By
| Posted
After taking a couple weeks off for the winter break, Seattle Bike Blog Magazine is back with its third issue.
Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. We are working on ways to integrate comments and social media interactions, as several of you have suggested. Be looking for that in coming weeks.
In the meantime, enjoy Issue 3!
By
| Posted
Have I ever told you all that I love Seattle?
Because in Seattle, you can actually go to bike touring school. That’s a real thing here. How beautiful is that?
Sarah Burch will be teaching the three-hour class in late January and early February as part of the Experimental College of the Associated Students of UW. You don’t have to be a UW student to attend, and you don’t get college credit for it.
But who needs college credit when you have the liberating winds of Washington State’s open roads blowing through your hair?
Details from Burch:
Hello Tom~My name is Sarah Burch. I am hugely passionate about bicycling — and about bicycle touring, in particular!I will be teaching a class called “The Basics of Bicycle Touring” through the UW Experimental College. The class will help students:* gain confidence to travel by bicycle* become aware of the varieties of bicycle touring styles* learn how to plan a bike trip — including trip preparation, gear selection, packing, and transporting the bicycle* learn advice passed down from experienced cyclists — including suggestions for staying healthy and safe while cycling.Individuals can sign up for the class at exco.org.
By
| Posted
You no longer have to bike all the way to Fremont to get counted. The city — with support from the Rails to Trails Conservancy and the Mark and Susan Torrance Foundation — has installed seven new real-time bike counters around the city. This brings the city’s total to nine.
The new counters do not have a visual display like the ones already installed near the Fremont and Spokane St bridges, but the data collected will be the same and available online starting in February.
In addition to counting bikes, new counters on the Burke-Gilman, I-90, Chief Sealth and Elliott Bay Trails will count people walking, too.
Other counters installed in Ballard, Northeast Seattle and West Seattle will measure bike usage on neighborhood greenways, providing out first real data about how well they are being used and, importantly, how use grows as more people learn about them and they become better connected to the city’s bike network.
Details from SDOT: (more…)
By
| Posted
An exciting park restoration and mountain bike project in the Cheasty Greenspace on the eastern edge of Beacon Hill hit a roadblock last year: There is a long-forgotten Seattle Parks policy that prohibits bicycle use in parks.
At first, organizers of the Cheasty Greenspace Trails and Bike Park were hoping to overturn the policy, but there were concerns about making such a change in whole. Instead, the Parks Board will consider allowing the Cheasty project as a pilot, demonstrating how mountain bikers can help rehab and maintain the often under-used space.
UPDATE: The issue passed Thursday, giving the green light for the project to move forward. From organizers:
It’s on!!!! The Parks board recommended Cheasty as a pilot project for mountain biking in Seattle Parks, so it’s happening! It would have never happened without your support, enthusiasm, and dedication. So thank you all!
Back to original story:
Cheasty has a serious problem with invasive species and has few easy paths and trails, whether on foot or bike. The plan would focus volunteer hours on creating sustainable hiking trails, mountain bike trails and restoring the greenery.
If approved, it would also be a test to see how mountain bike trails, and the volunteer efforts they can draw, could be a solution for some other underused or invasive-filled areas. It would also be a good step to finding a way to balance acknowledging mountain biking as a legitimate and valuable park use while also making sure it does not diminish the parks for others (safe for dog walkers, strolls, children, etc).
From the Cheasty Greenspace Trails & Bike Park project: (more…)
By
| Posted
Sound Transit operates many popular regional express bus routes connecting major employment and residential centers quickly and easily.
But, as express routes, getting from your home or workplace to the bus stop or transit center is often the most difficult part. Taking a slow local bus, then waiting to transfer is one way to get there. Driving to a park-and-ride is another.
But many people have figured out the best way: Bike there.
Unfortunately, for many popular routes, so many people want to bring their bikes on the bus with them that the racks are often at capacity.
Well, Sound Transit is trying to help by replacing nearly all their two-bike racks with new ones that can hold three bikes. And unlike the three-bike racks installed on King County Metro buses, the newer SportWorks model is easier to use (the arms that hold the bike steady tend to be less “sticky,” at least the couple times I’ve used them).
UPDATE: Sound Transit sent us a correction to their earlier statement that all buses would be upgraded: “One thing we should correct about new bike racks – they won’t be used on the MCI buses (some Pierce Co. routes).”
Bike use is growing so quickly in the Puget Sound region that adding one extra bike spot to each bus is not going to completely solve the bike + transit capacity issue. But it could very well save you from waiting in the rain for the next bus.
Bringing a bike on a bus is an awesome stop-gap solution for areas that are in the early stages of developing a culture of using bikes for transportation. Indeed, King County and Woodinville-based rack maker SportWorks pioneered the bike-rack-on-a-bus concept in the 90s. The concept is now in use by hundreds of metro areas all over North America. This might be one of the Seattle area’s most awesome and overlooked cultural exports. (more…)
By
| Posted
With the help of a regional transportation grant, the city is in the early stages of planning a bikeway of some kind along the wide Westlake Ave N corridor. So far, the city has held one open house to gather ideas and feedback from all community members to help guide the design process. 81 percent of those who attended noted that reducing bicycle collisions should be a project priority.
There is no design yet, no details on how much — if any — parking would be displaced or how the bikeway would look and feel. But a handful of people are so mad about the idea that the city is even thinking about creating a safer Westlake Ave N for people biking that they have hired a legal team to delay the entire city-wide Bike Master Plan.
The Bike Master Plan has been in development since 2012, has gone through thousands of hours of community feedback, drew overwhelming support at a public hearing in December and is one City Council vote away from approval.
Well, it was one Council vote away, anyway. A crew of Westlake businesses and individuals hired Josh Brower — the attorney who has been successfully delaying the Ballard Missing Link of the Burke-Gilman Trail for many years — and have filed an appeal to the city’s determination that the Bike Master Plan does not pose a significant environmental impact. Unless the appeal is dropped, the Council will not likely vote on the plan before the scheduled March 5 hearing.
Why are they appealing, you ask? Because passing a bird’s-eye master plan that includes a desire for a protected bikeway of some kind, somewhere within the 150-foot corridor “will create unsafe conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists, and commercial/industrial/maritime/business traffic and activities; will create traffic and safety hazards in and around the City and Westlake Avenue North area and neighborhood; will cause loss of parking that is significant and adverse to City residents, business owners/operators and the Appellants,” according to the appeal filed with the Seattle Hearing Examiner. “The Appellants are … harmed by the significant adverse impacts from the Plan and the failure of the DNS to comply with the State Environmental Policy Act and its implementing regulations.”
Yes, the city just thinking about putting a protected bikeway on Westlake “harms” the appellants. (more…)
2024 Washington Book Award finalist.
Buy a signed copy.
As a supporter, you help power independent bike news in the Seattle area. Please consider supporting the site financially starting at $5 per month:
