Building For Bikes

Posted by Eric de Place

12/06/2006 04:45 PM

Seattle's new multi-million dollar bike plan

Luckily for Sightline's resident Master Bicyclist, Seattle just released an extensive new $32 million Bicycle Master Plan. It's awesome.

My favorite element -- out of sheer selfishness -- is this: a proposal for a dedicated bicycle bridge spanning the ship canal alongside my 'hood's bike-unfriendly Ballard Bridge. Sweet.

The Emerald City has a bit of catching up to do, in order to make bicycling as popular as it is in, say, Portland. But the city's new plan is a giant step in the right direction.

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Comments

Posted by rlotz 12/06/2006 05:48 PM

I'm not sure if awesome is the right word. I'd say, ambitious but also short sited. The idea of building bridges seems awfully expensive to me, and the benefit of a bridge vs. other bike and ped improvements needs to be weighed carefully. They also managed to ignore (well, list for further study) many critical exchange points in the Seattle street grid. Hopefully we'll see some true immediate action from the city soon. Once they follow through with that I'll have more faith in their larger project ideas.

Posted by Andrew E 12/06/2006 06:56 PM

This plan is a huge step forward, as far as I'm concerned. I'm a daily bike commuter, and from what I've seen of the, there are a lot of radical and visionarly approaches here, including reconfiguring a lot of streets citywide to give bikers some room.
It's crucial that those who bike--or who envision a city that starts to think beyond the internal combustion engine--speak up in support of this plan. There will be a lot of entrenched opposition from neighborhoods and those who feel we need more room for even more cars. It will be crucial for us to stand up for this plan and the reasons it's so necessary. We need it because there are so many benefits to biking: it's cheap, it's good for your health, it's great for the environment, and it's fun.

If you're a bike commuter, speak up...your comments do make a difference.

Posted by Eric de Place 12/07/2006 09:30 AM

rlotz, i agree that the plan is not perfec, but it's also not yet finalized. As a general rule, I'm firmly in favor of making the least expensive buys first, as you suggest. But in this case, I'm not opposed to including a few big-ticket solutions (such as bridges) because they establish long-term fixed pieces of infrastructure that can leverage benefits for decades. (The B-G Trail is a perfect example of that, to my way of thinking.) What's different in this case, I'd argue, is that we have real money -- $32 million -- and so we have a unique opportunity to buy some of those necessary but expensive pieces. Later on, in a more constrained funding environment, we can always work on lane markers, interchange improvements, and so on. That's my two cents anyway.

Andrew, to elaborate on your encourgement to participate, here's the next public meeting:

December 7th
Rainier Community Center
4600 38th Ave. S
6:30-9:00 PM

Posted by Patrick B. McGrath 12/07/2006 03:46 PM

roltz:

Remember that the Plan is divided into short (0-2 years), medium (0-10 years), and long (0-20) term projects. You'll see a big increase in the number of striped bike lanes in the city in the first couple years, as they are short term recommendations. A bike/ped Ballard bridge -- if it ever happens -- is a long term project.

Posted by Aaron O. 12/08/2006 09:31 AM

I'd like to know why they're not doing ANYTHING to MLK Way south of Rainier. The entire road is destroyed due to light rail construction, so why not add some bike lines when the entire road is repaved?