Seattle Bike Blog

Trail Alert 11/7-9: Burke-Gilman Trail crosswalk and entrance work in Kenmore

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 5, 2019

King County Parks crews will repaint crosswalks and removing bollards at a set of Kenmore-area trail entrances starting Thursday and lasting as long as Saturday.

The trail will not be completely closed, but expect delays getting through worksites.

Details from King County Parks:

People out on the Burke-Gilman Trail should expect some delays along the Kenmore section due to scheduled repairs. Trail access striping replacement at three sites and bollard removal at one site will be completed over the course of 3 days beginning this Thursday, November 7, 2019.

Flaggers will be on-site during work hours from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to help users navigate any obstacles. Cyclists may be asked to dismount their bikes and walk through work zones for safety.

tags: Bike Route Alert

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Trail Alert 11/7-9: Eastrail closed near Sound Transit construction

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 5, 2019

The Eastrail will be closed later this week near the under-construction Sound Transit light rail station in north Bellevue. The detour has folks leaving the trail near the South Kirkland Park and Ride and taking Northrup Way and 120th Ave NE to Spring Blvd.

Only a short stretch of trail next to the site is closed, but the long detour is needed to get folks around it because freeway hell really limits the bike route options (also why a complete Eastrail will be so great some day).

Details from Sound Transit:

Starting on Thursday, November 7, Sound Transit’s Contractor Hensel Phelps, will be closing a small portion of the Eastrail in Bellevue, for three days, near the construction site of the Operations and Maintenance Facility on 120th Avenue NE. The closure is needed to connect the mainline track of East Link to the rail yard of the Operations and Maintence Facility in Bellevue.

What

Three-day trail closure and detour

When

Thursday, November 7 – Friday, November 8
Saturday, November 9 (if necessary)

Where

Eastrail near the Operations and Maintence Facility East construction site on 120th Avenue NE in Bellevue. (see map on reverse)

More Information

(more…)

tags: Bike Route Alert

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For some reason, we are still adjusting our clocks so that evening commutes are in the dark

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 4, 2019

Washington, Oregon and California have all passed laws saying that they are ready to switch to permanent Daylight Saving Time, but we still need to meaninglessly and abruptly plunge the evening commute into darkness next week because Congress has not yet approved the West Coast time zone change.

That means sunset today is 4:47 p.m. today, so you need to make sure your bike lights are in good working order if you aren’t used to biking in the dark.

Commute Seattle is hosting its annual Light Up Your Commute event 7–9 a.m. Thursday on the Westlake Bikeway near Lake Union Park. You can get swag there or just grab a breakfast burrito and some coffee.

If you are new to biking, lights are not optional. Not only is a front headlight and rear reflector legally required, but lights are vital for your safety. We have ranted about this many times before but it is ridiculous that lights are not a standard feature on bikes sold in the U.S.

tldr; Buy a headlight bright enough to see bumps in the road, don’t put it on flashing mode and don’t point it in people’s eyes. (more…)

tags: bike lights, commute seattle, daylight savings time, light up your ride

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November’s Ride In the Rain Challenge starts today

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 1, 2019

Screenshot from the Ride In the Rain website.

Washington Bikes’ annual Ride In the Rain Challenge starts today. So sign up online today, and invite your friends and co-workers to join you.

November is typically the rainiest month of the year in Seattle, which makes in my opinion makes it an even better month for a biking challenge than May’s Bike To Work Month. Because if you can make it through November biking every (or nearly every) day, then you have just proven to yourself that you can bike year-round.

And hey, it’s beautiful out, so you can get a running start to the month this year, which is nice.

Some people find online challenges to be good motivation to start or keep up a biking habit. Basically, you just log your bike trips on the Ride In the Rain website, and it tracks it all and enters you to win prizes. If your team wants to be competitive, there is a leaderboard. And if you do it with a group, you can all encourage each other to keep it up.

In the end, though, the real value from a November challenge (whether you log it online or not) is that you break out of old ruts and form a new habit. If you do something for four weeks straight no matter the weather, it sort of becomes your new normal. Rather than hiding from the weather, you force yourself to find solutions.

If you are looking for help getting ready for rainy months, check out this classic Seattle Bike Blog post and this column by Aviva Stephens.

tags: rain, ride in the rain challenge, washington bikes

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What should Seattle’s scooter rollout look like? + Public forum Wednesday

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

October 30, 2019

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.

Below are some of the city’s goals with this program, from an SDOT Blog post: (more…)

tags: bike share, scooter share

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There is room for a better Delridge bike lane

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

October 28, 2019

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…)

tags: Delridge Way SW, rapidride h, sdot

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