By
| Posted
First-year Seattle Mayor Charley Royer sent this photo to City Councilmember Jeanette Williams following the opening of the first section of the Burke-Gilman Trail in 1978. On it he wrote, “Jeanette — If they get one with training wheels, I’ll race you home. — Charley.”
Williams died in 2008, and now Royer died Friday morning, the Seattle Times reported. He was 84.
By
| Posted
The trail across the 520 Bridge will be closed from 11 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Monday along with all the traffic lanes and ramps. The Montlake Bridge and Montlake Boulevard will remain open for regular travel.
Kind of a bummer for the bridge to close for a summer weekend with such a spectacular forecast. But the project is getting closer to completion, though it sure feels like it will never end. The website still lists a 2024 completion date for the whole Montlake project. The unique walking and biking bridge over SR-520 that will connect from the bridge trail on the north side to the Arboretum could open in September, though no official date has been released yet.
More details on the closure from WSDOT:
(more…)By
| Posted
Well, this one’s a pretty easy choice. Support Option 1 for a section of 16th Ave SW in White Center! Take King County’s short online survey and attend the open house at 6:30 p.m. July 24 (tonight!) at White Center Food Bank. From the survey:
As a side note, King County is making a classic mistake with their outreach here. If there’s an option that is safer than the others, it really shouldn’t be put up for a public debate. Why would we ask a community whether the safety of people is more or less important than 21 theoretical parking spaces that don’t even exist today? Especially since they have an option that improves bike safety while also increasing parking. Like, what are we doing here, folks?
By
| Posted
Hey Tacoma folks, I’m headed your way August 3 along with Anna Zivarts, author of the excellent book When Driving Is Not An Option: Steering Away From Car Dependency.
This will be the first ever Seattle Bike Blog event in Tacoma, and I’m looking forward to meeting up with you all at this Downtown On The Go event. We’re meeting up at Wright Park from 2–4 p.m. for a family-friendly social followed by a joint book reading and discussion at King’s Books starting at 4:30 p.m. It’s all free of course, and you can go to one or both. Please RSVP via the event listing so we have a rough idea of how many people will be there.
Bring your copy of Biking Uphill in the Rain or buy one at the event and I’ll sign it. More details from Downtown On The Go:
(more…)By
| Posted
The large raven sculpture cawing at the start of the Interurban Trail after crossing from Seattle into Shoreline has been stolen. It is the second public sculpture to go missing in recent weeks after the beloved piece Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes was stolen from her place near the northwest end of the University Bridge.
The thief or thieves have not yet been found, and police have not said whether they believe the incidents are connected or what the motive might be. The thieves may intend to sell them as scrap, especially since the Sadako sculpture cut above the ankles making it unlikely that it was stolen by someone who wanted to keep or sell it as a work of art.
The Emissary Raven by Tony Angell has been perched at the Interurban trailhead since 2005. I hope it is recovered, and Shoreline says they will “accept the return of the sculpture with no questions asked,” according to a press release:
(more…)By
| Posted
Seattle’s Vision Zero road safety redesign projects have not had a negative impact on local businesses, according to a study by University of Washington researchers published in the peer-reviewed journal Injury Prevention (PDF) earlier this year.
“Results suggest that road safety improvement projects such as those in Vision Zero plans are not associated with adverse economic impacts on adjacent businesses,” authors Daniel R Osterhage, Jessica Acolin, Paul A Fishman and Andrew L Dannenberg concluded. “The absence of negative economic impacts associated with pedestrian and bicycle road safety projects should reassure local business owners and may encourage them to work with transportation agencies to implement Vision Zero road safety projects designed to eliminate traffic-related injuries.”
The group studied multiple years of taxable sales data before and after seven different Seattle Vision Zero projects, then compared those results to 18 comparable sites that did not have Vision Zero projects. “Our study is one of the largest to date examining the economic impact of road safety projects on adjacent businesses based on sales data,” according to the journal article. They found that annual sales increased slightly faster on the Vision Zero streets than on the comparison streets, though the difference was not statistically significant.
Meanwhile, these Vision Zero projects have and will continue to prevent serious injuries and deaths. They would be worthwhile even if they did have a negative impact on businesses because people’s lives are more important. Now that we have the clearest evidence yet that these project do not hurt businesses, more business owners will hopefully join safe streets advocates in demanding more Vision Zero safety redesigns.
As a supporter, you help power independent bike news in the Seattle area. Please consider supporting the site financially starting at $5 per month:
