More Bike Boulevards, Please

91 Replies to “More Bike Boulevards, Please”

1. Couldn’t agree with you more, Zach. Greenways and off arterial routes will definitely encourage more bike commuting and prevent many accidents.

2. I recently moved to Madison, WI, and I’m amazed at the bicycling infrastructure they have here. Granted, there’s next to no hills here compared to Seattle and less people (still 200k), but the key thing I’ve witnessed here is the comparatively lower speeds for all vehicular traffic. Even on boulevard thoroughfares separated by a median, there’s an extra-wide curb lane for bicyclists and the speed limit is 30. Near the capitol, a full lane is taken away (from on-street parking) for bicyclists/buses.

   Speed is the most important thing to reduce for a balanced road transportation system, and it can be done through “road diets”, BAT lanes that can be shared with bikes, and bike boulevards (they made a couple through residential neighborhoods here, and all it took was prohibiting parking on one side of the street).

   1. Most speed limits in the core areas of Seattle are actually 30 mph too. Rainier for example has a 30 mph limit for much of its length. But the road isn’t designed to encourage going that slow so very few people do.

      1. This illustrates the actual agenda, which is to make Seattle much more difficult for motorists. That’s not going to fly. We motorists vote, and there are a lot more of us than there are of you. Have a look at your favorite mayor’s approval rating: 23%. He’s less popular than Richard Nixon during impeachment.

      2. Jake, when you advocate breaking the speed limit, you advocate for traffic deaths. I don’t think most motorists are as sickenly callous as you are.

3. The thing that bothers me the most is the lack of an effort to create a comprehensive network for bike paths / lanes. The bike paths along 520 or I-90 on the eastside are a perfect example. There are even semi-grade separated paths along some of the length of the highways, but then they randomly terminate without any dedicated bike path / lane. This is true for bike lanes throughout the city. The problem is we think of them as one-offs, not as trying to create a completed network of infrastructure that can allow people to bike safely.

   1. Also, based on the map, it looks like creating a comprehensive network is exactly what Vancouver has done. I wish that we had a stated goal of matching / exceeding that.

   2. That’s not what the Bike Master Plan calls for, Stephen. The vision is for a network. It’s the implementation that’s the challenge.

      I would note, too, that the BMP’s up for revision, and Neighborhood Greenways (a far less loaded term hereabouts) are likely to see much more interest.

4. This is a good post. If Vancouver can provide all of this help to bike riders, we can do the smae thing here.

5. Seattle’s topography is exactly the opposite of Vancouver proper or inner eastside Portland. Seattle is a series of hilltop islands separated by controlled expressways. It has 4 bridges that separate North Seattle from the commercial core, busy arterials climbing up to each of the seven hills, and a gigantic barrier to pedestrian and bike mobility that is Rainier Ave S.

   Because of these choke points, any cyclist going across town or to a different neighborhood has to negotiate serious traffic, traffic that will leave the scene after they crush your body.

   Until Seattle plans around these choke points by creating Burke Gilman style non-motorized expressways that cut down the major arterials (W 15th, Westlake, Eastlake, Magnolia Bridge, Queen Anne, Arboretum/MLK 23rd E, Rainier, Fauntleroy, California, Beacon Hill, Delridge and SODO) with safe and marked crossings, there will never be biking in Seattle past the white male ghetto (of which I am a prime example) that inhabits it now.

   Side streets are fine until you have to get from U district to downtown or Columbia City to Ballard. Unless you take the arterials, you are in for some serious climbing and that’s why you need the trails, bike paths if you will, along all arterials if you want people to ride.

   1. I think our topography calls for a step beyond Burke Gillman style paths. We need bike freeways. Elevate a bike path to flatten out hills and zip over traffic. Make it 2 lanes each way, and add a tall railing. Construction would be dirt cheap compared to a car-based freeway.

      1. “EXIT 6: Burke-Gilman Trail, U-District, Ballard >” :D

   2. I want to second this point. I bike commute from Ravenna to South Lake Union every day. Given our topography and lack of streets to convert there will never be a way for me to get there that doesn’t involve sharing the arterial streets for many portions of the trip.

      While separating traffic when possible is obviously safer, its only part of the solution. We’re at a tipping point right now with overall usage. 3% is enough bikers to make accidents more likely but not quite enough yet to be so prevalent that motorists are hyper aware of them ala Copenhagen. Driving that rate upwards through just the kind of actions the city has been doing would actually help the most for safety in my opinion. You want to concentrate the bicycle traffic so its occurs in streams that are highly visible and make it easy/direct enough to keep the volumes high.

      Also its important to remenber the range of fatal accident have all been very different. One solution is not the answer to preventing all of these different scenarios. For instance fixing the MUP around lake union doesn’t require new bikepaths, nor is there any real alternative for folks commuting along Dexter (or any great way to protect yourself from an errant driver when out in the intersection if they very suddently try to rush a left turn)

      1. Seattle’s biking infrastructure is geared more to the recreational biker than the bike commuter, so it doesn’t realistically embrace getting safely to work. With the increased demand for bike routes, it may be possible to leverage more useful bicycling infrastructure into future road projects. Unfortunately I think the bike community made more enemies than friends with all the whining and complaining about the South Lake Union streetcar rails.

         But I don’t think adding bike lanes to arterial streets is the best or safest solution. When it is necessary to have bike lanes in high speed (>30 mph) traffic, we need more than just a painted sharrow. The bike route needs to be visible and obvious–and sometimes that will mean removing parking, which will get a lot of people mad.

