Downtown Seattle has added 45,000 jobs since 2010. During the same time, only 2,255 new drive-alone trips have been added to downtown streets, according to a new Commute Seattle survey. The other 95 percent of commute trips were absorbed by transit, walking, biking, telecommuting and shared car trips.
The survey, released every two years, suggests that efforts to increase and improve transit service and build more homes near jobs are working. It also suggests that downtown streets are basically at capacity for peak-hour car trips, a truth anyone who spends any time downtown during peak hours could tell you. We can add more jobs, but we can’t add more cars.
Transit is by far the biggest winner in the survey, drawing very close to reaching 50 percent of downtown commute trips (it’s currently at 47 percent, so it could reach half very soon). Transit absorbed a net of 31,000 of those 45,000 new commute trips, a combination of new commute trips and exiting commuters who switched to transit.
The survey was conducted between Spring 2015 and Fall 2016, so the data likely does not fully account for the Capitol Hill and UW light rail stations. (more…)
Barb Chamberlain announces that the Bicycle Alliance of Washington would change names to WA Bikes in 2013.
One year after leading Washington Bikes through a merger with Cascade Bicycle Club, Barb Chamberlain is leaving the organization to become the first ever Director of WSDOT’s new Active Transportation Division.
As head of the division, Chamberlain will be tasked with “lead[ing] the integration of active transportation modes into WSDOT’s culture and provide technical services and funding assistance to public agencies in support of active transportation for health, safety and economic development,” according to the job listing.
That’s no small task! But Chamberlain has a remarkable amount of energy, and she’s able to bridge gaps between engaged residents and professional engineers, and between western and eastern Washington (she got her bike advocacy start in Spokane, and in the early 90s she was a young Idaho state legislator for the Coeur d’Alene area).
Chamberlain was picked to lead WA Bikes (then called the “Bicycle Alliance of Washington”) in 2012, succeeding Barp Culp. She helped start and organize the now-annual Washington Bike Summit, which draws everyone from professional engineers to bicycle advocates from communities big and small across the state. This year’s Summit is March 20-21 in Olympia.
Since merging WA Bikes with Cascade, Chamberlain has served as the organization’s Chief Strategic Officer.
Seattle’s Department of Transportation is retrofitting all department trucks to include sideguards designed to reduce harm to people walking and biking in the case of a collision.
One of the biggest dangers for people around large trucks is not the initial collision, but the likelihood that someone will be knocked to the ground, then run over by the rear wheels. The sideguards are a very simple way to help push people out of the way of the wheels in the case of a collision. People may still be injured, but the seriousness of those injuries and the likelihood of death would be significantly reduced.
A study out of the U.K. found that “fatalities from side-impact collisions with trucks were reduced by 61% for cyclists, and 20% for pedestrians, after sideguards were added,” according to SDOT. That’s not zero, but it’s a big improvement. This is an easy way to work that much closer to Vision Zero.
Sadly, a terrible collision in Portland this morning highlights why sideguards are so needed: A man biking was killed in a collision with someone driving a box truck without sideguards. While details are very early, Bike Portland reports from the scene that the man’s bike was lodged near the rear wheels, likely due to a right hook collision. Our condolences to the man’s friends and family.
The SDOT action follows a similar decision by the University of Washington in Spring 2015, which added sideguards to all campus trucks.
Obviously, the first goal should be to prevent a collision in the first place, but sideguards are an extremely easy way to reduce harm when collisions happen.
New York City and Boston have also required the guards on city vehicles for years now, and Boston estimates that the cost to install the guards is only $1,800, a small percentage of the cost of a large truck. Boston goes an extra step by also requiring sideguards on trucks used by contractors the city hires, which is one step Seattle could take immediately.
UPDATE 2/7: NBC News posted a very timely report today about a national effort to require truck sideguards. The effort is mostly focused on the safety of people driving, of whom about 200 die each year after crashing into the side of unguarded trucks. There’s even an online petition you can sign. So the issue is not just about biking and walking safety. (h/t Bike Portland)
While it’s great that SDOT is working to set an example, what will it take to get sideguards on all large trucks operating in the city/county/state? Could the King County Board of Health require them the way they require adults to wear bicycle helmets? It makes more sense to require safety equipment on dangerous machinery operating in public than on possible victims.
Due to the interstate nature of trucking, a comprehensive solution would need to be national, though maybe a couple big states passing such laws would be enough to set the standard. Perhaps insurance companies could start calculating sideguards into their premiums for commercial trucks, which only makes sense considering the harm (and, therefore, payout) reduction sideguards could provide. That may get nationwide results faster than waiting for a Federal regulation.
SDOT is committed to making our streets safer for everyone, and we’re taking a big step by retrofitting all SDOT trucks with sideguards.
Sideguards reduce the risk of serious injury or death by preventing pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcycles from being caught underneath a large truck. According a study in the U.K., fatalities from side-impact collisions with trucks were reduced by 61% for cyclists, and 20% for pedestrians, after sideguards were added.
Sideguards can also help save on gas by reducing air drag an increasing fuel efficiency.
