Seattle Bike Blog

Bike share ridership is booming + Spin launches better bike, Forbes says LimeBike valued at $200M

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 20, 2017

Free-floating bike share is working in Seattle. Or at least it sure appears that way according to the city’s first analysis of anonymized private bike share data.

In just two months, people have already taken 120,000 trips on the bikes. And because companies are steadily increasing the number of bikes on the streets, the number of rides each day continues to grow at a steep rate. 6,000 bikes are currently permitted, but SDOT’s Kyle Rowe told the Committee that he estimates the actual number on the ground now is closer to 4,000 and increasingly daily.

In fact, as bike share companies add bikes to Seattle streets, the number of rides per bike per day has increased, as well. This is a big deal, since the business model for free-floating bike share is essentially dependent on this virtuous cycle in which adding more bikes leads to each bike carrying more trips and making more money.

This is good for Seattle, since it gives companies a clear incentive to keep adding more service to the city. And, of course, it’s a good thing for the companies who need to make money to stay in operation and keep expanding. At what point will adding more bikes fail to further increase ridership? Nobody knows. But we likely have a long way to go before we reach that saturation point.

SDOT officials presented (PDF, video) the City Council’s Transportation and Sustainability Committee with a first look at two months of bike share activity in the city, based on data companies are required to report as a condition of the permit. The data adds LimeBike, Spin and ofo information together to look at the sector in general without exposing individual company operations.

The graphs they showed were astounding. Here’s the growth in rides per day: (more…)

tags: andrew glass hastings, kyle rowe, limebike, ofo, sdot, spin

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Seattle startup crowdfunding bike-focused vending machines

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 19, 2017

Rider Oasis has one machine in operation inside Peddler Brewing.

Seattle Bike Blog loves all our city’s local bike shops. But they all have one problem in common: They aren’t open 24/7.

And of course they aren’t. But what if you need a new tube for your morning commute? Or what if you get a flat in an area without a nearby bike shop? Or what if you’re just plain bonking in the middle of a long ride?

That’s where Rider Oasis comes in. The young company has plans to launch dozens of public-facing vending machines in the Seattle area stocked with bike-fixing necessities and pick-me-up snacks to keep people moving.

“Our goal is to have between 30 and 50 machines over the next two to five years,” said CEO and Co-Founder Aaron Mass. “We think there’s that much capacity within Seattle.”

Though Seattle is the first focus, “eventually the plan is to expand along the entire West Coast.”

The company has had one machine in operation inside Peddler Brewing for a while now, but the primary goal of the business is to have machines in locations accessible 24/7.

Bike part vending machines are not new in the world or even the U.S. Bikestock operates out of New York City and Bike Fixation has machines in Minneapolis. But the idea has not yet reached the West Coast in a big way, Mass said.

The company, which started as a UW business school project, has launched an indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to get off the ground: (more…)

tags: aaron moss, rider oasis

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New downtown vision includes 4th Ave bike lanes, new transit pathway on 6th Ave

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 18, 2017

Map presented to the One Center City Advisory Group.

After months of talks, agency leaders have a near-term plan for downtown streets that both builds a two-way protected bike lane on 4th Ave and creates a transit pathway to keep buses moving once they are kicked out of the transit tunnel next year.

The plan as presented to the Once Center City Advisory Group (PDF) would improve transit travel times for buses even after building a new protected bike lane on 4th Ave. This looks like a promising resolution to one of the biggest sticking points in the downtown transportation remake effort. And instead of pitting transit against biking, the new effort looks at how prioritizing both could lead to big increases in downtown street capacity.

When all the planned near-term changes are complete (including complete Pike/Pine bike lanes from 2nd to Broadway, bike lanes on 7th and 8th Avenues, a connection to Dearborn in the south end and the under-construction 2nd Ave bike lane extension in Belltown), analysis predicts a nearly 160 percent increase in daily bike trips downtown by 2023. This includes an estimated 25,000 bike share trips as both bike lane and shared bike networks grow.

(more…)

tags: 4th ave, downtown, international district, one center city

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Friday is Park(ing) Day + Map of your local one-day mini parks – UPDATED

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 14, 2017

UPDATE: You can follow my adventures to parks around town below.

Park(ing) Day 2017 is tomorrow (Friday). For one day, neighborhoods across the city will have new mini parks, constructed and activated by neighbors.

It’s a day dedicated to new ideas for how public space can be used. And it’s a day to highlight just how much valuable space we are dedicating to the storage of cars. When public space is available to our creativity, people do amazing things.

The day goes from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. There are 47 parks planned, so be sure to give yourself some extra time to visit a few. Or, you know, tomorrow could be a good day to *cough, cough* call in sick.

