Seattle Bike Blog

The new Jackson Street isn’t safe, here’s a way to fix it

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 17, 2015

As we reported earlier this week, Daniel Ahrendt has a rough recovery ahead of him after crashing on Jackson Street in May and getting run over by a Metro bus.

Both he and a Metro bus were headed westbound on Jackson. The bus was stopped in the curb lane, so Ahrendt moved into the left lane to pass when he fell. The bus then moved forward and ran over him with the back wheels.

Though Seattle Police said the cause of the crash is still under investigation, Ahrendt’s lawyer said his wheel got caught in the streetcar tracks. Though not one passenger has yet taken a ride on the First Hill Streetcar, many people have already crashed on Jackson Street since the tracks were installed in early 2014.

While new street designs do take some time for people to adjust and get used to them, it’s been well over a year and people are still getting hurt. So we know that the Jackson Street design is not safe as is, and we definitely know the intersection at Jackson/Rainier/Boren/14th is confusing. So let’s start thinking about how the city can make this intersection and the whole Jackson corridor safer.

Here’s a look at the confusing sharrow guides in that intersection (I also put together this short video for the first-person perspective):

(more…)

tags: daniel ahrendt, first hill streetcar, jackson, sdot

— Advertisement —
City will repair bumpy sections of the Burke-Gilman Trail this week

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 16, 2015

Bumps like these caused by tree roots grow and grow until they turn from annoyance to hazard.

Seattle’s section of the Burke-Gilman Trail is incredibly busy, but it also has some old sections that are plagued with bumps from tree roots or damage from small landslides.

Some small bumps aren’t a big deal, but sometimes they turn into big gaps or elevated tree root humps that could potentially cause a fall. The Burke-Gilman is the hardest working bike route in the region, moving a lot of people on very old trail surface. It needs to be safe for people of all levels of bike experience and at all levels of daylight, since the trail has no lighting.

The good news is that the Parks Department and SDOT are teaming up to make a bunch of repairs to the trail this week. Be ready for small delays getting through work sites spread out from Ballard to NE 145th Street. (more…)

tags: burke-gilman trail, parks and recreation, sdot

— Advertisement —
City details plan to build Roosevelt bike lanes and avoid parking crunch

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 15, 2015

Planned design for Roosevelt, from SDOT

The city has outlined a plan, developed with community help, to ease concerns about a parking crunch once the Roosevelt protected bike lanes are built in late 2015 and early 2016.

This is a win-win-win plan that preserves enough parking to meet maximum parking use in the area while also making space for a wide protected bike lane and possibly increasing safety on residential side streets in the process.

Simply put, the city went out and explored all opportunities to add more parking on nearby side streets to mitigate removal of spaces on Roosevelt itself. They found a bunch of blocks where parking is only allowed on one side of the street, so they measured the streets and checked with nearby emergency services (there’s a fire station at NE 50th St) to confirm that adding parking would work.

In total, they found space for 98 new parking spaces, or 81 percent of total spaces displaced by the bike lane. That’s ten percent more than needed to meet the existing parking use, which averages 71 percent on the corridor. In fact, the peak usage staff measured was 82 percent during midday on a weekday, just about perfectly met by the parking plan. (more…)

tags: roosevelt, sdot

— Advertisement —
Man injured in collision with Metro bus on tough road to recovery

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 15, 2015

Click here to watch the full KOMO report.

Daniel Ahrendt has a long road back to recovery. But considering what happened, things could have been so much worse.

Ahrendt was biking westbound on Jackson and had just crossed the intersection with 14th Ave/Rainier/Boren when he fell under the wheels of a Metro Route 14 trolley bus. We reported on that collision shortly after it happened May 4.

He suffered a broken pelvis and shattered leg, among other scary injuries. But doctors believe he will recover fully, though it’s going to take some time.

Daniel and his mother Karrie were featured in a recent KOMO News story describing his struggles back to health. It’s remarkable how much better he looks in the more recent footage than he did in the hospital footage. Keep healing up, Daniel! (more…)

tags: daniel ahrendt, international district, jackson

— Advertisement —
Bike News Roundup: The nation’s bikiest city with over 1M people

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 12, 2015

It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s a look at some of the stuff floating around the interwebs recently that caught our eye.

As always, this is an open thread.

First up, I bet you didn’t know Philadelphia is the bikiest US city with more than one million residents:

The Philadelphia Bike Story from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

(more…)

tags: bike news roundup

— Advertisement —
Weekend Guide: Girls of Summer, Lake to Lake + Cascade’s 45th Birthday Party

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 12, 2015

Get yer bike on!

Here’s a look at some awesome bikey stuff happening this weekend. Did I miss anything? Let us know in the comments below. And, of course, remember that anyone can add events to our calendar. Just follow the instructions at the top of the page.

5th Annual Girls of Summer All Girl Alley Cat

Details:

Menstrual Monday is proud to announce the FIFTH (holy crap 5 years!!!!) ANNUAL ALL-Girl Alley Cat, Girls of Summer! If this race were a kid, we’d be sending it off to kindergarten.

Join us for another year of miles, smiles, sweat, and laughter. Last year an amazing group of 65 women came together to celebrate bikes, the city, and each other. We will have prizes in fun and creative categories to encourage new or non-competitive riders (a MOUNTAIN of prizes). Also to encourage women of all ages to race and in the tradition of road racing we will have a Master’s category. That means the first person age 35+ will get a sweet prize.

(more…)

tags: weekend guide

— Advertisement —