Last week, I married the most beautiful and inspiring woman on the planet.
Over the past seven years, Kelli has transformed my life in so many wonderful and powerful ways. Among them: She introduced me to biking for transportation. But more specifically, she gave me the confidence to let go of my car, which I had worked hard to buy during high school.
Like so many Americans, I grew up in a driving-dominated community where your car keys are your freedom. But Kelli called bullshit on that car dependence. She taught me that all I really need is the confidence in myself to make my life work using only my legs and the occasional transit ride.
I don’t know if there was one exact moment where I fell in love with Kelli, but I’m sure it happened while we were on a bike adventure together. (more…)
We are waaaay overdue for a Bike News Roundup. So I hope you’re ready to sink the rest of your day into a couple weeks of interesting transportation news from around the region and the world.
First up! The Late Late Show’s James Corden takes on some amazing NIMBY opposition to bike lanes in Coronado, California. Maybe he could visit Mercer Island next?
A small part of a giant bike train to Bryant Elementary
With parents and students leading the way, supported by city staff, elected officials and safe streets organizations, Seattle just dropped an astounding plan to take the city’s walk-and-bike-to-school revolution to the next level.
The plan has been a long time in the making and includes extensive research into best practices for cities, parents, students, schools and police to all work together to increase the number of students getting to class under their own power safely. It outlines how to improve safety today, but also outlines how to invest in infrastructure and youth education to increase safety for a generation.
For example, every Seattle Public Schools 3rd, 4th and 5th Grade class will receive in-class biking and walking education starting next school year thanks to a partnership between the city, SPS and Cascade Bicycle Club. This is a huge increase in youth biking and walking education, which currently only reaches 32 of 71 elementary schools.
The city will also invest in safe streets changes like better crosswalks, speed humps and sidewalks. And funding to power these changes will come from a wide variety of sources including more of the city’s brilliant speed cameras and, of course, from Move Seattle if voters approve Seattle’s Prop 1 this month.
“Our city is growing rapidly and the population of school age children grows with it,” Mayor Ed Murray wrote in the intro to the plan.
A huge amount of peak-hour traffic is just for school drop-off and pick-up. Meanwhile, 83 percent of public school students live within their school’s walk zone and nearly all live within the bike zone.
Walking and biking to school is good for student health and is proven to help kids stay focused during class. But it’s also vital for helping the whole city keep moving as it grows. Even people without kids have a stake in this plan.
And the good news is that efforts in recent years are working, so we’re on the right track.
UPDATED 10/12 with new map from UW showing which bridges are open.
I know you just started enjoying a fully open Burke-Gilman Trail, but it goes back under the knife Monday.
The good news is that the UW is breaking ground on significant safety and capacity upgrades for one of the busiest stretches of trail you will find anywhere in the US. The bad news is that the construction will require significant detours until next summer.
The upcoming detour route is similar to the route in place last year, except a little shorter and with fewer twists and turns. Some sections of trail will remain open for local access, but won’t work for through-travel. The city also installed new bike lanes on Campus Parkway and Brooklyn that could help better connect the detour route to the University Bridge. (more…)
Lyle Bicknell from Seattle’s Dept. of Planning and Development helped lead a bike tour of South Lake Union and Uptown in July.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The only thing worse than biking in South Lake Union is driving in South Lake Union. But unlike driving, there are some relatively easy and quickly-achievable ways to dramatically improve bike routes to and through our city’s fastest-growing neighborhood.
Over the summer, I joined Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, local residents, city staff and City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw for a bike tour of South Lake Union and Lower Queen Anne/Uptown. It was eye-opening mostly because of how clear the solutions are. SNG has compiled the feedback from the ride into a report with specific suggestions the city, developers and major employers should take seriously.
Below is the report from the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways blog, republished here with permission. Thanks especially to Gordon Padelford and Cathy Tuttle for their work and offering us this post.
South Lake Union Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Scouting Ride July 2015
In July 2015, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways brought together a group of stakeholders to scout and recommend better east‐west connections between the Cascade and Uptown neighborhoods for families and people of all ages and abilities to navigate the fastest growing part of Seattle by bike.
The scouting ride had representatives from the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, the Seattle Department of Transportation, the Seattle Department of Planning and Development, Seattle Parks, Seattle Parks Foundation, the Lake to Bay Loop Coalition, Seattle Bike Blog, Queen Anne Greenways, Cascade Bicycle Club, Lake Union Greenways, Central Seattle Greenways, and the Seattle City Council.
Not only would it make powerful investments in the bike network, safe streets and efficient transit, but it would also prevent devastating cuts to our growing city’s transportation system.
But it can only pass if supporters are registered to vote. So pass this link around to everyone you know who recently moved to the city or changed their address? They may not know that today is the deadline to register or update their address online and receive a ballot in the mail.
People can still register in person up to October 26, but that’s a hassle that many people may not go through when the time comes. If the vote count is close, it may come down to how many people registered today.
