I am so happy to hear that the Fremont Solstice Parade is back. June 18, mark your calendars.
The maps even have bicycle icons printed on them! Does this mean the years of the Fremont Arts Council resisting the naked painted bike parade are officially over? I sure hope so.
For anyone who has never had the pleasure of witnessing (or participating in) the Fremont Solstice Parade, you are in for a treat. It might be the best day of the year in Seattle. The city welcomes the seemingly neverending sun with a wonderful display of creativity.
The whole parade is wonderful, but the best-known part started as a prank in the 1990s when a couple people got naked and streaked ahead of the parade on their bikes. The tradition of biking naked before the parade built slowly through the 90s until 1998, when Seattle Police decided to crack down on the tradition and arrested a rider. The arrest drew boos from the crowd, and kicked off a big debate in the city about puritanical thinking that then-Councilmember Nick Licata described as “a defining moment” for Seattle. I have a whole section about the history of the Solstice bike ride in my upcoming book (which will definitely be complete some day I promise). I also highly recommend the 2013 documentary Beyond Naked all about the tradition.
Anyway, back to 2022. It’s been 33 months since the last IRL Solstice Parade, and our city is in desperate need of the joy and community it brings. The 2022 route is currently slated to be shorter than in previous years, and it looks like it may even avoid closing the Fremont Bridge. Instead of heading to Gas Works Park, the route will end at Evanston inside the Fremont Fair grounds. This makes a lot of sense for the proper parade, which is a very slow-moving, people-powered spectacle. I’m sure are still working out the logistics for the bike ride, so stay tuned.
This promo photo from Rad Power Bikes shows off how e-bikes can easily climb up even steep downtown Seattle east-west streets.
For as much attention as this country gives to electric cars, e-bike sales continue to grow at a remarkable pace. And with gas prices through the roof, sales of e-bikes will not likely slow down any time soon.
E-bikes are especially useful in the United States, where people often need to travel fairly long distances that are poorly served by transit. And in Seattle, well, it’s pretty obvious why e-bikes are selling so well here.
Gregg’s Cycle, one of the largest bike retailers in the Seattle area, just had its best February since it opened in 1932. “It was across the board, but e-bikes were a big percentage of that,” says longtime general manager Marty Pluth. “I think that was a result of the fuel hikes.”
Seattle e-bike startup Rad Power Bikes surveys its customers at checkout about their reasons for buying. An increasing number, according to co-founder and chief executive officer Mike Radenbaugh, cite rising fuel costs. “Just as the desire for safe and socially distanced transportation created another category of consumers for e-bikes, higher fuel prices do the same thing,” says Radenbaugh. “It layers growth on top of already fast growth.”
At this point, the e-bike is just a normal bicycle option. They typically come with a price premium over pedal-only bikes, but that price can be justified if the motor helps users bike more trips. Vitally, e-bike maintenance is becoming more widely available. In the not-so-distant past, e-bikes were often short-run products by small companies that may not be capable of supporting the custom motor and electrical components. Now people have options that are serviceable by local shops, which makes e-biking far more reliable, at least in places like Seattle with so many great local bike shops. This is why my advice is, whenever possible, to buy your bike from a local shop that is prepared to service it.
Map from SDOT’s 2017 Final Environmental Impact Statement showing injury responses. This map was cited in the lawsuit document.
“Countless people” have crashed on the railroad tracks while biking on the streets just west of the abrupt terminus of the Burke-Gilman Trail in Ballard, and now eight of them have joined together in a lawsuit against both the Ballard Terminal Railroad and the City of Seattle.
The suit (PDF), filed by Washington Bike Law (full disclosure: Washington Bike Law advertises on Seattle Bike Blog), focuses on a high-crash stretch of NW 45th Street and Shilshole Ave NW under and near the Ballard Bridge. The plaintiff’s complaint refers to this area as “the Crash Zone,” noting the long-documented history of crashes there.
The suit alleges that the city and the railroad failed to maintain the street “in a condition that is reasonably safe for ordinary travel” and are therefore liable for damages from those injured while biking there. Each of the plaintiffs crashed in 2018, 2019 or 2020.
“Each of the Plaintiffs crashed while lawfully riding a bicycle in the Crash Zone and attempting to cross the Skewed Tracks,” the complaint states. “Each of the Plaintiffs crashed when their bicycle tires interacted with a track rail and/or flangeway gap in a manner which caused the bicycle and rider to lose dynamic stability. Upon crashing on the tracks and/or pavement, each Plaintiff suffered serious bodily injury and other damages.”
The problem is well-known, and it is a major reason why the city has pursued completion of the Burke-Gilman Trail in this area for decades. However, a group of appellants, including Ballard Terminal Railroad, have successfully delayed completion of the trail through legal action, and court battles are still ongoing. In the meantime, the street has been open and operating despite the persistent railroad track hazard. The city has made several attempts over the years to mitigate the hazard, even turning the street into a one-way street, dedicating the other lane to biking. But the lawsuit claims these design changes were not sufficient to make the street safe.
Below is the Washington Bike Law press release (PDF) announcing the lawsuit: (more…)
After years of cancelled, scaled back and Zoomified bike events thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Seattle bike events calendar is finally starting to fill up with community celebrations, rides and more.
Before 2020, you could pretty much design your whole social schedule around bike events (and some of you did!). We are not quite there yet, but I’m seeing a huge increase in the number of event notices dropping into my inbox. I can’t wait to see a lot of you at community bike events again. I have missed it so much.
So how do you find local bike events?
The Seattle Bike Blog Events Calendar is a great place to start. It includes a mix of bike advocacy meetings as well as social events and rides. And anybody can post their event to the calendar for free. Do you have an idea for a ride? Make it reality!