I probably don’t need to tell you, but your bicycle is the best way to tour as many parks as you can see. It could also be a great chance to try out mixing transit and bike share (that’s my plan).

You can see the city’s map of 2017 parks below. For an idea of what to expect, check out our coverage from previous years. (more…)

tags: park(ing) day, park(ing) day 2017

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2nd Ave bike lane extension will open southbound in early October, northbound a couple weeks later – UPDATED

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 13, 2017

The 2nd Ave bike lane will reach Denny Way next month.

Work on the street has been ongoing for quite a while as the city prepared it for bike lanes and other improvements for all modes, such as badly needed signals at several Belltown cross streets.

But now work on the two-way bike lane itself is ready to begin. Like the existing section of the bike lane, which opened three years ago, both directions will be on the east side of the street. Intersections will have separate signals for people biking and people making turns.

Crews will begin work Monday that will last two weeks, wrapping up October 2 (if all goes smoothly, of course). For the first couple weeks, the bike lane will be southbound-only as crews work on the new and upgraded traffic signals needed to activate the northbound direction. That work is scheduled for completion in October, according to SDOT spokesperson Mafara Hobson.

UPDATE 9/19: SDOT now says the opening will move more slowly, with full completion in November and December: ” To clarify, we’re working on sections at a time, so if all goes well, the 2nd Ave protected bike lane will have a soft opening to southbound bikes between Pike and Virginia in October. The contractor will still close the bike lane intermittently to get the pavement markings and signals in. Because northbound is a new movement, the signals must be in place and functional before it can be opened. We just got word that the signal pole order is being held up because of Hurricane Harvey, so the northbound direction (again between Pike and Virginia) will most likely open in November. The rest of the extension to Denny will open in increments over the following month. We’ll be in touch as all these moving pieces come together.”

This project will revolutionize bike travel in the city. You will be able to bike from the Smith Tower to the Space Needle almost entirely on a protected bike lane. For the first time, people will have a comfortable northbound bike route through Belltown.

And the city will get rid of a sorely inadequate, skinny, paint-only, left-side, door zone bike lane in the process (good riddance).

It’s hard to be too excited for this project. This is a really big deal for Belltown, Uptown, Seattle Center, Queen Anne and major bike routes headed to the Fremont Bridge, the Elliott Bay Trail and beyond.

Construction projects add up

Unfortunately, people who use 2nd Ave north of Pike Street today will face a couple weeks of mixed traffic construction detours. With construction on 7th Ave also closing that bike lane, this means there will not be a single fully open bike lane between Denny Way and Pike Street from Elliott Bay to I-5. While people who bike through Denny Triangle and Belltown regularly are already used to inadequate construction detours, I think it’s important to zoom out and realize just how thoroughly construction has blocked major bike routes that connect huge swaths of the city. Though city staff are sure to have an excuse for every single closure, the cumulative effect is that we’re closing bike lanes faster than we’re opening them. And now we’ve reached the logical conclusion of that trend: Two weeks of total bike route failure.

At least this construction project is working to fix part of the problem. (more…)

tags: 2nd ave, belltown, denny triangle, downtown, sdot

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31 bikes stolen from Tacoma Major Taylor Project school + How you can help

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 12, 2017

Major Taylor Project riders during the 2017 Emerald Bike Ride.

A thief (or thieves) broke into Tacoma’s iDEA High School Sunday and stole more than 30 bikes belonging to the school’s chapter of Cascade Bicycle Club’s Major Taylor Project.

The bikes were mostly quality road and mountain bikes, so the total value of the loss is likely in the $25,000 range.

Tacoma student Greyson Monaghan-Bergson took the initiative to start raising funds to replace the bikes through a GoFundMe campaign. As of press time, the campaign already raised nearly $1,000. You can also skip over GFM and donate directly through Cascade’s website.

Even if the bikes are eventually recovered or replaced through insurance, the program is growing across the region and can put your donations to good use. As Monaghan-Bergson wrote:

These bicycles gave students the opportunity to:
* Go on weekly bike rides and explore their communities
* Learn about bicycle safety and maintenance
* Be a mechanism for advocating positive change in the community
* Receive training and leadership skills to assist and participate in bicycling events

I personally love the program because it teaches students how to be ride leaders and lead large groups, as well as teaches them proper riding etiquette and the rules of the road. The program gives me the chance to ride my bike with several friends who wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to ride bikes. The loss of these bikes is the loss of an important program for our community.

More details from Cascade: (more…)

tags: cascade bicycle club, major taylor project, tacoma

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