Strauss is still the best choice. And at least in theory, the Missing Link shouldn’t need to go to the Council again. And even if Strauss really wants to stop it, he would need to convince a majority of the Council to side with him. Of course that’s not impossible, but it’s a pretty tall order.
Look, the fun City Council endorsements are over. Districts 5, 6 and 7 are each fairly disappointing by comparison to 2, 3, and 4. But Seattle Bike Blog is still going to endorse anyway.
Debora Juarez has not been a bold champion for biking. Even though 35th Ave NE is partially within her district, she did nothing to support a good, safe solution out of that big-budget repaving project. And the resulting project is awful. We needed leaders to stand up for the city’s Bike Master Plan and climate change goals. Juarez did not.
I hope Juarez learned something from the 35th debacle. Our city’s safe streets plans, including the Bicycle Master Plan, are bold and need her support. And when Seattle enacts them, they work. We would want to see some clear dedication to taking action on safe streets if we are going to support her next election.
In the end, her final votes have mostly been good, even if she tried at times to water down safe streets efforts. For example, she expressed that she would have supported Councilmember Herbold’s amendment to water down the bike safety ordinance had Herbold not pulled it from consideration. But she still voted yes on the final ordinance.
But all this is only nitpicking because her opponent would be truly terrible. Ann Davison Sattler wants to round up people experiencing homelessness and store them in warehouses. No, really. It’s disgusting and inhumane, and she and her ideas deserve to be defeated by an embarrassing margin this election.
Details from Seattle Parks: On scheduled weekends from May to September, a portion of Lake Washington Boulevard will be closed to motorized vehicles from 10 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday. “Seattle Parks and Recreation[…]
Meet up in the center of the park at 7ish. Leave at 730. Every Thursday from now until forever rain or shine. Bikes, beers, illegal firepits, nachos, bottlerockets, timetraveling, lollygagging, mechanicals, good times.ShareMastodonTwitterFacebookRedditEmail
This is a repeat of my July 6 ride for those that could not make the first offering. Join me for a 5 mile bike ride around Seattle’s current gayborhood (Capitol Hill) and historic gayborhood[…]
Meet up in the center of the park at 7ish. Leave at 730. Every Thursday from now until forever rain or shine. Bikes, beers, illegal firepits, nachos, bottlerockets, timetraveling, lollygagging, mechanicals, good times.ShareMastodonTwitterFacebookRedditEmail
Details from Seattle Parks: On scheduled weekends from May to September, a portion of Lake Washington Boulevard will be closed to motorized vehicles from 10 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday. “Seattle Parks and Recreation[…]