         I’ve been hit 3 times during my lifetime: once by a car turning left across traffic, once by a car that blew a stop sign and once by an opening car door. None of the drivers were looking for a bike rider. They were completely oblivious to the possibility that someone might be riding a bike on their street.

      2. “Sharrows” are ridiculous. They convey no information at all.

   3. Yeah, this is the one caveat I would add to Zach’s post. The Ballard area is really the only neighborhood that has both a similar topography and street grid pattern as the lower mainland in Vancouver and the inner eastside of Portland. Because of this I think Seattle inherently has to emphasize facilities on higher volume streets more so than the other two cities, especially outside of the downtown cores. There are some corridors where there simply isn’t a good alternative. With that said the bicycle master plan completely and utterly missed the boat on bike boulevards.

      1. I think how hilly Seattle is makes it even more important to get bikes off higher volume streets – many of these have steep grades that are no problems for cars (23rd) but are challenging on a bicycle. In most neighborhoods there are informal bicycle boulevards that people already know about and would love the things that they have in Vancouver like bicycle lights for crossing busy arterials, and forced right turns for local car traffic with a bike lane through the barrier island

      2. @Alex, 23rd is an interesting example. It and Broadway are the only straight routes into capitol hill from the U district and the north. The bridges and the ravine and incomplete street grid at Interlaken put plenty of cyclists onto these otherwise nasty routes. There are other options with less traffic, but they can be a lot longer, slower, harder to discover, and have bad pavement (Federal Ave!)

      3. If we want bicycling to be a reasonable and practical mode of transportation within Seattle, we need to prioritize the most flat and direct routes for people on bikes. Instead, our existing system often prioritizes those routes for cars, and bicycles are shoved aside to hillier and less direct routes. Examples: Dexter Ave versus Westlake; 16th and 21st Aves in West Seattle instead of Delridge; even in South Park signs direct bikes to head over and down a hill while the straight arterial is flat.

         Developing a complete and functional bike network will, in a few places, mean shifting the priority for cars to hillier streets, to allow space for bikes on the flatter streets.

   4. Westlake already has the route through the parking lot; how safe do bikers feel that is? We also have the light-rail line trail in Sodo, though it’s nearly useless and doesn’t really connect to the West Seattle Bridge. And there are plans to connect the Chief Sealth trail, which goes at least as far south as Rainier Beach station (but is mostly on Beacon Hill), to the I-90 trail.

      At the least, we need to make the Ballard Bridge more crossable (and preferably have the Locks open 24 hours), have a real bike route through Eastlake, and create a connection from the West Seattle Bridge trail to anywhere else in West Seattle other than Alki and barely Delridge. I like the notion of designating Lake Washington Boulevard through the Arboretum as primarily for bike use.

      1. Parking lots are the worst places. People backing up, opening doors, making sudden changes in direction – yuck.

         At least out on Westlake there’s some predictability.

6. I would also like to see more bicyclist using front and rear lights during the day time, just like motorcyclists and many cars do. Our urban landscape is very cluttered and many drivers are already paying too little attention to what is happening around them.

   1. How will a blinking light change the driver’s behavior of not paying attention? I think if you want drivers to notice motorcyclists and cyclists, then they need to pay attention. A blinking light on a bike isn’t going to make someone hang up their cell phone or stop looking in their rear view mirror to see what their kids are doing in the backseat. Motorcyclists get hit all the time, despite their lights.

      Your suggestion isn’t very productive as it places the blame on the cyclist, when it’s clearly the drivers who are innattentive while behind the wheel that are the problem in your argument. No amount of blinking lights and helmet cams on bikes will change an innattentive driver’s behavior. That change has to come from within the car.

      1. Actually, a blinking light during the day makes you significantly more visible in a busy background and helps that distracted cell-phone talking driver register that you’re there. This is a point that “VeloBusDriver” raised here a few months ago and I changed my behavior based on his or her point.

   2. One of the problems is that bicyclists observe no consistency in where they ride. Some of you ride on the sidewalk. Some on the street. Some to the right on the street. Some (like the delivery boy who was killed) on the left. To that, we add the ubiquitous habits of weaving in and out of traffic, and of ignoring signs and signals.

      Combine all of that with the physical reality that a bicyclist presents a much smaller profile, and you have a risky situation. In practice, in the real world, it’s incumbent on bicyclists to ride very defensively. Excess speed, sudden maneuvering, disobedience of traffic signals, failure to use (or even have) brakes or lights — all of those things can easily get you killed.

      One other thing: A “30 mph speed limit” does not mean it’s safe for a bicyclist to go that fast. Speed limits are designed with motor vehicles in mind, not bicyclists. In the case of the delivery boy, he was going 25 or 30 on a bicycle without brakes in a very congested area, at rush hour. Those who say he “followed the speed limit” are failing to consider common sense.

      Robert Townsend was traveling far too fast for conditions, and died primarily because of that. If you can’t stop or manuever out of the way of a car that turns left into a street and takes half of a lane on a street with two lanes in each direction, without being killed, you are by definition riding too fast.

      I realize that bicyclists don’t want to hear that. To them, the delivery boy is a saint, and the driver a devil. What I see is a driver who failed to yield, but stopped before further proceeding into the intersection, and was hit by a cyclist riding very fast without brakes. Mourn, but realize that this is the kind of behavior that will get you killed on the streets.

