The City of Bellevue is planning safety changes to the design of 116th Ave NE, including new bike lanes to help link the 520 Trail to the NE 12th Street crossing of I-405 into central Bellevue.
You can throw in your support and thoughts on the design at an open house5–6:30 p.m. December 11 at Bellevue City Hall, Room 1E-112.
As we reported previously, this is a smart project that would provide a low-cost and high-impact bike connection while also making the street safer for all users.
Today, there are two lanes northbound and one lane southbound despite the fact that traffic is essentially the same in each direction. There is no significant southbound traffic issue today. Having too many lanes makes the street more dangerous for everyone and encourages speeding. Planners describe the benefits for all users this way: (more…)
Paulo Nunes-Ueno was Director of Transportation and Sustainability at Seattle Children’s when the institution wanted to expand its northeast Seattle campus. To help mitigate the traffic impact the larger campus would have on the neighborhood, Nunes-Ueno lead a cutting edge effort to help connect the campus to the nearby neighborhood, transit service and the Burke-Gilman Trail. At the same time, he put his own home life into public view to make a point about making neighborhood streets fun and active for people of all ages.
Now, the city has announced that he will lead the new transit division at SDOT, which will immediately be tasked with helping to figure out how best to use funds raised by passage of Seattle’s Prop 1 in November.
Seattle Children’s also invested a half million dollars to help Pronto Cycle Share provide a helmet solution to comply with the county’s all-ages helmet law, which also helped them secure a station at their campus even though it is outside the service area.
Sixty percent of the Seattle Children’s workforce now commutes by biking, walking or taking transit. (more…)
The crisis of traffic violence in our region continues to maim and kill our neighbors, coworkers and loved ones. Here’s a quick and sadly far-from-complete look at some recent tragedies. Sadly, every victim in this post is over the age of 60, furthering the terrible rule that traffic violence impacts seniors disproportionately.
Every one of these victims have families and friends who love them, and even those not killed have long, tough recoveries ahead of them. The fact that this post only scrapes the surface of all the traffic injuries and deaths in the area shows just how much of a public health crisis traffic violence is.
Man killed walking to job as nighttime janitor in downtown Seattle
Screenshot from the Seattle Times. Click to read.
Leo Almanzor was walking to his night shift as a janitor at Washington Athletic Club November 22 when a person apparently fleeing a traffic stop struck and killed him. The person responsible fled the scene.
Our condolences to his friends and family.
It’s not yet clear whether Almanzor was in a crosswalk or on the sidewalk when he was killed. Police told his family the person driving ran a red light, but a witness said the car went up onto the sidewalk at one point. But either way, a “a very selfless man” who was “dedicated and giving” is now dead.
“The family is frustrated at this point, because whoever this person is who took his life, took so much from us,” Almanzor’s niece Cat Kalepo told the Seattle Times.
It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! First up, Utrecht in the Netherlands took an intersection that would be top notch in Seattle and decided it wasn’t safe enough for people on bikes. Here’s how they made it even better:
Cascade Bicycle Club has announced its 2015 ride schedule, which includes an all-new ride to raise money for the club’s Major Taylor Project. Focused on improving access to cycling to young people in underserved communities, the Major Taylor Project has become a higher profile priority for the club in recent years.
One major event missing from the lineup: The Seattle Bike Expo. As we reported previously, Cascade initially cancelled the event entirely. But Cascadia Events has since stepped up to revive a version of the Expo at a new location and under the new name The Seattle Bike Show.
The club is also offering a new deal for folks who want to do a whole lot of organized bike rides next year. A Cascade Season Pass will get you into almost all their major rides (excludes tours and Ride Around Washington) as well as a membership to the club and a jersey for $595. Wisely, they are pitching this as a good present idea this holiday season. Details: (more…)
Graph by Doug Ollerenshaw shows running 12-month totals, which climbed above 1 million for the first time on 9/29/2014. More explanation here.
We did it! One million bike trips across the Fremont Bridge in one year!
Actually, as commenter Doug Ollerenshaw pointed out on our previous Fremont bike counter story, we did it back on September 29. That was the first day that counts for the previous 12 months totaled one million. So between 9/29/2013 and 9/29/2014, there were one million bike trips across the bridge. This same feat has been repeated many days since, as well.
Hooray! Belated congratulations!
However, the journey to one million bike trips in the 2014 calendar year is looking like it really will come down to the wire, maybe even to New Years Eve (how dramatic would that be?).
Unfortunately, the exact number of people to cross the bridge in November is not fully clear due to some malfunctions in the counter due to a dead battery. But assuming the count is correct, we’re gonna need 44,036 bikes to cross the bridge in December to break one million trips in a calendar year, about 500 more than crossed in the same month last year.
And with bridge painting work continuing to close the bridge sidewalks, this could be a tall order. Many people have taken to biking in the general travel lanes to avoid the work, which also means they avoid the counter. Some people may even have rerouted to avoid the bridge entirely.
Below is a look at the year-to-year comparison for monthly bike trip totals. As you can see, November bucks a nearly year-long trend of significant increases in bike traffic (note, this is the first month that we have three years to compare): (more…)
The City of Bellevue is planning safety changes to the design of 116th Ave NE, including new bike lanes to help link the 520 Trail to the NE 12th Street crossing of I-405 into central Bellevue.
