People gather in City Hall for World Day of Remembrance 2016 surrounded by silhouettes representing people who died in traffic in recent years.
A year ago, hundreds of silhouettes of people started showing up along Seattle streets. Each of the 212 figures represented a devastating truth: A person died in traffic here.
The demonstration — organized by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways in partnership with Cascade Bicycle Club, SDOT, Washington Bike Law and more — was a local effort as part of the UN-affiliated World Day of Remembrance for victims of traffic violence.
Well, it’s the third week in November again, and traffic violence shows very few signs of slowing down. Our city needs more silhouettes. We will continue needing more every year until we take bold action to improve street safety.
This year, SNG is hosting a Friday lunchtime panel with traffic safety experts as well as city and community leaders. Then there will be a walk and vigil on NE 65th Street Sunday at noon.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Aviva Stephens is a Seattle native and financial professional who discovered the benefits and joys of cycling on her challenging work commute between Ballard and the Eastside. Find more of her writing on Medium and follow her on Instagram at @avivarachelle.
Trying on my first bike helmet
I have traversed several obstacles in pursuit of the urban bike commute: Canadian geese on the Burke, road-raged texting drivers, lack of bikeways and Afro friendly headgear. While the first three obstacles are maneuverable thanks to readily available information to help find my way, the Afro challenge was much more difficult because there was no website, FB group, Meetup, or the like that I could find for help.
Hair management
After deciding that the bike commute was happening in the summer of 2013, the first thing I did was get a sick little pixie cut that would fit neatly under the helmet. It was a great summer style, but was tough to manage once I got to work and the helmet came off. My hair is pretty kinky, super fine and really thirsty, so it requires a plethora of products, or so I thought.
My low point came with the first fall rains. While I was well equipped with my hoodless Showers Pass rain jacket, I passed on the bike cap because even with my short hair a bike cap still did not fit. As I woke up to the sound of the rain on my roof, I thought to myself, “I got this!” and confidently headed out for my five-mile ride to the shuttle stop.
The first leg of the ride was joyful and empowering with typical Seattle sprinkles brushing my face, but the rain intensified as the ride progressed, and I did not anticipate the effect a torrential downpour would have on my hair and visibility. Midway through, the sprinkles turned into sheets, and my trusty hair product proceeded to wash from my hair onto my glasses and face. When I arrived at the shuttle stop dripping wet, my hair product had fully migrated from hair to face. Great.
I showed up to work that day with a seriously dehydrated, shapeless Afro reminiscent of a tumbleweed. For the entire day, my colleagues would stare in confusion at the top of my head during meetings and hallway chats. Some even had gumption to say something. “Did you do something different to your hair?” “Trying out a new style?” Or, my favorite, “Poofy!” Not sure if that’s a compliment.
Productless hair may not seem like a tragedy, but it’s certainly a distraction in the office, as the corporate culture is not accepting of unkept curls. An unnoticed hair day is a good hair day. (more…)
Screenshot from a how-to video SDOT produced to help people park their bike share bikes.
Kyle Rowe was still an undergrad at UW when he started working for SDOT. In a few short years, he would make himself indispensable to the department, take a career risk on a doomed bike share program and somehow turn it into a success that caught the world’s attention.
Rowe is the SDOT staffer most responsible for Seattle’s role in launching this new free-floating bike share boom that is spreading across the nation. During the launch celebration for LimeBike, CEO Toby Sun told the crowd to give Rowe a hand because “he is literally writing the rules other cities are following from a blank Word doc.” The pilot permit rules Seattle is using have become the basis for allowing the legal and responsible operation of these bikes in a U.S. city.
Rowe recently left SDOT to work for Spin. His job now is to take what Seattle learned to other cities across the country (ethics rules require that he not work with the City of Seattle for a couple years).
“I want to get it right,” said Rowe, explaining why he left SDOT to work on a national level for a private bike share company. Rowe believes that cities developing good rules for bike share are vital for the services to succeed in the U.S. So his job is kind of funny in that he is essentially going to cities and lobbying them to regulate the company he works for (as well as their competitors). But creating a fair playing field for companies that is designed with the good of cities and its residents in mind is the best path to success for this new model of bike share, he said.
“I could have stayed at SDOT my entire career,” he said. “Startups are going to continue to disrupt. Knowing that business will help me help SDOT or another agency” if he some day returns to the public sector. Rowe will continue living in Seattle, though his job now sends him flying all over the country.
Did I mention that Rowe just turned 28 a few weeks ago? (more…)
As Lorena said of Teresa at their joint victory party, “she gets shit done!” And that applies really well to all three women, which why that although nearly all bike-related organizations supported Cary Moon instead of Jenny Durkan, almost everyone is optimistic about having a strong, smart leader in the mayor’s office and great women on city council. Tom Fucoloro wrote an excellent post here on Seattle Bike Blog that sums up the path forward. Key takeaway: giver her some time before rushing to judgment and hope she provides more political cover for SDOT to be bolder.
Elsewhere, Mukilteo is passing a ballot measure that’ll provide $435,000 annually for biking, transit, and walking improvements over seven years.
2. Escape the Winter Rain and Drink Wine
Both the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI’s Velocity blog have good articles about cycling in the Yakima Valley and in Walla Walla. I grew up in the Lower Yakima Valley and can attest there are many wonderful rides to be had.
Seattle Police recovered a couple high-end mountain bikes that were stolen in South Seattle recently. The owner spotted them for sale on eBay, and SPD filed warrants to find the seller.
This news comes as the City Council debates adding $10,000 to the SPD budget to help coordinate bike theft reduction efforts (see the budget “green sheet” in this PDF). That effort did not make it into the most recent version of the budget, though.
Police recovered a pair of high-end bicycles this week after a theft victim found his bikes listed on eBay.
The bikes, worth about $13,000, went missing from the victim’s South Seattle home late last month, on October 20th. The bikes had been locked up on a rack in his garage. (more…)
Congratulations to Teresa Mosqueda on joining the City Council and Lorena González on retaining your Council seat. Their elections further bolster the already strong support on Council for bold action to improve biking and walking access and safety in our city. Seattle’s City Council is in a very strong position to do great things.
Seattle voters made clear in the primary that an attitude of fighting change, whether that’s about building more housing or prioritizing biking, walking and transit, will get crushed at the polls. That continued into the general election, especially shown in González’s landslide win over Pat Murakami.
Congratulations also to Jenny Durkan. Barring an unprecedented vote swing in late ballot counts, she will be Seattle’s next mayor and the first woman to hold the office since the 1920s (as of press time, the Seattle Times has called the race, but Cary Moon has not conceded. UPDATE: Moon has conceded.). Women now hold six of nine City Council seats.
Seattle Bike Blog endorsed Durkan’s opponent Cary Moon. Moon has a very strong understanding of our city’s multimodal transportation needs and was passionate about focusing on these needs. Durkan also speaks generally in favor of multimodal transportation and the need for a network of downtown bike lanes, but she never made it a central issue for her campaign. She was also non-committal on specific issues, like completing the Burke-Gilman Trail. That just means all our city’s amazing safe streets advocates and community organizers gotta keep at it.
I am hopeful that Durkan will continue SDOT’s multimodal goals as established by existing plans (like the Bike Master Plan) and as funded by the Move Seattle Levy. SDOT’s problems in recent years haven’t come from the department’s high-level goals, they have come from a lack of follow-through. There are many great public servants at SDOT, but department needs clear leadership and political cover from the Mayor’s Office directing them to take the bold action needed to truly prioritize walking, biking and transit. That’s our only path out of endless car traffic and all the public health, economic and environmental problems that traffic causes. (more…)