7. Until there are Amsterdam-style cycle paths along major arterials, I will never feel safe biking in Seattle.

8. Totally agree with this approach. In Tokyo I commuted across the city on non-arterials — faster, safer, less stressful because there was less traffic (just me and the in-the-know taxis). In Seattle, maybe this will get the drivers to chill out a bit. But there are places that the side streets don’t cut it because of water or hill obstructions.

   1. Many side streets have the round planters in the middle of every intersection, along with 20 mph limits. Those streets are not suitable auto commuting routes. Bicyclists ought to think about using them, though.

      1. Crossing arterials from side streets is a far more hair-raising experience than crossing arterials from other arterials, though.

         For example, take the north/south route through the CD. You could ride on the arterials of 23rd or MLK, which are designated bike corridors, and be scared as fuck of the traffic you’re riding with. Or you could ride down 25th instead, and have basically no traffic to deal with, but then have to cross Union, Cherry, Yesler, and Jackson with no signal and without the right-of-way (unless you get off and walk your bike across a crosswalk – and let’s face it, no commuter bicyclist wants to ever stop, let alone dismount.)

         Not to mention the significant issue of people bombing down residential streets to avoid congestion on the main roads, who are more dangerous and aggressive than the average arterial driver. It’s not just those avoiding traffic, either – driving cross-town on residential streets is a popular method for people driving without licenses, or driving intoxicated, to avoid getting noticed by the cops. That’s definitely an element you want to avoid on a bicycle.

      2. 25th is one of the neighborhood greenway proposals for the CD (I live right off it). You’re right there is the occasional idiot, but overall I still feel far safer than riding 23rd or MLK.

      3. Fremont Avenue North south of 105th is the same way. It is the suggested bike route for people traveling north south, but bicycles don’t have the right of way. The intersections are mostly uncontrolled, visibility coming into the intersections suck because of hedges, trees, overgrown traffic circles, and buildings blocking a cyclists view. Then there are some portions that are so narrow that only one car can get through, and most of those cars don’t yield to cyclists, forcing them onto the sidewalk or into a driveway.

         And the signals at 105th, 85th and 80th, where cars are supposed to turn right or left, while only bicycles are allowed to go straight thru, are a big joke. Cars totally ignore that sign and go straight thru, pushing the cyclists to the side of the road. If the city really wants the cars to not go straight thru, then they need to do a little more than hang up a little sign. Perhaps block off a portion the street so cars can’t go straight and put a cut in the curb so that only bicycles can.

         Some of the city’s suggested bike routes really just feel like an afterthought. If all the master planners had to ride these bikes routes, a lot more thought might just go into their planning.

9. Adding a fact that may or may not be widely known: only 30% of bikers in Seattle are women. I don’t know the age ratios, but I have a feeling that those that bike on American streets generally fit into demographic categories that show below-average levels of fear-of-death.

   1. Or they could look at leading causes of death and discover that being in a car is the least safe place to be if you are under 35, and that the air around these cars is not the healthiest of things to be breathing, nor is the physical inactivity from sitting in it probably much good, either.

      1. I think Matt’s point is probably that until you make the non-white-male cyclists feel safe to ride, you’re not really solving the basic problem, which is providing cycling facilities that make everyone feel safe.

         I have friends who ride with kids. I admire them, but there’s no way my wife will let me do that. Neighborhood greenways would be the thing that would let my kids be out on the streets on a bike.

10. You have to address the problem of rat-running: motorists avoiding the arterials and racing down a bike boulevard to save mere seconds. On many Vancouver routes, there are barriers to prevent rat-running, but many others do not. I avoid those like the plague.

    1. Portland has installed excellent barriers on their boulevard routes: usually cars can only exit onto arterials, but cyclists can go both ways. Sacramento’s urban core has similar barriers. The net effect is that the neighborhood roads become solely the provence of cyclists and people driving to their house on the street.

    2. Bellevue has a wonderful rat-running barrier on Points Drive, just north of 520, just west of Bellevue Way. For cyclists, it’s a through route and I often take it to Yarrow Point where I catch a bus to go across the bridge. But, for cars, it’s a dead-end. Given that the section of road involves a rather steep hill climb, it definately improves the experience not having cars baring down on me. And if the barrier weren’t there, you would have lots of cars going down that street, trying to avoid the parking lot on 520.

       From what I’ve seen, WSDOT’s plans are to extend the bike route across the new bridge to Seattle, once all the construction is complete. Now, if only they could find the money to make the bike route continue all the way to Seattle, rather than dead-end halfway across the bridge…

11. While we’re at it, can we have real cycling infrastructure downtown? I was reminded this morning on how awful going through downtown is — even though it’s often the most convenient route (since the hills are less steep depending on where your destiation is). You choices are:

    * Play with buses and be forced to stop every block (3rd avenue)
    * Or, risk left hooks, high speeds, dooring and erratically changing bike lanes (2nd and 4th avenues).

    I took 4th Ave this morning. While usually it’s left hooks I usually have to avoid — this morning the left turners and garage users were far enough ahead of me that it didn’t matter that they probably didn’t look — this morning I got cut off by five vehicles while trying to exit the bike lane when it disappears at the crest of the hill and cyclists are forced into a main traffic lane. Several cars did it in a row — pulling out of the lane one over into the one I’m trying to change into, despite my arm signalling and despite the fact that I’m obviously going to be forced to stop or run into parked cars. Yes, they have the right of way but what’s the alternative for me other than trying to move over as aggressively as I can? Come to a complete stop and hope the 30, sometimes 40 mph traffic clears?

