Five months after Elizabeth Kiker announced her resignation, Cascade Bicycle Club and Washington Bikes have released the job listing for the joint organization’s next Executive Director.
Cascade Bicycle Club was already the largest regional bike organization in the nation even before merging with WA Bikes in December 2015. Now it is the largest statewide bike organization.
The new ED will oversee 40 staff members (including, full disclosure, my incredible spouse Kelli) and a $5.6 million budget, according to the extended job listing (PDF). The organization also claims more than 17,000 members. Compared to other bike organizations in the country, Cascade and WA Bikes are in a league of their own.
When Andres Salomon arrived at UW Station with a cargo bike full of homemade tamales and announced his campaign for Seattle mayor, he did so because it seemed nobody else was preparing to challenge the well-funded and seemingly-popular incumbent Ed Murray.
Though Salomon (a past-and-hopefully-future contributor to Seattle Bike Blog) was concerned about three years of “city mismanagement,” he said he couldn’t find anyone willing to run against Murray.
“I wanted a Mayor who would make the city a better place,” he said in a statement explaining his departure from the race. “I asked a number of people to run against Murray. I begged people. I asked Councilmember O’Brien. I asked fellow activists. I brought it up in meetings. Everyone I spoke to said no. I felt I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have any real desire to become a career politician, but I believed that I could do better than Murray.”
But that has since changed. “Over the past two weeks, the race has been completely transformed,” he said in his statement.
A month after announcing his campaign February 1, Nikkita Oliver also entered the race (Salomon welcomed her to the race). Most mainstream political attention was still focused on the open City Council Position 8 at-large seat (Tim Burgess is not seeking reelection), though Oliver had a big campaign launch event and has a lot of grassroots momentum and a growing campaign account.
Then a lawsuit alleging Murray sexually abused a teenager in the 80 hit the headlines in early April, and the number of candidates started growing. Murray denies the allegations.
With Former Mayor Mike McGinn and waterfront champion Cary Moon both in the race, Salomon said he would rather not “split the vote with other who share my values” and would instead support them. “I look forward to a better Mayor in 2018,” he concluded. (more…)
Cary Moon — a strong champion for vibrant, people-focused places — has officially declared her candidacy for Seattle mayor.
Moon has been a vital organizer for a people-focused waterfront downtown and currently serves on the One Center City advisory committee. Though her efforts to promote a surface street and transit alternative to the downtown car tunnel did not win, her efforts have shaped Waterfront Seattle’s plans for a better waterfront. We could have had a reconstructed viaduct, after all.
As Mike McGinn was announcing his bid for mayor Monday, Moon was sitting down with Eli Sanders at the Stranger to get deep into the issues (she was exploring the run before the allegations against Murray came out, her campaign’s marketing firm said). She presented a bold vision for transportation, especially downtown: (more…)
Mayor Ed Murray and SDOT Director Scott Kubly fill a pothole. Image from SDOT.
If there is a persistent pothole that you find yourself swearing at every singe day, well, this is your chance to get it fixed.
SDOT has launched a renewed campaign to get people to report potholes so crews can go fix them. Reporting potholes really does work, so long as you’re reporting isolated potholes and not, like, a whole block of bad pavement.
The easiest way is to download the city’s Find It Fix It app. If you pull over next to the pothole, the app will geolocate for you. You can even add a photo if you want. There’s also this web form and good old-fashioned phone calling: 206-386-1218.
It is very easy, and the response time from road crews may surprise you (it’s not uncommon for the problem to be fixed within a couple days).
The long and cold winter did more damage to roads than the average winter, SDOT says, so they need people’s help locating issues. It’s much cheaper and more effective to get crowd-sourced data. And, of course, everyone loves when the city fills potholes! It’s the perfect transportation campaign for an election year. (more…)
Standing in the yard of his Greenwood house with his family — a couple campaign signs leaning against the white picket fence, perhaps dusted off after four years in storage — Mike McGinn announced his candidacy for mayor.
This wil be his third mayoral campaign in eight years. And as he joked with media, he’s 50 percent on winning so far.
There were no “Mike Likes Bikes” stickers around this time. At least not yet. In fact, McGinn did not directly mention bikes during his half hour in front of the TV cameras Monday morning other than to highlight the Road Safety Action Plan created under his leadership in 2012. McGinn pursued some bold and sometimes controversial complete streets and bike safety projects during his term, earning him the supposedly-diminutive-but-actually-kinda-cool nickname Mayor McSchwinn. Bike commuting rose more than 40 percent during the first three years of his term, but have since plateaued.
Instead, his focus Monday was mostly on housing affordability and the need for taxes on high earners and big companies.
His slogan “Keep Seattle” has so far fallen pretty flat with local media (as the Stranger asks, “What the fuck does that mean?”). During his announcement, he talked about rising housing costs and regressive taxes that force people out of town as the city becomes a wealthy enclave rather than a place for everyone.
“We can’t let this city become San Fransisco,” he said. I guess that’s what “Keep Seattle” means. “The people who helped make this city what it is, make it so attractive, are being pushed out by the growth.” (more…)
It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! The comments below are also open to whatever at-least-somewhat relevant topic you want to discuss.
First up, here’s how Oslo is working to go car-free in its city center. A hopeful note for Seattle: Around the 8:00 mark they talk about the recent launch of a new bigger and better bike share system to replace their old lagging system. They key to success: More stations serving more places.
