Seattle Bike Blog

What can Seattle’s bike movement do to help end homelessness?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 27, 2016

While Mayor Ed Murray was giving a speech on the homelessness emergency in Seattle, five people were shot and two killed at a notorious camping area where Beacon Hill and I-5 meet.

Though information is still scarce, the mass shooting of Seattleites is a tragedy and highlights yet another terrible way life without a home is so dangerous.

We wrote earlier this week about HALA and the city’s proposed plan to increase affordable housing. At the far end of that housing spectrum is, of course, homelessness. 3,000 students in Seattle Public Schools are homeless, and four of five of them are children of color.

Without homes, people die. Last year, 66 homeless people died in Seattle. Our city’s lack of shelter is a public health crisis.

“If there had been an earthquake, if there had been a flood that had killed 66 people, the City would ask for and expect aid from the State and Federal government,” said Mayor Ed Murray Tuesday (full speech PDF). “And while this crisis has developed over time, the effects have been equally devastating.”

Murray outlined a number of ways the city is working to address homelessness, like increasing shelter beds, reworking the city’s approach to homelessness services and a housing levy vote in November double the size of the previous levy.

We can end homelessness. But we need to take even more dramatic action. (more…)

tags: bike thefts, ed murray, hala, homelessness, real change, seattle times

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Rethinking Seattle’s Freeways: Mr. Inslee, tear down this Aurora wall

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 26, 2016

What if Bertha never finishes the SR 99 highway tunnel?

What if SR 99 doesn’t need to be a freeway-style highway through downtown at all?

And what if that’s true for the whole city, too?

In other words, what if we tear down that awful Aurora Ave median wall once and for all?

I’m talking about the freedom for Fremont and Wallingford to be together once again, the freedom for Phinney Ridge residents to once again have easy access to Green Lake, the freedom for businesses on Aurora to flourish now that their walk zones have doubled, and, yes, the freedom for people driving on Aurora to finally, at long last, make a left turn.

Mr. Inslee, tear down this Aurora wall!

Forget all about the sunk costs of the tunnel. Step back, take a deep breath, and reassess the situation. Because without a freeway downtown, we could bring those benefits all the way up the highway. Aurora could become what it should have been all along: A busy boulevard. A center of regional commerce and movement. An attraction, not a barrier.

Aurora is not a freeway. It is a commercial highway through dense neighborhoods with a 1930s-vintage freeway (then called a “speedway”) sloppily pasted on top of it. The basic design of the highway is so outdated it comes from an era when state leaders also thought it wise to name it the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway. Yes, really. So, you know, those dudes made several questionable decisions that could use some revising.

Confederacy-worship aside, the design of Aurora has not evolved with the times and with the city around it. It’s not just outdated, confusing and ugly, it’s also dangerous. A 2008 safety project managed to get collisions down to about one a day and deaths down to one a month. That’s not even close to acceptable.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

And unlike with I-5, it won’t take a multi-billion-dollar project to fix Aurora. Instead, all we have to do is peel away the old false freeway and add some more modern boulevard design elements instead. (more…)

tags: aurora, deep bore tunnel, fremont, green lake, jay inslee, phinney ridge, queen anne, rethinking seattle’s freeways, sr 99, wallingford

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What does HALA have to do with biking? Everything.

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 25, 2016

From the Mayor’s Office

There are basically two ways to increase the number of homes in bikeable and walkable neighborhoods. 1: Improve bikeability and walkability in more neighborhoods, or 2: Increase the number of homes in neighborhoods that are already bikeable and walkable.

Most talk about bike infrastructure focuses on the first way, and of course that’s very important. But the second way is too often overlooked, even though it is just as important.

Housing development as it is today is pretty good at increasing the number of homes in Seattle’s most walkable and bikeable neighborhoods (just look where the cranes are: Ballard, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, U District, Belltown, etc). But it’s not currently geared to make sure everyone can afford a place in those neighborhoods. And that’s a serious problem.

So if you care about making it easier for more people to make more trips by bike, then you need to get engaged with the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (“HALA”) debate.