    Downhill on 2nd is actually worse because it’s faster and there are doors to contend with. But in both cases I feel compelled to stay mostly in the bike lane because otherwise some drivers will drive very aggressively around me for being “out of the bike lane”.

    Your response might to use 3rd Avenue, but then you’re forced to play with buses — constantly delaying the buses or being passed (most operators are great about passing but even a “good” distance for a bus pass can be nerve-wracking). And, then, the lights on 3rd Ave are timed such that it’s exhausting going uphill since you have to stop every light *while* dodging buses.

    If we can’t even have safe-feeling bike paths downtown it’s no wonder the bike network outside of downtown does not encourage riders — especially women as Matt notes.

    1. Agreed. Because of your points and the fact that downtown has pretty good transit service I almost never bike to or through downtown. The E/W hills don’t help either.

    2. The 2nd Avenue layout is insane. Cars pulling out of those left lane parking spots aren’t looking for bike traffic. Also, passengers getting out of cars won’t be looking for a bike rider before they open their doors. There’s also the problem of trying to deal with cars that are blocking the bike lanes as they try to turn off of 2nd onto one of the streets going uphill.

       1. NO, U RIDE BIKE LANE!

       2. The only sane solution is to use the downhill to your advantage and ride fast enough to take the left hand lane. I will often switch to the middle lane to avoid the left turn queues that form every block.

          Beginning cyclists probably wouldn’t know to do this, unfortunately.

       3. Yeah, 2nd is part of my commute and I just ride like I’m a car. Cars probably don’t love this, since I’m not using the bike lane (it’s on the left on 2nd), but I don’t want to meet a car door at 20mph or hope that left-hand-turners check their mirrors. I do get in the bike lane on the little uphill section near the end, since I’m going slow enough that I could probably avoid a car door. I love how at the end of 2nd the bike lane just ends. It would be nice to at least have a sign telling cars that bikes are about to merge, going about 20mph slower than they are.

       4. Taking the lane sometimes angers some drivers, but, yes, I usually take the lane. Though if traffic on 2nd is dense enough (or backed up for turns), if I want to get anywhere, I have to ride in the bike lane. Which is then blocked by a door or something.

          I try not to go on 2nd, but sometimes I’m just too tired to climb up and over Capitol Hill so going thru downtown is easier (work in SLU, live in North Beacon Hill). Or I’m going somewhere just south of downtown which means … going through downtown.

       5. Is 2nd really any different than 4th? I think the bike lane there is on the left side between traffic and parking as well.

          I think the intent is that the bike lane on 2nd continues onto 3rd for a block before ending at Jackson.

    3. I agree. I actually sold (well, I’m selling…) my road bike because I live in Downtown/Belltown and biking is at best scary and unenjoyable and at worst deadly on any N-S street. In Belltown and Denny triangle, the E-W streets are manageable. Until this changes (and I have no idea how to fix this without taking at least one car/bus lane for a dedicated bike lane, which seems unrealistic) I have zero interest in riding a bike.

       The only trip that might make sense in future is riding down Bell St (which will soon be a bike/ped-centric Park Boulevard) to the Bell St bridge and then getting on the waterfront/Mytle Edwards trails to Ballard or (with the completion of the new bike/ped bridge on Thomas this spring) to Queen Anne.

       While I’m jazzed about new bike lanes, especially the really nice new buffered ones on Dexter, I’ve no interest in using them myself. If it’s not a quiet neighborhood street or a non-motorized trail, I’m not interested.

       1. I’d use the waterfront trail if I was going anywhere west of 4th downtown on a bike, honestly.

    4. Downhill on 2nd is actually worse because it’s faster and there are doors to contend with. But in both cases I feel compelled to stay mostly in the bike lane because otherwise some drivers will drive very aggressively around me for being “out of the bike lane”.

       Bicyclists should decide, first off, whether or not they want bike lanes. If you do, then stay there. If you don’t, then say so and we’ll take them away.

12. Where are we at with moving a row of parked cars further into the street and having the bike lane between the parked cars and the sidewalk? I saw this in NYC recently, so it’s not just an Amsterdam practice. It would separate bikes from fast moving cars and not require building expensive new infrastructure. I’m sure there must be a counter argument but I have no idea what it would be.

    1. That design can be dangerous because of cross streets. The main problem is visibility. If a car is trying to turn from a side street onto an arterial with a bike lane like you described, the car needs to pull far into the bike lane to see around the parked cars before turning onto the arterial. Also, bicycles far to the right of traffic are really hard to see for people turning onto the street. And the cars turning off the arterial present a danger too — they won’t be able to see cyclists in the bike lane, because of the parked cars in the way.

       I think your idea was actually the original plan on Dexter, but I heard they changed it for safety concerns. I originally liked the idea too. But bicycling far to the right is very dangerous even in the traffic lane, partly because drivers turning onto your street have a hard time seeing you, and this seems even more risky.

    2. Most avenues downtown are steep enough to coast 15-20MPH. In combination with the traffic volumes downtown and the frequent intersections with fast, congested, wide streets, visibility is a key issue. Typical bike lanes are extremely unsafe in these conditions, as bikes start to need the width of a full car lane to be safe from merges and car doors. Putting the bike lane inboard of parking might work going uphill, though intersections are still dangerous.

