Candidates for the open City Council Position 9 seat debated safe streets and other walking, biking and transit issues yesterday during a Move All Seattle Sustainably forum. Nikkita Oliver, Brianna Thomas and Sara Nelson attended. As with the recent mayoral forum, Erica C. Barnett moderated. Watch below (you can read the automated transcript with video time stamps here).
The August 3 primary is coming up quickly, and ballots will be mailed July 14. If you have moved recently, the easiest way to vote is to register or change your address online ASAP so that your ballot is mailed to the correct place on July 14. The deadline to register or change your address online in King County is July 26, though you can register and vote in-person through Election Day.
Washington State is reinstating about 100,000 people’s driver’s licenses after Thurston County Superior Court found it unconstitutional to revoke a license due to failure to pay a fine or appear in court for a non-criminal moving violation. The state’s Department of Licensing will not appeal the decision.
Though it may seem counterintuitive at first, this is good news for traffic safety in our state. Revoking a license should be reserved for people who have demonstrated that they are a serious danger behind the wheel and pose a threat to public safety. It should absolutely not be used as a way to further punish people for being poor.
One of the biggest challenges to stopping repeat dangerous drivers is how to stop them from continuing to drive regardless of the status of their license. It is not a great idea to pack prisons full of bad drivers, but there needs to be some significant deterrent for the small percentage of people who continue making dangerous decisions such as repeat DUI drivers. One such deterrent is to make it a significant offense to drive with a suspended license.
However, when licenses can be suspended solely due to failure to pay a fine, then the penalty for driving with a suspended license becomes a penalty for being poor. That is not at all what that infraction should be trying to accomplish. The act of driving even though a court has decided you are too dangerous to drive is a serious threat to public safety. Driving without paying a ticket is not a serious public safety threat. These acts should never be treated as equal.
Previously in Washington, a driver who received a speeding ticket or another kind of moving violation, could pay the fine or request a hearing. If the individual either did not respond to the citation or failed to appear in court, their driver’s license would be suspended.
People caught driving with a suspended license for noncriminal offenses were charged with a misdemeanor crime that led to 90 days in jail or another $1,000 fine — adding to existing debt and making it harder for drivers to get their licenses back, [ACLU Senior Staff Attorney John] Midgley said.
In its complaint, the ACLU argued the “severe and life-altering” impacts of the law would often “trigger a cascading set of adverse consequences” felt acutely by people with lower incomes. Wealthier individuals could retain their licenses “even though they are guilty of the exact same infractions.”
The court decision effectively speeds up a change that was already coming. A new state law that takes effect January 2023 will rewrite the conditions for having a license revoked. Senate Bill 5226, passed earlier this year, removes failure to pay as a reason to revoke a license. However, the new law retains failure to appear in court as a reason.
Having your license suspended should mean something. Licenses should be entirely about a driver’s demonstrated ability to operate a car safely. If a license is revoked, it should be due to that person’s past dangerous decisions behind the wheel and nothing else.
With iconic images of dozens of people biking off the ferry together, Cascade Bicycle Club’s Chilly Hilly ride has signaled the start of the bike events season for nearly half a century. As the name suggests, the February ride around Bainbridge Island is often cold and rainy, though riders warm up quickly pedaling up the many long climbs around the beautiful island just across Elliott Bay.
Chilly Hilly 2020 was held just days before the pandemic shutdown began. The 2021 ride was cancelled due to pandemic restrictions this winter, but now the club is trying to make up for lost time by holding the ride August 1. This will make it the only Cascade major event that will not have missed a year. It also sets up Chilly Hilly 2022 to be the 50th Anniversary ride.
Chilly Hilly rarely (never?) hits its rider cap, but that might not be the case this year. There are only 2,500 spots, and those might sell out for an August 1 event. There is no day-of registration, and registration closes July 23.
