Seattle Bike Blog

Seattle’s Pedal Anywhere keeps growing its on-demand bike rental business, seeks investors

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 12, 2017

Pedal Anywhere CEO Zach Shaner with the company’s custom bike-delivering bike. This set-up is a combination of three other local companies: The e-assist motor is from Seattle-based Bike Swift, the trailer base is by Seattle-based CycleFab and the bike racks are from Woodinville-based Sportworks.

You just flew into Seattle, made your way through the airport and sat down on the light rail heading towards your hotel. You heard biking in Seattle is awesome, and you want to try it out. So you Google “bike rental seattle” and find a handful of shops, some sad news about the closure of Pronto and one service that claims it will bring a bike to you within two hours of booking: Pedal Anywhere. Better yet, the rates are even better if you keep the bike for your whole week stay.

So you book a bike online. By the time you are checked into your hotel and settled into your room, a quality hybrid bike in your size is in the lobby waiting for you. And the best part is that the person delivering it brought your bike using a custom e-assist bike. Bikes delivering bikes, that’s just too cool.

This is not just the concept behind Pedal Anywhere, it’s how the service actually works today in Seattle. The company, under the leadership of CEO (and friend of Seattle Bike Blog) Zach Shaner, is currently trying to grow using a crowdfunding-style investment effort through Seed Invest. That campaign is open until April 24. The minimum investment is $500 (but unlike with a Kickstarter-style crowdfunding, you would actually own a stake in the company).

“We’re trying to take all the headaches out the bike rental process,” said Shaner. And if it works in Seattle, why not replicate it other cities?

“If we [meet our investment goal], we’d like to be in Portland and Vancouver, B.C., and maybe San Francisco by next year.” (more…)

tags: bike rentals, lucas nivon, pedal anywhere, seattle monthly bike rental, zach shaner

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Northlake Way is getting a short section of new sidewalk, bike lane

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 11, 2017

Work is underway on a short new stretch of sidewalk and bike lane on Northlake Way near the University Bridge.

Identified as a key missing piece in the Pedestrian Master Plan, the sidewalk will connect the businesses on Northlake Way (like Voula’s! Mmmmm…) to the UW campus sidewalk and trail network.

For people biking, the project will preserve the existing painted bike lines east of 8th Ave NE and add one extra block of westbound bike lane connecting to 7th Ave NE. It’s a bit of a climb, but 7th Ave NE is a shortcut to the Burke-Gilman Trail. It’s not a groundbreaking improvement for biking, but it’s something. (more…)

tags: northlake way, sdot, wallingford

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Making streets more accessible is not a ‘cost,’ it’s a vital investment

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 10, 2017

This list from the complaint (PDF) goes on for 276 lines, and it’s far from complete.

News broke last week that the city is on the verge of settling a lawsuit that could result in a big investment in more curb ramps around Seattle.

Three people with disabilities — Conrad Reynoldson, Stuart Pixley and David Whedbey — sued the city in 2015 and have since grown the case into a class action suit. The pending settlement reportedly includes city investment in curb ramps in lieu of damages to the plaintiffs. More details from the Seattle Times:

Three men with disabilities sued Seattle in 2015, alleging the city was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act because many sidewalks lack curb ramps — which make crossing the street possible in a wheelchair or scooter — and many of the existing curb ramps are not up to snuff.

Nearly three decades after the ADA became law, and despite what cities often say are the best of intentions, the courtroom has become a crucial way of forcing them into compliance. The Seattle case is among a flurry of ADA lawsuits across the country in recent years, many of which have forced cities to increase their spending on sidewalks and curb ramps by tens of millions of dollars or more.

One detail about the media coverage that bothered me, however, is that most headlines described the potential settlement as “costing” Seattle. But investing in curb ramps is not a cost at all, it’s an investment in the mobility, safety and dignity of our city’s residents present and future. (more…)

tags: ADA, conrad reynoldson, david whedbey, disability rights washington, seattle times, stuart pixley

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SDOT shows off improved short-term bike plan

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 6, 2017

When SDOT released the 2016 short-term bike plan, I suggested the department “burn it and try again.”

Well, they more or less did just that. The new plan is far from perfect, and it doesn’t make up for lost time resulting from the major cuts in the 2016 plan. But downtown has reappeared, and the plan’s priorities for the next five year are closer to where they need to be: Creating a somewhat connected network of protected bike lanes and neighborhood greenways reaching most corners of the city.

The number of miles remains scaled back compared to the 2015 version and is not on pace to build half the Bike Master Plan by the end of the Move Seattle levy (as was the promise). But the locations of projects were guided through an intensive process with the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board and neighborhood safe streets groups. There are a lot of dotted lines (meaning the type and exact location of the facility is still up in the air), but it at least begins to look like a network. The maps below are still a draft, but they are nearly final (see the full draft plan, including when each project is planned for construction, in this PDF).

Union Street bike lane added to the plan

(more…)

tags: bicycle master plan implementation plan, genesee adkins, move seattle levy, sdot

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Seattle still doesn’t need a downtown car tunnel, but crews deserve a victory lap today

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 4, 2017

Seattle Bike Blog has been opposed to the downtown car tunnel since this site started in 2010, and we still are. It’s an enormous investment in unsustainable transportation that will likely make downtown and South Lake Union traffic worse. It’s a massive greenhouse gas generator with very little utility for transit and no utility for walking and biking. It’s the exact opposite of how we should be investing in our downtown and our region.

That said, credit where it’s due: I didn’t think they’d make it.

Yes, it is years late (the tunnel should have opened to traffic in 2015, according to the schedule when it broke ground) and has racked up big cost overruns (the total is still uncertain, but Seattle Tunnel Partners has filed a $480 million claim and WSDOT has already noted a $149 overrun of its own). But even a dedicated tunnel opponent like me can note that the engineers and crews on the ground have accomplished something that is at least remarkable from a technical standpoint.

So, congratulations to the team. Take a victory lap. You earned it. Whether I like the project or not, today is historic.

The failures of this project were political, and the failures include the opposition who did not built a strong enough vision and coalition to compete with the tunnel. The tunnel was political magical thinking where everyone supposedly wins: “We’ll just bury the traffic!”

But that’s not how traffic works. This project will certainly change where and how the traffic problems occur, but it doesn’t provide a way for people to get where they’re going without a car. Traffic is too many people driving.

(more…)

tags: alaskan way viaduct, deep bore tunnel, ed murray, sr 99, wsdot

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A note about Capitol Hill Seattle’s Justin Carder

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 3, 2017

Capitol Hill Seattle’s Justin Carder (or as his close friends call him, “@jseattle“) is likely the hardest-working journalist this side of West Seattle. His dedication to the grind of very-local news has been a remarkable thing to witness, and he has been a major inspiration and mentor for my work.

Carder announced an indefinite sabbatical Monday, effective next week.

It’s hard to imagine Seattle news without Capitol Hill Seattle, which has expanded its scope beyond just its namesake neighborhood over the past 11 years. But I guess we’re all about to find out.

CHS documents life on the ground in Seattle to a degree few (if any) other news sources in the city can reach. It has been a strong response to these grim days of newsroom layoffs and “content aggregation.” And Carder has managed it all as a truly independent news site, funded by a combination of local advertisers, reader support and his own long hours of work.

(more…)

tags: capitol hill seattle, justin carder

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