13. Pingback: Even an Advance Warning Didn’t Save Cyclist’s Life | The SunBreak

14. I never use the 2nd Ave lane, and if I use 4th I always exit onto the sidewalk by the time I reach Spring. Using sidewalks is legal in Seattle, and I’d suggest it for all of downtown except the retail core. In PS, the ID, 1st Ave, the financial district, and Belltown, sidewalk travel usually doesn’t negatively impact too many pedestrians. Only in the retail core (Pike/Pine between 2nd and 7th) do I stay off the sidewalk and take the lane.

    Just one 2-way cycle track would do more for cycling than a bike lane on every downtown street. After all, we are the city of 2 freeways 7 blocks apart, so freeway-minded cars merging and queuing will always make it tough to ride downtown. When the viaduct is gone/DBT is built, one silver lining is that the area around Columbia and Seneca will be much better for bikes.

    1. Y U NO
       RIDE BIKE LANE?

    2. Just one 2-way cycle track would do more for cycling than a bike lane on every downtown street.

       Yes! This! The issue now (at least for the NWSE “thru” route) is that all the choices are bad for different reasons. Within reason (i.e. not climbing up to 8th/9th ave or down to the water front) any routing that ran the length of downtown and didn’t make you tangle with too much traffic (freeway on/off especially) that feels safer than the current choices would probably see most of the downtown bike traffic.

       1. Perhaps a cycle track from Yesler to Denny on 1st?

       2. I could go for that, though I can’t recall what the hill is like from 1st and Pike (for heading towards Capitol Hill) but I seem to recall it’s pretty gentle.

       3. 1st is already a nice, slow street, so if you are comfortable taking the lane to avoid doors it works very well. The grade from 1st to Capitol Hill is even and as shallow as it gets on Pine. Except for being one way, Pine is a fantastic way up the hill: slow, low-traffic and nice bike lane. Pike is more congested, wider so cars speed more, and has no bike lane.

       4. I would be so happy if Pine became two-way buses-and-bikes only between 3rd and 8th (in exchange for making Pike two-way for the same stretch). It’s a great multimodal street, with no real access to the freeway, and which no driver in their right mind would ever go down anyway. :)

15. Not all is well between bicycles and cars in Germany.

16. One, I would like to thank the commenters on this blog for not turning this into the hatefest so common elsewhere on the internet. Of course, I didn’t expect to find it…

    I agree that a connected series of well-designed bike routes is the only way to increase the number of cyclists in our city. Beginners are terrified to ride on the busy streets.

    As an experienced, skilled cyclist, it’s easy for me to forget just how crazy it can be. As an example: my fiance and her coworker, neither of whom are as experienced as me, will be riding their bikes from Wallingford to UW for a teachers’ conference. I volunteered to guide them and help them out with the route. Being two walkable neighborhoods next door to each other, this should be a simple trip, right? Of course not! There is a massive freeway between these two neighborhoods with literally no easy cycling route between the two. Apparently 45th is the preferred route for the city, judging by the sharrows all the way along it. I ride it every day and forget just how scary it can be: four lanes of traffic, no shoulder, huge traffic volumes, and intersections with other large arterials like Roosevelt and 11th. Altogether it is a huge mess that requires a lot of skill, strength, and experience to negotiate safely on a bicycle.

    It’s a travesty! The only alternative routes are 50th (worse), Ravenna (much better but a much longer detour), or the BG trail, which entails riding down and then back up a 200 foot hill, no easy task in itself for most cyclists. There needs to be a pedestrian/bicycle viaduct that crosses the freeway from one quite neighborhood to another on the other side, somewhere between 45th and 50th. It boggles my mind that there isn’t one. The streets on either side could become part of a East-West bicycle boulevard that provides access to the U District, Wallingford, upper Fremont, and Phinney Ridge.

    Maybe someday.

    1. Doesn’t 50th have that goofy driving lane that’s really a parking lane most of the day? That would sure make a good seperated bike lane, kicking the sometimes-parked-cars to side streets (it’s not like there’s much retail on that street). Note: I haven’t biked this route, only driven, so I may be missing significant bike issues. For one, I know the hill is steeper.

       1. Funny you should say that. An overpass at 47th St across I-5 is part of the current master bike plan.

       2. 50th is a pretty big hill, but it has similar traffic issues as 45th. Too many cars using too just two streets.

          Anyways, a bike overpass sounds nice. I look forward to using it … when? 2020? I didn’t find a timeline with a quick scan, and I assume most if not all timelines are getting pushed back and back.

    2. The sharrows on 45th are a total joke. The first time I saw them I was like WTF. Either traffic on NE 45th is going 35 mph or it is going 5 mph, neither good for bikes.

    3. I’ve usually taken 45th in that case. What the experience is really sub-par, at least in the downhill direction, I can mostly keep up with the traffic. In the uphill direction, there’s enough congestion and stoplights, so the speed difference isn’t too big.

       While we really need the bicycle overpass on 47th St., we also need 47th St. to be treated as a viable thru-route that bicycles can use. If you have to stop at a stop sign every hundred feet and go back to either 45th or 50th a few blocks west of I-5 anyway, the overpass wouldn’t really accomplish much because except for people living on a few blocks, you still having to be willing to ride on 45th or 50th anyway.

    4. Beginners are terrified to ride on the busy streets.

       A couple years ago, I thought about getting a bike. I went over to Recycled Cycle and tried one out. What terrified me, and convinced me never to even think about getting a bike, was riding on the Burke Gilman trail. It’s full of homicidal maniacs on bicycles. At least if I’m riding in a car, I’ve surrounded by a couple tons of steel. Safe from the bikers.