Traditionally the start of the riding season in the Northwest, Chilly Hilly returns in 2021 as a summertime spin for its 49th year. The 33-mile route around Bainbridge Island starts with a scenic early morning ferry ride across Puget Sound from Seattle, or you can join the crowd directly on Bainbridge Island. Join us for the ride Bicycling Magazine named “one of four classic rides” in the nation. It’s guaranteed to be hilly (though a lot less chilly) and always a heck of a lot of fun. So get the dust off your bike and get ready to tackle some hills and enjoy some chilly treats in town afterwards!
Registration Includes:
A scenic cruise on a Washington State Ferry (Seattle start)
The Move All Seattle Sustainably Coalition — which includes many organizations including Disability Rights Washington, Cascade Bicycle Club, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and the Transit Riders Union — hosted a mayoral forum Wednesday evening focused on walking, biking and transit issues. You can watch the whole thing above or on the Cascade Bicycle Club Facebook page.
Unfortunately, every candidate did not attend. Perhaps most notably, Colleen Echohawk was not there. But you can hear from Lorena Gonzáles, Jessyn Farrell, Andrew Grant Houston, Bruce Harrell and Lance Randall. The excellent Erica C. Barnett moderated.
UPDATE: The coalition’s City Council Position 9 forum is June 22. You can register via Zoom here.
The list of organizations backing a proposal to repeal King County’s all-ages bicycle helmet law includes many local bicycling and safe streets groups like Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and Cascade Bicycle Club as well as national organizations like People for Bikes and the League of American Bicyclists. This momentum comes as the King County Board of Health is set Thursday to begin deliberating a change to their rare regulation making it a ticketable offense for anyone to ride a bicycle without a helmet.
Real Change, Cascade and Greenways worked together over the past year to convene the Helmet Law Working Group made up of 18 people all researching best practices, the effectiveness of the law and its unintended consequences. Together, they put together a nuanced and meticulously-researched 40-page report.
The group does not recommend against wearing a helmet or deny the effectiveness of wearing a helmet when a collision occurs. Instead, it focuses entirely on the law, especially data showing that police are far more likely to stop Black people and people experiencing homelessness for bicycle helmet violations.
“In Seattle, nearly half of all helmet citations since 2017 were issued to people experiencing homelessness,” the group wrote. “Since 2003, Black cyclists in Seattle have received citations at a rate 3.8 times higher, Indigenous cyclists 2.2 times higher, and Hispanic/Latino cyclists 1.4 times higher than white cyclists. Differences in helmet use between populations cannot explain these disparities.”
This disparity in enforcement is reason enough to repeal this law.
Helmet use is too easy for officers to use as pretense for a stop. If they want to harass someone due to their race or homelessness status, the lack of helmet gives them an easy and legal excuse to do so. Well-to-do white people can already bike helmet-free around Seattle without fear of getting stopped by police. The data above does not even represent all the times officers used the helmet law as a reason to stop someone but did not end up issuing a ticket. But every police stop is an opportunity for a person to end up trapped in the so-called justice system or become the victim of police violence. Biking without a helmet simply is not an offense worthy of a police stop. (more…)
The City Council has proposed $2.5 million to make many of the city’s Stay Healthy Streets permanent and another $300,000 to fund the popular Café Streets program through 2022 as part of the $128 million Seattle Rescue Plan to “kick start the city’s recovery,” according to a City Council presentation (PDF).
Seattle Neighborhood Greenways celebrated the news and put together a handy online form you can use to voice your support for the funding. The form letter also supports an amendment from Councilmember Lisa Herbold “to use future funding to make Keep Moving Streets permanent on Alki Point, Green Lake, and Lake Washington Boulevard.”
Great news! Seattle City Council just proposed $2.5 million to make Stay Healthy Streets permanent, as well as $300,000 to fund Cafe Streets through 2022! Act now to:
Thank Seattle City Councilmembers for funding Stay Healthy Streets and Cafe Streets to help ensure that the funding isn’t removed.
Ask them to support Councilmember Herbold’s amendment to use future funding to make Keep Moving Streets permanent on Alki Point, Green Lake, and Lake Washington Boulevard.
