Seattle Bike Blog

Support budgets for a Georgetown/South Park trail, SDOT Equity Program, Summer Parkways + more

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 1, 2017

It is long past time to build a comfortable and safe biking and walking connection between Georgetown and South Park. These communities are so close, yet the most direct way to walk between them involves a dirt path running behind an active rail line. Biking between the communities requires biking on skinny paint-only bike lanes on a truck-heavy stretch of E Marginal Way.

Councilmember Bruce Harrell (D2) has proposed a $600,000 addition to the city budget to fund design and outreach work for the trail connection, which has a new head of steam thanks to community-led efforts and the city’s in-process Georgetown Mobility Study.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has created a handy online form to help you easily tell the City Council you support this trail funding. They are also asking people show up at City Hall tonight (Wednesday) to express your support during the Council’s Budget Hearing.

More details from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways: (more…)

tags: 2018 budget, bruce harrell, cascade bicycle club, georgetown, mike o’brien, sdot, seattle neighborhood greenways, south park

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Ride in the Rain Challenge starts Wednesday, are you signed up?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

October 30, 2017

Registration for the annual November Ride in the Rain Challenge is open and begins Wednesday.

Much like the Bike Month Challenge, Ride in the Rain is a team-based, online trip-tracking event meant to help encourage people to keep biking even as the weather turns wetter and chillier. Teams of people help encourage each other and compete with other teams to log the most trips throughout November.

And since November is statistically the rainiest month of the year in Seattle, if you can make it through this month you can bike all year. That’s a very empowering experience if you haven’t done it yet.

If you want to make the leap from fair-weather-only biking to year-round biking, check out our guide to biking in Seattle rain. And if you need to invest in better rain gear, just think about all the money you will save by biking.

More details from WA Bikes: (more…)

tags: ride in the rain challenge, washington bikes

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Cascade: Your E Lake Sammamish Trail comments ‘didn’t count’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

October 27, 2017

The legal battle to complete the E Lake Sammamish Trail between Redmond and Issaquah continues, heading to the City of Sammamish Hearing Examiner next week.

The majority of the 800+ comments received about the trail project were supportive of King County’s plans for the regional rail trail, but Cascade Bicycle Club and the Friends of the E Lake Sammamish Trail sounded the alarm this week after noticing these comments were missing from the City of Sammamish’s summary of public comment.

To ensure that the Hearing Examiner hears from trail supporters in addition to opponents, the two groups are urging people to head to Sammamish City Hall at 1 p.m. November 3 to sign up to give public comment in person. You can also RSVP online to let Cascade know you’re coming.

The final 3.5 miles of the trail are designed, funded and ready to break ground. The county just needs a construction permit from the City of Sammamish without restrictions that would make the trail less safe.

More details from Cascade: (more…)

tags: cascade bicycle club, city of sammamish, e lake sammamish trail, friends of the e lake sammamish trail

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Bike Happy: Spooky Edition

By

Brock Howell

| Posted

October 26, 2017

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks again to Brock Howell of Bike Happy for putting together this amazing weekly email newsletter.

TOP THINGS TO KNOW & DO THIS WEEK

1. Seattle Joins Global Cities on Climate Change Action
Mayor Tim Burgess joined the mayors from Aukland, Barcelona, Cape Town, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Milan, Paris, Quito, and Vancouver to make major areas in our cities free of fossil fuel emissions by 2030. One way Seattle might achieve a zero carbon transportation network is by charging a congestion price, and several city councilmembers have proposed including funding in the city’s 2018 budget to study it.

2. East Lake Sammamish Trail Project Running into Troubles
Cascade Bicycle Club reports that hundreds of public comments that their supporters sent to the City of Sammamish regarding completing the final phase of the East Lake Sammamish Trail were not included or mentioned in a staff report. With the project pending before the city’s hearings examiner, Cascade asks people to attend a hearing next Friday.

3. Halloween Events: Critical Mass & Play Streets
Halloween is already the best holiday for folks who love placemaking and building a sense of community, and SDOT is making it even better by allowing neighbors to close down their streets to cars and let their children run free through the agency’s “Play Streets” program. Are you older than twelve but want to still celebrate Halloween in the streets? Then join the Halloween-themed Critical Mass ride tomorrow — the last Friday of October.

4. Commute Seattle’s Annual “Light Up Your Ride” event is next Thursday
Get bike lights, bagels, and other goodies next Thursday, 7-9am. (more…)

tags: bike happy

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For 10th year in a row, 49 states somehow fail to be more bike-friendly than WA

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

October 25, 2017

Washington State has some great public servants and advocates working hard to make our state safer and more inviting for people riding bikes. But try biking across almost any state highway, and you’ll be confronted with scary off-ramps and skinny or missing sidewalks. And there will almost certainly be no bike lane in sight. Getting around or across state highways and freeways is the biggest barrier for people biking in a huge number of communities in our state.

So when I see that, for a decade straight, Washington State has been selected as the League of American Bicyclists’ most bike-friendly state (PDF), all I can think is, Wow, every other state, you must really not be trying.

I don’t mean disparage the work of great public servants, like WSDOT Active Transportation Director Barb Chamberlain (former ED of WA Bikes), or the current WA Bikes statewide advocacy staffers like Alex Alston and Kelli Refer (who also happens to be my incredible spouse). They are doing great work.

But the vast, vast majority of the state’s transportation money still goes to freeway projects — including a downtown Seattle car tunnel — while major safety problems persist on existing WSDOT highways and their access points in communities across the state with no relief in sight. Try crossing I-5 south of I-90 in south Seattle, then tell me how bike-friendly Washington is. (more…)

tags: league of american bicyclists, wsdot

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Last chance to weigh in on the visionary Pike Pine Renaissance plan

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

October 24, 2017

Today (Tuesday) is that last day to weigh in on the Pike Pine Renaissance through the partnership-designed project’s online open house.

The vision has been developed over years by Waterfront Seattle, the City of Seattle and the Downtown Seattle Association. The planned project will be funded by a combination of donations, a local improvement district, and government funding. The city has already started testing some of the elements of the plan, including protected bike lanes and expanded public space in front of the 3rd/Pine entrance to Westlake Station.

The vision for the stretches of Pike and Pine from 2nd Ave to Melrose includes a big increase in the number of trees and other greenery along the corridor, much wider sidewalks, bus lanes and protected bike lanes.

This plan is pretty incredible. It is an immense reimagining of these special Seattle streets as places for people, not just pipes for moving cars like they can feel today.

The plan should develop a better solution for people biking through the brick-paved section of Pine between 5th and 4th Avenues. The city’s pilot bike lane is currently testing whether the bike lane and general traffic can safety and comfortably merge into this mixed space, and it’s not working. There needs to be some kind of separation between people biking and people driving cars and buses. Or the plan could make this block car-free. The brick paving does not magically make mixing people biking and busy traffic a comfortable experience. (more…)

tags: pike pine renaissance, pike/pine

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