Seattle Bike Blog

Replay and recap: City Council Position 8 transportation and housing forum

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

July 11, 2017

From left: Jon Grant, Mac McGregor, Teresa Mosqueda, Hisam Goueli, Sarah Nelson, Sheley Secrest and moderator Erica C Barnett.

Your ballot will arrive in your mailbox within a week or so, and you only have until August 1 to figure out who you’re going to vote for.

Online registration and address changing already ended, but you have until July 24 to register in person at the downtown King County Administration building. For those already registered, ballots will be mailed July 14.

And don’t forget that, unlike the mayoral race, you can use your democracy vouchers to help fund these candidates.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and a long list of partners hosted a candidate forum focused on transportation and housing in June. Erica C. Barnett of The C Is for Crank moderated. The full video and a recap of the City Council Position 8 forum is below. You can find the recap of the mayoral forum here.

Seattle Bike Blog has not yet endorsed in this race.

As a general note, Seattle has a serious embarrassment of riches when it comes to quality candidates for this City Council position. In many ways, the candidates in this race are more exciting than the candidates for mayor. Their positions are passionate and nuanced. All the candidates at the forum spoke strongly in favor of safe streets, road diets and transit-oriented development. There was a round where each candidate was basically trying to love road diets more than the others, which is amazing considering how wildly controversial such project were just a few years ago. Our city’s movement for safe streets is working.

But there can only be one. (more…)

tags: 2017 city council position 8 race, 2017 primary, hisam goueli, jon grant, mac mcgregor, sara nelson, sheley secrest, teresa mosqueda

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Spin and LimeBike are first to apply for bike share permits, ready to launch once approved

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

July 7, 2017

Spin and LimeBike appear to be the two bike share companies most ready to get an early start on the streets of Seattle this summer.

SDOT has confirmed that the companies are the only two who have yet submitted complete applications, though both permits are still under review. The city said it could take a week or two to process permits, which means if the companies have crossed all their Ts they could have bikes in operation any day now.

If both LimeBike and Spin launch with a full 500, Seattle could have bike share services twice as big as Pronto within the next week or so.

Spin released a statement saying the company has 500 bikes ready to go as soon as their permit is approved: (more…)

tags: bike share, limebike, sdot, spin

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New fast ferry to Bremerton sails Monday, but bikes with fenders, disk brakes won’t fit – UPDATED

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

July 6, 2017

Bike rack image from Kitsap Transit.

The new Kitsap Fast Ferry routes. Bremerton starts Monday. Kingston is scheduled for July 2018. Southworth in 2020.

Kitsap Transit is set to start service on the first of its new walk-on fast ferries to downtown Seattle Monday.

The first route will provide a much faster alternative to the Washington State Ferry to Bremerton (about a half hour vs an hour on the state ferry). You can reserve a seat online, though limited walk-up tickets will also be available.

But many (most?) people hoping to bring their bikes on the new ferry may find that their rides don’t fit on the custom hanging bike racks installed on the Rich Passage 1 vessel, the Kitsap Sun reports.

Bikes with fenders (!), fat tires, some kinds of front racks, or disk brakes will not fit, Kitsap Transit cautions. E-bikes are also not allowed due to weight concerns. And it seems unlikely many cargo or family bikes will fit even if they don’t have e-assist motors, fenders or disk brakes.

Kitsap Transit is aware of the issue and is working with the vessel manufacturer on a solution:

“We have shared our concerns with the boat’s manufacturer and their engineers are working on a fix for the Rich Passage 1,” said Kitsap Transit spokesperson Sanjay Bhatt. “Once we have an idea of what that fix looks like, we will be able to give the bicycle community an update on our timeline for retrofitting the vessel.”

UPDATE 7/14: “Passengers departing Bremerton can use a newly installed test bike rack at the head of the gangway to see if their bicycle fits in the fast-ferry’s bike racks,” Kitsap Transit said in a press release. “Kitsap Transit is also coordinating with King County on the installation of a test bike rack near the dock for passengers departing Seattle. Based on community feedback, Kitsap Transit is expediting plans to retrofit its fast ferry over the winter to accommodate a wider variety of bicycles and exploring the options with bike-rack designers.”

(more…)

tags: bremerton, kingston, kitsap peninsula, kitsap transit

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Kitsap volunteer firefighter killed while biking near Poulsbo

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

July 6, 2017

Screenshot from a KOMO News report.

Longtime Kitsap County volunteer firefighter, Seattle-to-Portland bike ride medic, father, grandfather and husband Joe Vlach died July 2 while biking near Poulsbo. He was 77.

Our condolences to his friends and family.

Vlach was on a training ride to get ready for STP when he reportedly collided with someone driving while making a left turn from the southbound SR 3 offramp to eastbound SR 308. The collision is still under investigation.

KOMO produced a good report about Vlach and all the ways he had an impact on his community: (more…)

tags: deaths, joe vlach, kitsap peninsula, komo, poulsbo

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Terrible person shoots Ballard safe streets advocate with pellet gun

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

July 3, 2017

Image from Keller. The pellet hit her in the thigh.

Some terrible person shot Haley Keller with a pellet gun Monday night while she and her husband Dave were biking home from watching the sunset at Golden Gardens.

Keller, a Connect Ballard advocate, Board Member of Cascade Bicycle Club and Washington Bikes, and co-founder of Pedder Brewing, said the pellet hit her in the thigh, leaving a nasty welt that is turning into a bad bruise. The experience shook her up, but she’s glad that at least it didn’t hit her in a more dangerous spot, like in the face.

The two of them were biking south around 11 p.m. on the Burke-Gilman Trail where it runs next to Seaview Ave NW near Shilshole Marina when someone in the rear seat of a car driving in the same direction shot “at least five times in a row,” she said:

We immediately stopped, and I sat on the ground trying to process what just happened and look at my leg. Dave immediately called the cops. They came pretty quickly, took my story, took pictures of my leg, it’s Incident #17-239632. They said they had reports of someone shooting something similar from a vehicle at houses & condos in the area too. So sounds like they shot at me on my bike, sped away, then shot at some houses too. Really terrible, I’m quite shaken up about it, definitely didn’t sleep well last night.

(more…)

tags: ballard, crime, golden gardens, haley keller, haley woods, seaview ave nw, spd

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Seattle is now accepting private bike share permits, first bikes could hit streets in a week or two

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 30, 2017

Spin is one of the companies that hopes to be among the first to operate in Seattle.

Bike share is coming back to Seattle.

SDOT just released its permit application (PDF) for a six-month pilot program. Staff says companies should expect one to two weeks for their permits to be processed. Once approved, companies can start putting bikes on the streets and turn on their apps.

The final rules are not too much different from the draft rules we reported about a couple weeks ago. The permit prices have moved around a bit ($15 per bike instead of $23) and the data sharing rules have changed to allow companies to share data directly with the UW Transportation Data Collaborative instead of sending it to the city.

Spin, one of the companies hoping to be among the first to get up and running in Seattle, was ready right away to send out a press release praising the rules: (more…)

tags: bike share

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