Seattle Bike Blog

City will add series of all-way stops to Pine Street on Capitol Hill

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 8, 2023

All these crosswalk signs weren’t enough, so Pine is getting stop signs at Boylston and several other locations. From Google Street View.
Here’s a somewhat unexpected note from SDOT:
To enhance safety for people walking & rolling, we’re adding more 4-way stop signs on Pine St in the ❤️ of #CapitolHill. Crews worked in wind & rain today to add signs at Summit Ave & Boylston Ave. We’ll add one more at Belmont Ave as soon as weather allows. #VisionZero @jseattle
SDOT has long resisted adding all-way stops, especially for situations where one street is clearly busier than the cross street. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which are legit and some of which are, well, questionable. It will be very interesting to see how stop signs function on Pine, a major connection between Capitol Hill and downtown that serves as a busy bike route and bus corridor while also traveling through one of the city’s most walkable neighborhood business districts.
The most notable effect of stop signs is that compliance for yielding to crosswalk users should go way up. This is likely the primary reason for these signs on Pine. People driving are already required to stop for people crossing the street, but they don’t always do so. Any since there is nearly always someone trying to cross Pine, the stop signs here will hopefully lead to safer and more comfortable crossings. Stop signs should also have a traffic calming effect since people will not be able to build up speed over multiple blocks, something that is especially important on such a long downhill like westbound Pine.
All-way stops can also be more efficient for all road users compared to traffic signals in many situations. U.S. cities have frankly gone way overboard with their use of signals, which are really only needed for the busiest or most complex intersections. For example, SDOT ran an experiment at NE 40th Street and The Ave in the U District back in 2014 and found that turning that traffic signal into an all-way blinking red light decreased delays for all users in all directions. So rather than upgrading the signal to accommodate the new two-way bike lane there, they have just left the red lights blinking ever since.
All-way stops are very cheap to implement and give crosswalk users the right of way by default, which is a huge win for walkability compared to a traffic signal with a Don’t Walk phase. That all sounds great, so what’s the downside?
(more…)

tags: capitol hill, CapitolHill, not just bikes, pine, protected intersections, sdot, stop signs, VisionZero

— Advertisement —
Driving kills salmon

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 7, 2023

Watch the Q13 report.
The dust from car tires is killing coho salmon, significantly reducing local populations of the vital fish species. This isn’t exactly news, but Q13 recently ran a story about one test for a roadway stormwater treatment concept using compost and sand that is worth a watch.
The effort is specifically targeting a chemical in tires that is used to reduce wear called 6PPD. Cars leave this chemical on the roadway as dust whenever they drive, and it eventually washes into the waterways and combines with ozone to become a mostly unknown chemical called 6PPD-quinone. This chemical is fatally toxic to coho salmon (and surely other species as well). The focus on this one toxin is thanks to findings published in December 2020 by a team of UW and WSU researchers. Here’s their video from 2020:
(more…)

tags: 6PPD-quinone, salmon

— Advertisement —
Velo Bike Shop is closing after 55 years of business

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 5, 2023

Photo from the Velo Bike Shop announcement on Facebook.
Velo Bike Shop is closing after a remarkable and influential 55-year run. Founded in 1968, Velo helped supply the city’s bicycling boom in the 1970s. The shop continued to be an important source of bikes and service for decades on Capitol Hill before moving into the Via6 building when it opened in the Belltown/Denny Triangle area in 2013.
Their last day of business is May 13, and they will have lots of stuff on sale until then.
The Tamuras started renting bikes out of a closed gas station near the Arboretum in the 1960s and expanded to include a Lake Washington Boulevard location to support the city’s Bicycle Sunday events that started there in 1968. They then opened several bike shops around town initially named Velocipede. The Sekai bike brand was their shop brand, so if you have one you own a piece of Seattle bike history. Lloyd Tamura has been running the shops for decades both on Capitol Hill and then in the current location at 6th and Blanchard.
They moved to Via6 to be part of the building’s larger bike focus, which included an indoor bike parking facility complete with showers that even non-residents could use if they joined the ViaBike Cycle Club.
It’s sad to lose such a storied shop, and the departure will leave a void for people in the area looking for bike service. Velo has bailed me out several times in just the past year, including when I broke the chain on the cargo bike on the way home from preschool. But it’s a well-earned retirement for Lloyd.
More details from Velo:
After 55 years of business, Velo Bike Shop will be closing. Our final day of operation is Saturday, May 13th. We are no longer performing service and have adjusted hours:

Tuesday: 10AM – 3PM
Wednesday – Friday: 10AM – 6PM
Saturday: 10AM – 5PM

We urge you to stop by before our final date to say goodbye and pick up any items that you may need. Select gear and bikes are on sale.

