Seattle Bike Blog

Don’t expect a bike share surge as caps rise to 2K + Seattle bike share makes international news

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 7, 2017

See our Seattle Bike Share Guide for an updated FAQ about bike share in Seattle as well as links to download active companies’ apps and a guide to properly parking your bike share bike.

The bike share cap has increased again. As of today, the city’s pilot permit allows companies to operate 2,000 bikes on Seattle streets, double the current level.

But don’t expect an immediate boom in bike numbers. Since launching in July, both Spin and LimeBike have been adding bikes gradually on an ongoing basis. ofo has also been adding bikes gradually since launching in August.

None of the companies have yet announced a surge in new bikes like when they first launched, though all have said they will continue working toward the city’s caps. The effect it that every day, bike share in Seattle gets just a little bit more useful.

In another month, the caps on bike share companies will be lifted entirely. But so far none of the companies seem eager to increase the bikes on the ground too suddenly.

LimeBike won’t be adding new bikes for another week or so, Seattle General Manager Dan Stone said. The company is about a week away from launching their updated bike, which includes a slightly updated look and clearer instructions on how to ride safety and park their bikes correctly:

Photos of the updated on-bike signage from LimeBike.

(more…)

tags: bike share, dan stone, diane horn, kexp, limebike, new york times, ofo, sara bernard, seattle weekly, spin, washington post

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Seattle Children’s study: School bike trains increase physical activity (of course)

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 6, 2017

A huge bike train to Bryant Elementary on Bike-to-School Day 2013. Most are not quite this big.

Organizing a bike train to school is an effective way to significantly increase the amount of daily physical activity every child needs to be healthy, a study out of Seattle Children’s found.

OK, I know that sounds like a no-brainer. And it is. But it’s cool to see that actual figures. The bike train activity alone accounted for 35 percent of participant kids’ daily recommended physical activity. That’s a big head start on the day, and could be one tool to help fight childhood obesity and other health issues related directly to inactivity.

The study group was “fourth–fifth graders from four public schools serving low-income families in Seattle,” according to the paper’s abstract. Bike Works helped by providing bikes and safety education to the kids, and study staff led the trains. The bike trains were in 2014, with analysis in 2015 and 2016. Academic research just takes a long time to get out.

The study was published in the the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. I’ll let the Seattle Children’s press release take it from here: (more…)

tags: bike trains, bike works, jason mendoza, safe routes to school, seattle children’s

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I’m moving by bike Sunday, and you’re invited

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 5, 2017

This is how my bed got from White Center to the Central District.

Moving by bike is one of my favorite things to do. It turns a stressful day of trying to cramp stuff into a car or strapping things to the roof into a fun day of riding bikes around town with friends. Many bikes make light work, as they say.

I’ve helped friends (and even Cascade Bicycle Club’s office) move by bike, but I’ve never had a chance to do it myself. By the time I first heard about the idea, my spouse Kelli and I were already living where we live now. So we have been waiting for this for the better part of a decade.

People with all kinds of bikes are invited! So are your friends. If you have a cargo bike or trailer, that’s obviously very welcome, but even your daily bike with a couple bags or a basket is helpful. Everyone will grab whatever they can carry, then we’ll all ride to our new place together. We’ll have coffee and donuts before the ride, then pizza and beer after.

RSVP via the facebook event it you plan on coming so we can get a rough head count of how many people to expect (you can also get the starting address there). Gather to start loading up 11 a.m. Sunday. We’ll be unloaded and eating pizza in Wallingford in the early afternoon.

The ride will be 4.6 miles from the CD to Wallingford. Most of it will be flat or downhill, but there will be a climb from the University Bridge to 45th St. We will be going pretty slow :-) (more…)

tags: move by bike

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Missing the forest for the bicycle helmets

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 1, 2017

The author breaking the law while making a quick bike share trip on the Burke-Gilman Trail.

This week, the authors of a disputed study promoting bicycle helmet laws with bike share systems penned an op-ed for Crosscut arguing that Seattle’s bike share companies should be forced to provide helmets with their bikes.

Aside from the ick factor of sharing helmets with strangers, the hyper-focus on helmets is dangerous because such a requirement would certainly harm and possible kill bike share business in Seattle. The helmet costs (purchasing, collecting, inspecting, cleaning, and redistributing them) were already a factor in the financial demise of Pronto. We cannot repeat that mistake.