17. I feel very safe cycling now that I live in Portland. There is a whole parallel network of bike boulevards that are very safe. It took awhile to figure out the system, and it does involve some backtracking to get to destinations on arterials, but it works really well. They also use a lot of traffic calming devices like speedbumps (the sloping kind that are easy to ride over) and intersections where only bikes can go straight through. Bike signals are commonplace.

    While some areas of Seattle are difficult due to topography, this is often overstated. Almost all of Seattle north of the ship canal is relatively flat and has streets parallel to arterials that could be used for bike boulevards. SE Seattle is the same way. Sure, there are bridges and chokepoints, but Portland has those too. In Portland cyclists stay on the bike boulevard most of the way towards the river, then take a couple of easy turns to get on the bridge. Then on the other side you get back on the nearest bike boulevard.

18. As a voter here, I won’t even begin to consider the idea unless the following things happen along with it:

    1. Bicyclists end their free ride. If I can be required to pay $27 a year to license my dog, then you can pay at least that much to license your bike. That license should be non-transferable between bikes, and include a license plate to be attached to the back of the seat, visible to others at all times.

    2. Bicyclists be required to obtain a driver’s license, just like motorcyclists, with the license including a mandatory safety class and a written test.

    3. Bicycling organizations step up to the plate and make safe operation, including adherence to traffic laws, including traffic signs and signals, lighting, and proper safety equipment (i.e., brakes), a top priority.

    If cyclists refuse to do all of those things, I will strongly oppose all of your proposals, as will the majority of voters here. The choice is yours. Motorists are fed up with your self-entitled posing. If you want to be treated as full-fledged road users, then

    1. While in spirit I don’t disagree with some of the ideas, in practice this kind of thing just won’t work. To answer some of your points:

       1. The cost of administering such a licensing and test program would probably exceed anything reasonable to collect. This has been tested in many regions of the world. Your comparison to dog licensing is invalid: that’s basically entirely voluntary as you don’t get pulled over on the street for lack of a dog license. It’s purpose is more to provide some funds for the strays that show up and to make it easier to find your pet should it be lost. I don’t believe we have police offers talking about how hard it is to find or ticket bicyclists in any numbers that would make plates an urgent concern. It turns out it’s pretty easy to pull bicyclists over for violations, as the NYPD proves over and over again. The entire idea of bike plates presumes you would even have significant compliance. Considering how many unlicensed drivers and cars without valid tags there are, I doubt bicycles will get much higher compliance and will provide much lower safety benefits.

       2. Most bicyclists actually do have drivers licenses. I realize this is kind of shocking but the overwhelming majority of people riding bikes also know how to drive. They may even own a car or two! Why can’t we have drivers license with a “bicycling” endorsement? The road rules are nearly 100% the same. Unlike motorcycles, bicycles don’t go so fast that you need peculiarly specific training to be reasonably safe. Most of us learn how when we’re younger than ten years old, after all.

       3. Will you also demand that AAA and other motorist organizations “step up to the plate” and enforce laws that motorist violate routinely? Why is it any different for bicycle advocacy organizations? The organizations in this area already do everything you are asking for. They have education classes, they hand out free safety gear, encourage safe riding (and organize safe rides), and so forth. I don’t see AAA hosting driving awareness days or encouraging people not to speed with any vigor. The least they could do is put up some signs on Rainier asking people not to speed (people routinely drive 10+ mph over on it). Sheesh! It’s like they don’t know they are responsible for the behavior of everyone that drives a car!

       Finally, it’s interesting that, to you, “bicyclists” (which are apparently some monolithic conspiracy in your mind) have to do *everything* you say, or they don’t deserve any consideration for their safety or convenience (or convenience of others — getting bikes off of arterial streets onto “bike boulevards” makes it better for car drivers too). Should we not create curb ramps and safe pedestrian crossing zones because some pedestrians jaywalk? Should we stop repairing potholes because some drivers speed and roll through stop signs? Do we stop letting people board buses near Pioneer Square because sometimes a crazy guy gets on and makes a scene?

       And, yes, I do bike. But I mostly walk and use buses and trains — and very rarely drive a car. But I’m not a “cyclist” except when I’m actually on a bike. The rest of the time I’m just a person trying to get somewhere by whatever means I happen to be using.

       (Yes, I realize I probably should respond, but this was a more reasonable version of this particular idea that comes up so often and I think it a good idea to attempt a reasonable response.)

       1. Your comparison to dog licensing is invalid: that’s basically entirely voluntary as you don’t get pulled over on the street for lack of a dog license.

          As the recipient of a $125 ticket for not having my dog licensed, I beg to differ. The tickets are written by the animal control officers who show up in various parks.

          The cost of administering such a licensing and test program would probably exceed anything reasonable to collect.

          It need be no harder than car or motorcycle tabs. In fact, it could be run through the same channel.

          The entire idea of bike plates presumes you would even have significant compliance.

          Au contraire! Here’s what you do: A bike license comes in two parts. A sticker for the frame, and a plate for the back of the seat. Same number on both. If they don’t match, or if the rider doesn’t have the back plate with him, it’s considered a stolen bike and confiscated. If the rider does have the back plate with him but didn’t attach it, then a $125 fine. If there’s any fraud involved, then a minumum $250 fine.

          The sticker and plate would transfer with the bike, as long as the new owner is registered online at the time of sale. When you register your bike, you register your name, address, phone number, the bike’s serial number. If you chose, you could include your driver’s license number (motor vehicle, bicycle).

