Tag: history

January 5, 2021

From the beginning, Seattle ‘jaywalker’ stings were used to arrest poor people

In the decade between 1924 and 1934, the number of people dying in traffic collisions in Seattle each year increased 250% from 48 to 121. About 70% of those killed were people walking. By the end of the 1930s, Seattle decided that something needed to change. So the city’s Traffic and Safety Council partnered with…
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tagged: history, jaywalking
September 24, 2013

Berger: 20 bike shops on 2nd Ave and plans for bike paths all over the city? Welcome to 1900 Seattle

Crosscut’s Knute Berger has started a series about urbanism in Seattle with a piece exploring the first bicycle boom in the city. Around the turn of the 20th century, bicycling was so popular that an estimated 10,000 of the city’s 80,000 residents rode bikes. This popularity manifested as a powerful political force lobbying the city…
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tagged: crosscut, history, knute berger, queen city cycling club
March 8, 2011

International Women’s Day reading: Bicycles and equality

Anne-Marije Rook wrote up a little post on her blog about women and bicycling in honor of International Women’s Day. If you have never read about the link between bicycles and women’s sufrage and social equality, I’d say now is the time to do it. Fascinating. I bet you didn’t know that bicycle between your…
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tagged: anne-marije rook, history, international women’s day 2011, women
August 11, 2010

Biking around Seattle in the 1890s

With the help of Phyllis Franklin from the Museum of History and Industry, the P.I.’s Big Blog has a great little history of biking in Seattle (click the link to see an awesome photo): You think bicycling is challenging in Seattle now? When “safety bicycles” arrived in Seattle in the early 1890’s, riders had to…
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tagged: big blog, history, p.i.