And even the authors’ own research could just as easily be seen to demonstrate the public health and bike safety benefits of bike share systems without helmet use. They just draw a questionable conclusion from their data.

Essentially, a before-and-after study of hospital admissions for bicycle-related injuries in five U.S. that launched bike share systems found that all types of injuries decreased by 28 percent once the bike share systems launched. But head injuries only dropped 14 percent. In fact, their data showed that head injuries dropped more significantly in bike share cities than in control cities.

That sounds like a big step in the right direction to me (and bicycle researcher Kay Teschke). But to authors Fred Rivara and Janessa Graves, the data shows an increase in the proportion of those (fewer) injuries that are head injuries. So they conclude that bike share systems need to require helmets.

They are missing the forest for the trees. By hyper-focusing on helmets, the op-ed authors have failed to balance all the other public health benefits of bike share or the damage to public health that would occur if a helmet requirement shut down or limited bike share company operations.

They have also drawn conclusions without convincing support that bike share helmet use is the reason for the discrepancy in injury rates in their data. (more…)

tags: frank rivara, helmet laws, janessa graves

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Last day to tell SDOT Rainer Ave needs bike lanes

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 31, 2017

Phyllis Porter of Rainier Valley Greenways (left) leads community members in a march across the crosswalks holding signs calling for a safer Rainier.

Map of collisions along the study area for Phase II of the Rainier Ave Road Safety Corridor Project.

Rainier Ave needs bike lanes. There’s just no way around it. It’s the flattest and most direct way between Rainier Valley’s biggest business districts and downtown. The neighborhood cannot be truly accessible by bike without Rainier Ave bike lanes.

Today (Thursday) is the final day to complete SDOT’s online open house and survey about plans for the next segment of the Rainier Ave Road Safety Corridor project. If you don’t have time to complete the open house, Cascade Bicycle Club has also created a quick and easy way to email your support.

Unfortunately, as Martin Duke at Seattle Transit Blog points out, the city seems to be pitting transit against bikes with their two options. This is a false dichotomy. We need to prioritize both. It something is going to give, it can’t be bus ridership or street safety. I’m looking at you, on-street car parking.

Both options include on-street parking, and the bike lane option (Alternative 2) actually includes more parking than the bus lane option without bike lanes. Why is car parking mandatory in the city’s plans, but bus and bike lanes are optional? That’s completely backwards. Why not use some of the space for parking in Alternative 2 to instead help speed up buses?

Rainier Ave deserves an Alternative 3 that goes big and bold on safety, walking-friendly business districts and efficient transit. (more…)

tags: rainier ave, rainier valley

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Protected bike lanes coming to Pike/Pine a big improvement, but fall just short

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 30, 2017

From a recent project mailer (PDF)

Pike and Pine Streets downtown are among the biggest missing bike connections downtown, and the city wants to take action to make them safer and more comfortable by the end of the year.

Like with 2nd Ave in 2014, SDOT staff have been moving quickly to get the Pike/Pine bike lanes planned, designed and ready for construction. And even though the planned lanes are far from perfect, they should be a big improvement over the status quo.

For the first time since it was constructed in 2014, the 2nd Ave bike lane will actually connect to another protected bike lane.

Pike and Pine are already heavily used by people biking despite having no bike lanes downtown. The geography of downtown all but requires these streets to be major bike streets because they are the first east-west streets in the northern end of the downtown core that are both relatively flat and do not dead-end into I-5. No street between Pike and Jackson fits this description.

But Pike and Pine don’t just provide a vital east-west role downtown, they are also the best connections between downtown and the city’s densest residential areas on Capitol Hill and First Hill. It’s hard to over-stress how vital safe and connected bike lanes on Pike and Pine are to Seattle’s bikeability. Few bike lane projects in the city could have as big an impact as this.

The 2017 project bites off the most difficult chunks of the Pike/Pine connection, including links to the 2nd Ave bike lane (and Pike Place Market) and through the heart of the downtown retail core. The bike lanes will be on the left-hand side of each one-way street (Pike eastbound, Pine westbound) to keep the right-hand side for bus lanes. Turning conflicts should be eliminated either by new restrictions on motor vehicle left turns or through new bike signals to separate the biking and turning phases.

Work on the new connections is set to begin in September and should come online around the same time as the under-construction 2nd Ave bike lane extension through Belltown to Seattle Center, which should open in the autumn. Some key pieces of the Basic Bike Network are coming together. (more…)

tags: basic bike network, downtown, pike/pine, sdot

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