          All of that would pose a serious deterrent to theft. Plate holders could be easily designed to allow riders to take the plate with them. A thief, knowing that lack of a plate is cause to be stopped, would at the very least need some other plate. But he couldn’t sell the bike unless the numbers matched. And the other information would aid in matching true owners to bicycles.

          All of this could be administrered through existing systems. No need to reinvent the wheel. To the extent that it couldn’t be handled online and through the mail (for example, if someone wanted a plate RIGHT NOW), they could go to the privately-operated motor vehicle license bureau and pay a few more bucks.

          Not only would bikes be licensed and identifiable when you blow through a stop sign (the real reason you don’t want to be licensed), but there’d be a lot more tools to go after bicycle thieves. I understand that theft is a big issue. You do care about bicycle theft, right? Right? Or maybe not.

          Most bicyclists actually do have drivers licenses.

          The same is true of motorcycle drivers, but they need a separate endorsement. The rules of the road are the same, but there are additional issues for motorcyclists, similar to those faced by bicyclists. The difference is that bicyclists demand, on one hand, to be treated like children and not be asked to have a driver’s license, while on the other hand, to be given the privileges of adults.

          Most of us learn how when we’re younger than ten years old, after all.

          You could have fooled me, based on the behavior I routinely see on the road from bicyclists. Ten years old, yes. Learned, not so much.

          Will you also demand that AAA and other motorist organizations “step up to the plate” and enforce laws that motorist violate routinely?

          No, because I have not demanded that cycling organizations “enforce laws.” That’s for the police to do. You need to re-read what I wrote, and think about it. If you need to use your finger to follow the words, feel free.

          it’s interesting that, to you, “bicyclists” (which are apparently some monolithic conspiracy in your mind) have to do *everything* you say, or they don’t deserve any consideration for their safety or convenience

          Unfortunately, you have a very bad reputation among motorists. We are not only the voting majority — newly energized by a bicyclist mayor who so clearly despises us, but not our money — but we also quite literally outweigh you. I’d encourage bicyclists to think carefully before joining any “war” against motorists like the one just declared by the rabidly anti-motorist publication, The Stranger.

          Should we stop repairing potholes because some drivers speed and roll through stop signs?

          It would seem that your favorite mayor has done exactly that, which is partly why he now enjoys a whopping 23% approval rating. Yup, the cyclists love him, along with the derelicts and drug dealers downtown. But that’s about as far as it goes.

          I think it a good idea to attempt a reasonable response.

          Your response was smug, sarcastic, unreasonable, and not even remotely serious. Which is why cyclists are going to lose time and again at the ballot box here. Think it’s bad now? Give it a few years. The backlash is here, and it’s not going to go away unless the bicyclists of Seattle decide to grow up. If you do, great. But I’m not holding my breath, believe me.

       2. I love that they guy that insists bicycles be licensed because he has to license his dog… was ticketed for not licensing his dog. If you owned a bike and we did require licenses, would you even get one?

          It’s like a convicted shoplifter complaining that libraries are free.

       3. Yeah, I’d get one for the same reason I got a dog license.

       4. You say a lot about how easy it would be to have a licensing and plate scheme for bikes but very little about the supposed benefits. The only one you cite is theft. The police don’t even have enough resources to properly deal with car theft — and cars are usually worth a lot more than a bike. Right now, the same benefit plating would give to the bike owner is registration in teh national bike registry, which is what the police already use (and knowing your bike’s serial number).

          The one possible benefit (to society) would be easier enforcement against law breaking bicyclists which I see you say nothing about except that it would be “easier” to cite stop sign violators. Guess what? A police office has to be there to cite you for that (unless you’re proposing stop sign cameras too) and the police don’t find it hard to cite bicyclists when they see them even without plates. So why create more government bureaucracy?

          But I don’t know why I am responding again. You say my original response was “smug, sarcastic, unreasonable, and not even remotely serious”. Considering *not* licensing bikes is the standard in the vast majority of the world, I think I’m being pretty reasonable and serious when I ask for a strong justification (and benefit) for a new scheme that hardly any localities deem necessary. I admit part of my response was “smug and sarcastic” but only because I was attempting to draw attention to the double standard where, for example, Cascade Bicycle Club is called to task for the bad behavior of some bike riders while no one would consider it reasonable to hold AAA — a common motorist club — to the same standard.

       5. You say a lot about how easy it would be to have a licensing and plate scheme for bikes but very little about the supposed benefits. The only one you cite is theft.

          Okay, so you don’t care about addressing bicycle theft. I’ll remember that in the future when the cyclistas start whining for more police attention to it. As for the benefits of bike licensing, here goes:

          1. Equity. Bicycles are the currently the only street vehicles not requiring licenses for the vehicle and the driver. Bringing cyclists into the fold, if the fees and requirements were truly equivalent, could reduce motorist resentment and actually raise your crowd’s standing above that of “freeloading adolescent whiner.”

          2. Identification. Currently, people don’t even bother to report bicyclists for for traffic violations because they can’t be identified. That could change a little bit if they are required to have a plate on the back of the seat.

          3. Safety training. I do realize that neither you nor most cyclists care about the issue except then they can use someone’s death to lobby for more special privileges, but I still think mandatory universal training for bicyclists, attached to their licensing, might save lives.

          But I do realize that your crowd doesn’t care. So I’m not holding my breath. Who knows, though. Maybe someday some of the more intelligent within your crowd will look at your mayor’s 23% approval rating and realize that they really need to do something meaningful to counteract the backlash that’s been building against the cyclistas.

