Seattle Bike Blog

Bellevue considers bike share permits, take their survey today

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 11, 2017

With thousands of bikes already in operation in Seattle and construction on a second cross-lake bike trail wrapping up in just a couple months, the City of Bellevue is considering its own permits to allow private bike share companies to operate on their streets.

As Seattle’s biggest nearby neighbor, Bellevue is a key launching point for a truly regional bike share system. The 520 Bridge Trail opening this autumn will start a new era for regional bike transportation. Bellevue is also a city with quality express transit, but often slow or incomplete local transit connections. So bike share could be very useful to a lot of people.

The biggest challenge for bike share success is the city’s lack of a connected bike network. The Bellevue City Council in February approved a “rapid implementation” effort to make some of their most-needed bike lane connections in the next couple years. This is a great step forward for the city, and bike share is the perfect way to help more people use the new lanes to get around. But they have a lot of work ahead of them.

Only so many people can bike all the way to their Bellevue jobs or put their bikes on buses. So having $1 bikes around to make short trips around Bellevue makes a lot of sense. I hope all the other major Eastside cities are working on bike share plans, too.

Bellevue has launched an online bike share survey and will host an Eastside Bike Share Vendor Fair at Bellevue City Hall September 27. More details from the City of Bellevue: (more…)

tags: bellevue, bike share

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City extends 9th Ave protected bike lanes + How can the city fix the Mercer crossing?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

September 8, 2017

Phase II of the 9th Ave bike lane extends the connection two blocks further to Harrison.

We are two blocks closer to a complete connection between downtown and the Westlake Bikeway.

SDOT installed Phase II of their three-phase rollout of protected bike lanes on 9th Ave N in South Lake Union this week. The bike lanes now extend as far south as Harrison Street, where they transition into the existing painted bike lanes that continue (mostly) to Denny Way and up Bell Street to 8th Ave.

Eventually, the lane will connect to a planned bike lane on 7th Ave that will connect to a planned Pine Street bike lane that will connect to 2nd Ave. But the three blocks between Harrison and Denny will continue seeing a ton of construction detours in the next year, so the connection will remain incomplete until the scheduled completion in 2018. The Basic Bike Network is coming together.

9th Ave N used to be a rather sleepy street, making it a decent bike route alternative to Westlake Ave N, which was ruined for cycling when the South Lake Union Streetcar was constructed a decade ago. But as construction has boomed in recent years, the street has become busier and busier. Cars picking up and dropping off are constantly blocking the feeble paint-only bikes lanes. And the crossing at Mercer Street has ceased to function effectively or safely due to a crush load of cars.

The new bike lanes dramatically help with the blocked bike lane problem by placing the bike lane against the curb and creating space for parking and loading between the bike lane and the general travel lanes. And with each new block, the connection to the incredibly popular Westlake Bikeway reaches more homes and workplaces.

Timothy Fliss shot this quick video on day one showing that people immediately adapted to the new lanes: (more…)

tags: 9th ave n, mercer, mercer mess, protected bike lanes, sdot

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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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