Thank you to all of the incredible customers that have supported Velo over the years. It has been a pleasure serving the Seattle cycling community.

tags: lloyd tamura, velo bike shop

— Advertisement —
‘No Turn On Red’ is now the default for new or upgraded Seattle traffic signals

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 5, 2023

The first intersection locations for new “No Turn On Red” signs. Work is underway, and 28 of these locations have already been completed.
All new or upgraded traffic signals in Seattle will feature “No Turn On Red” restrictions by default while also retrofitting dozens of existing signals with the signs. So even though a turn on red ban did not make it through the Washington legislature this year, Seattle is not waiting for the state. In fact, perhaps Seattle’s experience will help create more momentum for a turn on red ban in the next session.
The SDOT memo (PDF) announcing the department’s new policy notes a couple very troubling facts:
Until 1959 the City of Seattle prohibited right turns on red. In 1975, the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) required all states to permit right turns on red to reduce fuel consumption and estimated a travel time savings of 1–5 seconds for vehicles turning at signals. Studies following the 1975 EPCA showed that right turn on red crashes with people walking increased by 60 to 70 percent.
There are times when the total disregard for basic ethics by the traffic engineering profession is truly astounding, and this is one of them. There is no amount of time savings for people driving cars that would ever be worth increasing right turn on red crashes with people walking by 60 to 70 percent. Yet U.S. federal policy essentially required all states to permit turns on red in the 1970s, and Washington was at the forefront of that movement. It shouldn’t require stating, but people’s lives are more important than drivers maybe saving a few seconds. Like, we all agree on that, right?
(more…)

tags: right turns on red, sdot

— Advertisement —
There are trees growing through the grate in the 4th Avenue bike lane buffer

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 4, 2023

There are a half dozen trees growing out of the metal grate in the buffer space protecting the 4th Avenue bike lane downtown across the street from Westlake Park. I noticed them while biking home Wednesday evening, and I had to stop.
They are the same kind of tree as whatever is growing on the sidewalk next to the grate (perhaps a tree person can tell me what it is in the comments below?), and they seem to be growing from a ledge that is maybe a foot or so below street level. Who knew the downtown street grime was such fertile soil?
But what I really love about these little doomed trees is that they are all in a perfect line inside the buffer space protecting the bike lane. It’s an adorable little metaphor about what’s possible when we reimagine our city space and remove cars from even a couple feet of it. Nobody would have expected this to happen, I’m sure. But as the renown chaos theory mathematician Ian Malcolm once said, “Life finds a way.” That is, so long as there is not a constant stream of cars mowing it down.

tags: 4th ave, downtown, ian malcolm

— Advertisement —
Under new law, Washington communities must plan around ‘multimodal level of service’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 3, 2023

Read the full text of the bill (PDF). The multimodal level of service section starts on page 13.
Imagine a street in your neighborhood that is difficult to cross on foot, scary to bike on and/or where buses are constantly getting stuck in car traffic. I know, this was not a difficult imagination exercise. Streets like this are everywhere in Washington State. But when people try to get their city, county or—worst of all—state to make changes to the street that would improve safety and transit reliability, they are often met with resistance from someone within the transportation agency who says such changes are not possible because they would reduce the “level of service” on the street. And for much of the past century, reducing level of service was widely seen as the last thing a traffic engineer or city planner should ever do.
Typical American measurements of level of service only measure car delays, making it a horrible rubric for designing a safe, comfortable and sustainable public street or place. Yet until now, state law required communities to plan around this de facto “car level of service” goal regardless of how it affects people walking, biking or taking transit. Car level of service also has little regard for concerns like fostering strong business districts or safe streets near parks and schools.
Governor Jay Inslee signed HB 1181, a major overhaul of the state’s Growth Management Act. Among other changes, it replaces mentions of “level of service” with “multimodal level of service.” It also completely rewrites the transportation section to include active transportation and transit in sections that previously only pertained to cars. As someone who has spent a lot of time parsing legislative markup texts, seeing references to “traffic” crossed out and replaced with “multimodal transportation demand and needs” is very satisfying.
Disability Rights Washington called it “an important piece of legislation to ensure that we are planning for communities that will be safe and accessible for everyone” in a press release following the signing. The organization also praised the way the bill increases transit accessibility requirements and requires planning for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. More details from the Disability Right Washington press release:
(more…)

tags: 2023 legislature, disability rights washington, HB 1181, jay inslee

— Advertisement —