          Then again, maybe not. Yours is a well insulated, self-referential, terminally smug crowd of people who never listens to anything other than the sound of its own self-satisfied voice.

    2. Not going to work. Driving a car is a restricted priviledge, given only to people who have reached a certain age and been subjected to practical testing by the state. Bicycling is a simple right, given to all ages without restriction.

       Are you seriously going to try and licence a 5 year old? Because they’ve got as much right to the road as anyone else.

       Next you’re going to want to license pedestrians.

       1. Not going to work. Driving a car is a restricted priviledge, given only to people who have reached a certain age and been subjected to practical testing by the state. Bicycling is a simple right, given to all ages without restriction.

          In the town where I grew up, you were required to have a license plate on your bike. You couldn’t get it without taking a short safety class and passing a test on what you’d been told, and paying a fee. But that was when I was 10 years old. Apparently, Seattle’s cyclists, including the “adults” can’t measure up to the 10-year-olds of an earlier era.

       2. What town was that? Maybe we could look up compliance rates, how it helped law enforcement and the costs to run the program to see if it would be reasonable to implement in Seattle.

       3. Sure, maybe we could fund a big study from the $60 car tab fee. Oops, but that will be defeated. I grew up in the suburbs of a big Midwestern city. Where I lived, each suburb had their own bicycle plates. Kids wanted them. But Seattle’s adult bicyclists? Nah. They can’t even handle the responsibilities of the children of an earlier era.

       4. There are actually quite a few large Midwestern cities. I lived outside one myself for a while. You’ll have to be more specific.

       5. What, you’re going to do a study? Let’s face it, you haven’t written anything serious here.

          [ot, ad hom]

          Keep trying for those special privileges. See how that works out for ya. By the way, I don’t expect bicyclists here ever to be licensed, even though it would be very much in their own interests.

          [ot, ad hom]

       6. [ot] we can easily and cheaply license bicyclists too. But only if we’re not too smug and smart for our own good — which means that here in Seattle, we’ll never figure out the easy way to clear snow on the cheap, and we’ll never license the bicyclists.

       7. No, I am not going to go “do a study” but if this kind of policy is as effective as you say, no doubt the town you grew up in has information on it or someone has published something about it. I’m actually curious why you won’t say. Most of the towns I’ve lived in had voluntary registration programs but they weren’t plates (usually just a sticker) and were entirely intended to make return of stolen bikes easier – and such programs are being replaced with the national bike registry (also voluntary and recommended by many police departments). The only mandatory plate and license systems I’ve heard of have been via (the very few) studies that conclude costs generally exceed benefits.

          Since I really would like to know about these programs, I’ll ignore that instead of answering my simple question you ranted for several paragraphs about entirely irrelevant topics (snow removal?) with some bonus ad hominem. So I ask again: what town or towns have you known that had mandatory bicycle plate programs that showed benefits beyond the anti-theft registration systems many already use?

       8. [ot]

       9. Gee, I’d respond, but apparently the smugsters here can’t stand being responded to. See ya in November, fools!

    3. Well, that didn’t take long for the trolls to come out. What part of “bicyclists don’t pay into the system” am I missing? I own a house in Seattle (so I pay taxes), I shop and dine in my neighborhood (paying more taxes again), and I own a car that I drive to work a couple of times a week (paying taxes once again at the pump).

       1. Ah yes, them trolls are horrible!

19. The best example I’ve seen in person of what can truly be considered a comprehensive bike network is Goleta, CA, about 100 miles northwest of Los Angelas.

    I stayed there for a week and accomplished all of my local transportation with a foldable kick scooter I brought on the plane, with a top speed of around 10 mph.

    While the flat terrain there certainly helped, the street designed helped too, for example:
    – A comprehensive network of trails was available for most regional trips. Unlike a single trail, by itself, Goleta had a real network of trails that connected with each other that you could actually use to get almost anywhere. They even had a trail going to the airport, which I got to use as soon as I got off the plane!
    – Where trails weren’t available, the regional routes included either bike boulevards or low-traffic arterials with wide shoulders. Even on a kick scooter, I never felt unsafe on them. When comparing with the prospect of riding a kick scooter along Eastlake to downtown Seattle, there’s no comparison.
    – Local streets were bike friendly, with low traffic speeds and bike lanes or shoulders almost everywhere.
    – I never had to navigate dangerous intersections to get across freeways or busy arterials. When no streets were adaquate, there was always a grade-separated trail.
    – Around the UCSB campus, the network bike routes became even more dense then usual, with a bike trail every 1/4 mile or so. The trails intersected each other with roundabouts and during the way there was plenty of bike traffic to justify those roundabouts. Within the campus, the bike network was considerably more direct than the road network cars had to use. There was also tons of bike parking on campus besides nearly every building.
    – The bike routes were extremely well signed and the pavement was in very good condition. I never had a problem with navigation.

    While I realize what I saw was not quite Copenhagen, it’s probably the closest to it I’ll ever get to see while still being in the U.S. It’s something we in Seattle should aspire towards.

    1. While I realize what I saw was not quite Copenhagen, it’s probably the closest to it I’ll ever get to see while still being in the U.S. It’s something we in Seattle should aspire towards.

       Goleta, CA has 30,000 people. Seattle has 609,000 people. So you aspire to move 580,000 people out of Seattle? Where? To Goleta?

       1. You really add a lot to the discussion Jake, I’m so glad you found this blog.

       2. Thanks, Zed! Always nice to hear from sincere people who aren’t afraid to say what they really think.

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