In addition to retrofitting all existing large trucks, SDOT is requiring all new large trucks be equipped with sideguards straight from the manufacturer.
To learn more about side guards, and how they help save lives and fuel, check out the U.S. Department of Transportation information page.
People rally to divest from Wells Fargo outside City Hall Wednesday. Photo from Seattle City Council via Twitter.
The City Council is set to vote Monday to end its banking business with Wells Fargo as a political act in response to the bank’s funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This action is in solidarity with Native American communities leading actions to protect their water and the Standing Rock Sioux’s rights.
The Council’s Finance Committee recommended passage of the bill Wednesday 8 – 0 within hours of news breaking that the Trump administration is pushing to restore the pipeline’s permit to cross waterways in the Standing Rock area.
Aside from demonstrating solidarity against the project, the point of the action is to show Wells Fargo that investing in the Dakota Access Pipeline does not make businesses sense (the bill also takes issue with the bank’s phony account scandal). The city would likely be the largest account to divest from Wells Fargo over its pipeline investments, following the lead of individuals who started closing their accounts in the wake of the water protection actions.
The Seattle bill would also include social responsibility as a factor in deciding on which banks to work with going forward. That, of course, may prove difficult, since so many competing large financial institutions have their own problematic investments and behavior. But if regular people, companies of all sizes and public institutions start demanding socially-responsible investing from their banks, perhaps that will change. At least that’s the theory.
But more immediately, if pressure is high enough perhaps Wells Fargo will drop their stake in the pipeline, a financial hole that could stop the project entirely.
The city is also working to support state legislation that would give Seattle more leeway in choosing a bank, such as allowing city banking business to go through credit unions or maybe even someday create a public bank.
These are all good efforts by the city, and they are only happening thanks to strong leadership from communities on the ground at Standing Rock and the many people here at home who support them.
Of course, there’s an additional way to work against the business models of Dakota Access, Keystone XL and other major oil projects: We can use less oil. Seattle has the plans and the power to divest from one end of the balance sheet and reduce demand at the other. (more…)
Anna helps serve tamales out of the family cargo bike.
Andres Salomon was born in Ecuador and moved to the United States when he was three. His wife Anna moved to the U.S. as a refugee when she was five. They met at MIT and named their son Atom (which is a bad ass name).
Their family does not own a car. Instead, they get around using a cargo bike. And at his campaign announcement outside UW Station Wednesday, that cargo bike was full of homemade tamales.
“We can say all we want about being a welcoming sanctuary city,” he said in response to a crowd question, “but unless our housing is affordable, unless you can get around safely without a car, we’re not really a welcoming city.”
He has been a dedicated volunteer leader of Northeast Seattle Greenways for years, working to advocate for safe streets. He has — to name just one example — been an unshakeable organizing force for a safer NE 65th Street for years, a project he helped convince the City Council to add to the budget for 2017. He has written guest posts for Seattle Bike Blog, and I have had the pleasure of watching him evolve as a grassroots activist over my years writing this blog. So, full disclosure, I can’t claim to be some kind of neutral voice about him.
His announcement focuses on his experience as an immigrant, the need for serious action to make it easier to build more housing affordably, a call to end homeless camps sweeps, to end youth incarceration, and to not spend money on an “exorbitant police stations that isolate them further from the communities they police.” (more…)
As advocates for safe streets, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has spent a lot of its efforts lobbying, campaigning and building support for infrastructure investments. So with lots of local transportation funding at risk if the Trump administration succeeds in its threat to pull federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities,” where does Seattle Neighborhood Greenways stand?
“Our crumbling streets can be rebuilt later—our humanity cannot,” SNG Executive Director Cathy Tuttle wrote in a joint statement with Rich Stolz of the Washington immigration rights organization One America (posted in full below).
Seattle should fight hard against punitive action by the federal government. But if that fails, we must defend our values and our neighbors before defending our budgets.
The joint statement was released just days before the Muslim ban executive order was signed, kicking off another weekend of massive protests in the region.
It was also released days before neighbors, co-workers and loved ones gathered on S Graham Street to remember Ronacin Tjhung, a recent immigrant from the Philippines and father of five who was killed in a collision with someone driving an SUV while he was biking to his second job.
“Working people of all nationalities need safe bike routes,” Councilmember Kshama Sawant said at the memorial, “so that people don’t have to make dangerous decisions to get to their jobs.”
Hours later, I was in another crowd listening to Sawant lead, this time in SeaTac Airport. We were demanding the release of people detained at SeaTac and ports of entry across the nation because of where they were born.
We must keep working for safe streets for everybody. But that starts by fighting to make sure everyone can get to our streets in the first place. All of you out there who are organized around the issue of safe streets should also utilize those networks to organize for other causes as the need arises. (more…)
Downtown Seattle has added 45,000 jobs since 2010. During the same time, only 2,255 new drive-alone trips have been added to downtown streets, according to a new Commute Seattle survey. The other 95 percent of commute trips were absorbed by transit, walking, biking, telecommuting and shared car trips.
