This video features Don Brubeck of West Seattle Bike Connections. Clearly, people walking and biking are far from the priority at this terrible intersection where the Alki Trail, Chelan Ave, W Marginal, Delridge and Spokane all converge. People trying to get from the Alki Trail to the lower West Seattle Bridge have to cross this intersection, and it is a somewhat confusing and never pleasant experience. It’s so bad that fixing it is the top priority of WSBC.
Councilmember Tom Rasmussen and SDOT held a brianstorming session with community members to find solutions to the problem in February. But there’s not yet a clear plan forward. But something’s gotta happen.
It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s some of the stuff floating around the web that caught our eyes recently.
First up, Adonia Lugo at the League of American Bicyclists hosted a fantastic conversation about the term “invisible cyclists,” a wishy-washy term often used to describe low income and/or undocumented people who use bikes to get around but are often left out of urban cycling conversations. But is the term itself marginalizing?
It’s a long video, but a great conversation. You can also check out the online conversation on the League’s website:
Despite work on the Fremont Bridge that has at times restricted access to sidewalks in recent months, the city is still on track to reach one million bike trips across the bridge in 2014. But it will likely come down to the wire.
The bridge recorded its busiest month on record in July with 120,669 trips, beating out the record set just two months earlier. But more notably, September 2014 blew September 2013 out of the water, clocking 97,558 trips. That’s a 21 percent gain over the previous September, mirroring the gain seen in April and a bit higher than June’s notable 14 percent gain.
In all, bike trips over the bridge are up 9.4 percent compared to 2013, and 2014 has outpaced 2013 in all but two months (February and March). Riders just need to bike across the bridge 99,301 times in November and December in order to reach one million, a symbolic but pretty impressive goal for bike trips over a single bridge. If 2014 bike rates mirror those seen in 2013, we should reach one million right around Christmas.
So don’t stop biking! Well, you weren’t gonna do that anyway, were you?
Cascade Bicycle Club dropped the wintertime multi-day trade show from their 2015 lineup, but now Cascadia Events has picked up the baton and will put on the show with a different name and a new venue.
The Seattle Bike Show will be February 28 and March 1 at CenturyLink Field Event Center along with the Travel, Trips & Adventures Expo. The event will benefit Cascade and, like the Bike Expo, will be both a place for bike companies to show off their wares and a place for presentations, talks and performances.
Readers of this blog will likely be happy to see the easier-to-access downtown location, so no more frustrating, roundabout bike and walk trips to get to the Smith Cove Cruise Terminal. You’ll actually be able to take transit to the event this time, which is a huge upgrade.
Vendors need to register by November 21 to get early bird rates. Cost to enter will be $10 and will get your into both the Bike Show and the Adventures Expo.
Did you know that there is more to Washington state than just Seattle? It’s true! I’ve seen it. I’ve even biked through a bunch of it. It’s a pretty awesome place. And Washington Bikes is out there helping communities all across the state make bicycling safer and more accessible.
WA Bikes also works in Olympia every legislative season to pass necessary safe streets bills and push for safe streets funding. So if you have the dollars, you should snag a seat at their auction Saturday at the Waterfront Marriott and maybe bid on some stuff. If nothing else, there will be good company, and Cycling Sojourner Washington author Ellee Thalheimer will be the MC (she’s super cool, and so is her book).
The event also marks the one-year point with the organization’s new name. Previously known as the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, they solidified their change in mood and leadership by changing the more action-oriented name Washington Bikes. I usually find rebranding to be rather blah, but this one was effective and really has given them more of a clear identity (“alliance” sounded like they were a trade group or a parent group to other orgs).
Tickets are $90. (Full disclosure, WA Bikes has been advertising the event on this site and has offered Seattle Bike Blog a seat to attend.)
Seattle finally passed a Transportation Benefit District Proposition 1.
After a very disappointing loss in King County during the spring, Seattle decided to run its own version of the car tabs and sales tax measure intended to avoid transit cuts and add new service.
Early returns show the measure winning big 59 to 41 percent (UPDATE: The margin appears to be growing. Wednesday returns showed 60-40). If past results are any clue, that margin could even grow as the votes of younger, more transit-hungry procrastinators are counted.
Let’s be clear, Seattle just voted to charge $60 per year to own a car in the city, and to spend that money expanding and improving transit service. That’s a smart way to fund transit and make our growing city move faster and more reliably. We simply do not have the capacity for more people to drive alone to get around, and Seattle voters understand that.
Even though there are 76 cars for every 100 adult residents in Seattle (a number that is declining), only 41 percent of voters so far have voted against the measure. This suggests that half of the city’s car owners are happy to pay an extra $60 every year if it means the city has better transit. That’s really cool, and pretty much demolishes the meme that Seattleites who drive cars see the city’s walk, bike and transit efforts as a “war on cars,” a concept that only exists these days on blathering KIRO talk radio shows (where it belongs).
We’re all in this growing city together, and we need to find ways to get people where they need to go without adding more cars to the roads. Seattle keeps adding jobs and residents, so we need to add transit service to keep up. It doesn’t matter if you own a car or not, Seattle residents are united behind the vision of a city with better mass transit. (more…)
