Seattle Bike Blog

City gives opposite tickets to people obeying the 2nd Ave traffic signals

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 11, 2015

SDOT’s Jim Curtin and volunteer Marley Blonsky give gift cards to people following the rules.

Most people follow the rules on 2nd Ave. Most people biking stop when the bike signal is red, and most people turning left obey the red arrow and wait their turn.

Unfortunately, most isn’t good enough, and there are far too many people still turning across the bike lanes when people on bikes have the green. While we have reported previously on how to make the traffic signals less confusing (hanging signals over each lane would help), many of those turning know they’re not supposed to and just don’t care. Police enforcement may be the only way to change their behavior.

But what about all those people who are doing their part to make the street work? Can the carrot be as effective as the stick? That’s what the Seattle Departments of Transportation is hoping for with their “re-enforcement patrols” this week.

Staff and volunteers from Pronto Cycle Share and Cascade Bicycle Club were out on 2nd Ave Thursday afternoon giving opposite tickets: $5 Starbucks gift cards for following the law. (more…)

tags: 2nd ave, re-enforcement patrols, sdot

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Salomon: Seattle’s newest protected bike lane just part of normal street maintenance

By

Andres Salomon

| Posted

June 11, 2015

EDITOR’S NOTE: Andres Salomon is a father and active member of NE Seattle Greenways, as well as an occasional contributor to Seattle Bike Blog.

Image from Google Maps

Seattle has just added a brand new protected bike lane to its repertoire. Last month, the city finished up work on a half-mile stretch of bike lanes in North Seattle. The segment, located on College Way N, helps connects a widely-used I-5 crossing, Wilson-Pacific Middle School, parts of Northgate, and runs alongside North Seattle Community College. While there was previously a scary bike lane there (that I’d made fun of in the past), this represents a major upgrade to the safety of people biking on that corridor.

There are a number of interesting things about this project, but perhaps most interesting element is the fact that SDOT appears to have treated this as a maintenance upgrade rather than a major new bike project.

The corridor had received a bunch of pavement fixes last summer, and was due to be repainted. There was no public outreach or open house meetings that I’m aware of. None of the people involved with Licton-Haller Greenways (including members of local neighborhood community councils and college employees) knew about the bike lane changes until painting had started. There is no project website or link from SDOT’s PBL webpage. The only hint that it was being planned was its inclusion in SDOT’s 2015 Bike Master Plan implementation plan (page 16 of this PDF).

Here’s what it looks like: (more…)

tags: andres salomon, college way n, north seattle community college, protected bike lanes, sdot

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Map: Where bikes are getting stolen + How Bike Index is changing the bike theft game

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 10, 2015

Stolen bike reports from just the past month on Bike Index. Screenshot from the Bike Index/BikeWise map.

Past month of stolen bike reports to Seattle Police, from data.seattle.gov

Bike theft has been crazy so far this spring. Or at least it seems that way.

Seattle Police received 581 stolen bike reports January through May, according to police report data at data.seattle.gov. But though that is a ton of bikes, that’s actually fewer than the 809 reports during the same period in 2014.

But perhaps what has changed most is the growing influence of Bike Index in helping to spread the work about thefts and, sometimes, help reconnect people with their stolen rides. In fact, comparing the SPD stolen bikes data with Bike Index reports shows that word has spread far and wide. A huge percentage of Seattle bike theft victims are using their service (you can also access Bike Index through our Stolen Bikes page).

It’s also cool to see Bike Index partnering with BikeWise, a bike theft and crash reporting website started years ago by Cascade Bicycle Club and Phil Mitchell. Bike Index’s database is open to developers in case you have an idea for how to spread their listings even further.

We told you last month about an awesome recovery, involving a disco ball helmet, costumed birthday bike ride and a hero named Alex Cruse who spotted a stranger’s stolen bike after seeing it listed on Bike Index. Well, that great story is just one of many recently, and Bryan Hance at Bike Index has been tracking those great recovery stories in somewhat weekly updates.

King County Sheriff officers deserve special credit for a series of recoveries recently, as documented on Twitter: (more…)

tags: bike index, bike thefts, bryan hance, cindi west

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League names 4 new bike-friendly communities in WA

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 10, 2015

The League of American Bicyclists have named four new Bicycle Friendly Communities in Washington State: Bellevue, Ellensburg, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and Port Angeles/Clallam County. Tacoma keeps its bronze rating.

Ellensburg (PDF) skips right over bronze and enters the listings at silver. With the highest bike commute rate in the state, that’s not a huge surprise. But the League suggests getting Central Washington University to step up its game in promoting cycling in this bike-loving small town. (more…)

tags: bellevue, bicycle friendly communities, clallam county, ellensburg, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, league of american bicyclists, port angeles, tacoma

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A block-by-block look at the planned Broadway Bikeway extension + Let’s connect to 520

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 9, 2015

From a recent SDOT/Alta presentation to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board

As construction on Capitol Hill Station enters its final phases, the long closure at the north end of the Broadway Bikeway may finally open up in the next month.

But the true glory of the bikeway won’t be realized until it extends through the rest of the Broadway business district at least to E Roy Street. Plans for extending the bikeway are linked to the First Hill Streetcar extension project, which is now in the design phase.

That project construction remains underfunded, but the design for both the streetcar and bikeway will be shovel-ready in 2016. There are talks of filling the funding gap through a Local Improvement District, but that is still very much up in the air. See this Capitol Hill Seattle story for more information.

Art Brochet from SDOT and Steve Durrant of Alta Planning + Design (the firm that also designed the existing First Hill Streetcar project) presented the updated design ideas for the bikeway element of the plan at a recent Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board meeting. Below is a block-by-block look at the plans as they are today, some suggestions for changes and a pitch to have a Roanoke connection ready to meet up with this project’s construction.

There aren’t many huge surprises, since the design is very similar to what already exists on Broadway south of Denny. But there are some subtle differences. For one, intersections will be marked using skipped green paint like the crossbikes on 2nd Ave. This will be inconsistent with other Broadway intersections (which are solid green), but consistent with the way the city plans to mark intersections going forward. (more…)

tags: broadway, broadway bikeway, capitol hill, protected bike lanes, steve durrant

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For first time, two neighborhood greenways will connect later this year

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

June 9, 2015

The city has built stretches of neighborhood greenways in Ballard, Northeast Seattle, the Central District, Delridge, Beacon Hill, Wallingford, Olympic Hills, the University District and Greenwood, but they are all sort of floating in space with limited usability because they lack connections.

While one strategy for creating a quality neighborhood greenway network would be to create a lot of connected routes in one part of town and grow outwards from there, Seattle decided to start separate networks in many parts of the city. This means the initial building of greenways has been a little underwhelming. But it also means that the groundwork has been laid to finally start making a lot of high quality connections fairly quickly.

For the first time, two neighborhood greenways will cross each other once the 17th Ave NW route is completed in Ballard this fall. The route will stretch from Soundview Playfield near Whitman Middle School to the Ballard business center, crossing the NW 58th Street neighborhood greenway on the way.

So, for example, once complete you’ll be able to bike or walk 2.7 miles from West Woodland Elementary to Whitman Middle School only using neighborhood greenways. The number of homes and destinations within range of the Ballard Neighborhood Greenway network will increase dramatically. (more…)

tags: 17th ave nw, ballard, ballard neighborhood greenways, nw 58th st, sdot, whitman middle school

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