You can also check the calendars of local bike organizations. Cascade of course has extensive listings for all their events and daily free rides. All their major events are planned in 2022, many for the first time since 2019. Bike Works also has a great calendar of events lined up. Everyday Rides Seattle is also a good place to check.
During the pandemic, bike-based events could still be a social outlet since they are often held outdoors for obvious reasons. But still, the logistics of hosting an event still made it difficult to responsibly host a full-size public event during COVID. Cascade cancelled nearly all of its major rides in 2020 and 2021, and so many other community-level events pivoted to online. I don’t know about you, but I now grimace every time I have to open Zoom.
The pandemic is not over, but King County Public Health has determined that community spread is now “low,” leading the agency to stop requiring masks in many indoor spaces. Businesses and event organizers can still choose to require masks.
Do you have a favorite place to find bike events? Let us know in the comments below.
Megan Ramey and her family recently took the Amtrak Cascades train up from Oregon to spend a few days in Seattle, and they mostly traveled around the city by bike. Ramey wrote about the trip on her site Bikabout, and it’s a wonderful view of how our beautiful city has changed since their previous trips before COVID. She even calls Seattle “the coolest city for biking with kids.”
I loved reading this post. Maybe one underrated challenge of COVID has been the lack of an outsider’s perspective on our own city. We’ve been huddled together, traveling as little as possible. Sometimes people who live elsewhere help remind us about what is so great about where we live. Though there are obviously major challenges in our city (which she notes), Seattle really is an astounding place to be.
I am unapologetically biased. Seattle is my favorite city. It’s mostly based on music culture, but I love everything about it, the topography, climate, unplanned fun, how accessible it is by train and how easy it is to escape to a nearby island by ferry.
The Seattle Transportation plan is seeking to integrate all the existing modal plans. Space for people on bikes continues to be treated very differently than other modes. (Image: SDOT)
In late 2020 and early 2021, the Seattle Bike Blog covered work happening behind the scenes at the Seattle Department of Transportation to work toward integrating the city’s different modal plans (bicycle, pedestrian, freight, transit) into one plan. This technical work will underpin the Seattle Transportation Plan, which the department formally started public outreach on last week. All of this work will ultimately be incorporated into Seattle’s major update to its Comprehensive Plan, to be finalized in 2024.
Details of that technical work revealed how SDOT was developing a map of “critical” bike corridor segments across the city; segments that the department didn’t deem critical wouldn’t be prioritized for added bicycle infrastructure in cases where the street width was found to be too narrow. An analysis of every block in the city compared against the various modal plans found that it was just the facilities outlined in the 2014 Bicycle Master Plan- 339 out of 340 blocks citywide- that were found to be creating conflict between the existing modal plans.
Only prioritizing protected bike lanes where they’re deemed critical is an easy way to resolve the conflicts, but the point of a citywide network is that it’s citywide. It also sidesteps the fact that installing bike facilities where they’re called for in the BMP is about making people using those routes safer. SDOT is already contemplating a freight lane policy that could mean some bike riders who feel comfortable using transit-only lanes would need to find somewhere else to be. But not prioritizing people on bikes on a specific street doesn’t mean they go away, it likely just means it’s more dangerous for them to be there. This work looked to mean the end of the bicycle master plan as we know it.
Every area of the city gets a designated place for each mode to get priority- except for people on bikes. (SDOT)
A draft map of these critical bike segments was due to be released by this month, but has been delayed by SDOT. Now new internal documents requested by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and reviewed by us illustrate how concerns from other departments within SDOT have been raised around how safety is incorporated into the modal prioritization framework.
In a document dated mid-November summarizing how this work could impact SDOT’s Product Development Department, those concerns are noted. “Staff are concerned that with the implementation of [the Policy and Planning Department’s] Critical Bike Network…that this will change how the [Bicycle Master Plan] is implemented,” the document reads. “Additionally, staff are concerned this policy with [sic] deprioritize safety for vulnerable roadway users.” Seeing concerns raised in writing like this is pretty notable, and those concerns align with alarms being raised by those outside the department.
Copies of presentations that were set to be given to the Bicycle Advisory Board—but which have been postponed—show how the primary criteria for identifying critical connections include network integrity (spacing separated bike routes no more than 1/2 mile throughout the city) and network legibility (fewest number of turns on flattest route). These criteria have a lot to do with safety, but they aren’t themselves concerned with keeping everyone on bike routes designated in the current Bicycle Master Plan safe.
Draft criteria from a presentation to be given to the Bicycle Advisory Board that has now been delayed. (SDOT)
“The Seattle Transportation Plan updates and combines the city’s bike, pedestrian, transit, and freight master plans into one plan. It determines how and where each of these modes can fit into Seattle’s streets,” an action alert released by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways this past Saturday noted. “So far, planning for bike routes doesn’t include safety, equity, and connectivity filters. That’s a big problem.” SNG is asking people concerned about this issue to contact the city council. Cascade Bicycle Club is doing the same, pushing for the new plan to build on the work that shaped the BMP and not to start over.
Concerns raised around the policy were enough to prompt the city council to adopt a proviso in last year’s budget requiring that work be run by the council. Tomorrow morning’s Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee meeting will be one of those chances as SDOT presents on the Seattle Transportation Plan. The councilmember who proposed the proviso, M. Lorena González, is no longer in office, but this plan will need close attention from at least one councilmember if it’s to be improved.
The Seattle Transportation Plan starts from a solid foundation of seeking to integrate the modal plans, and SDOT’s plans for public outreach all look better than anything the department has ever done, but if the technical work that makes up the core of the plan is flawed and doesn’t center the safety considerations that lie at the heart of the current Bicycle Master Plan, we will be assured bad outcomes when it comes to making space for people on bikes. If we don’t get it right, it could set things back for a decade or more.