You can start by attending the city’s Seattle At Work discussion 5 – 7 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) at City Hall. For some other ideas, check out Renee Staton’s guest post on Seattle Transit Blog.

Wait! Don’t leave yet! I know HALA debates so far have been confusing and surprisingly heated. But coupled with passage of the Move Seattle levy, the HALA decisions have immense potential to open Seattle’s increasingly bikeable and walkable neighborhoods to more people. And that’s a beautiful vision worth diving head-first into a public debate about.

First of all, if you have only heard angry stuff about HALA, wipe the slate clean and start over. Because there are a ton of really bold and smart ideas in the proposal that have been overshadowed by knee-jerk reactions from some community members and journalists. The proposal is only the stuff that made it through a committee of people who have very different ideas of what should happen, including both affordable housing advocates and for-profit developers.

At the top level, this plan is about how to add 50,000 homes to our growing city in the next decade, 20,000 of which should be designated affordable. People keep moving here, our single-family neighborhoods are out of space to build more houses surrounded by big open yards, and our streets can’t handle more cars.

This is why biking and HALA go hand-in-hand. (more…)

tags: affordable housing, alan durning, ed murray, hala, kshama sawant, move seattle, move seattle levy

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Roosevelt bike lane plans inch closer to greatness, construction meeting Monday

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 22, 2016

The plans for a protected bike lane on Roosevelt Way NE from NE 65th Street to the U Bridge have been finalized, and the city is hosting a construction open house Monday to show off the plans and let people know what to expect during the major repaving work.

The open house is 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. (presentation at 6:15) at University Heights Community Center, 5031 University Way NE, Room 108.

Roosevelt is already a major bike route both for neighborhood trips and citywide commutes. But the existing paint-only door zone bike lane is sorely insufficient. So the city plans a wide protected bike lane with a healthy buffer between car traffic and people biking.

(more…)

tags: roosevelt

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Saturday: Cascade hosts bike advocacy ‘Big Ideas Festival’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 21, 2016

Image from the Facebook event page.

Cascade Bicycle Club is hosting a regional bike advocacy summit dubbed the “Big Ideas Festival” 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at their Magnuson Park headquarters.

The event is free, but you should RSVP online so they can plan on you.

A connected network of quality bike lanes in downtown Seattle? A trail spanning and connecting major population and job centers on the Eastside? Following young people’s lead on bike advocacy and safe streets? These and more are on the schedule for Saturday.

Yours truly will be on a panel to talk about Seattle’s downtown bike network. Will I be for it or against it? There’s only one way to find out…

tags: big ideas festival, cascade bicycle club, connect puget sound, connect seattle

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With John Wayne Trail seemingly protected for now, group from Tekoa outlines steps to make it great

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

January 20, 2016

Hikers on the trail. Photo from the Tekoa Trail and Trestle Association

The John Wayne Trail appears safe from legislative giveaway, at least for now.

The Tekoa Trail and Trestle Association (“TTTA”) from the far east end of the statewide John Wayne Pioneer Trail (AKA the Iron Horse Trail) sent an email to supporters Tuesday announcing that Rep. Joe Schmick does not plan to reintroduce legislation that nearly gave away the state trail to adjacent landowners last year.

As we reported previously, that trail giveaway was attached to the Capital Budget and, therefore, did not go through the normal hearing and public process before getting passed. A typo in the law made it invalid, however, and delivered a wake-up call to people and communities who love it and dream of a more developed and usable trail someday. This includes Ted Blaszak, President of the TTTA and member of the Tekoa City Council. Blaszak has worked tirelessly on the issue in recent months, essentially organizing a campaign of urgent trail support from the ground up.

The series of public hearings on the trail in recent months, co-organized by the TTTA and Rep. Schmick’s Office, gathered feedback about the trail and got landowners and trail supporters in the same room. Some of the concerns about the trail have to do with inadequate weed control and illegal uses, including dumping.

Many of these issues could be helped if there were more users, but a lack of development of the trail, water access and a restrictive permitting process present significant impediments to use. (more…)

tags: 2016 legislature, iron horse trail, joe schmick, john wayne pioneer trail, ted blaszak, tekoa, tekoa trail and trestle association

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