By Frank on April 28, 2008
9th Avenue in South Lake Union was restriped over the weekend, and is now a two-way street with bike lanes in either direction.
This is the complement to Westlake Avenue, which also went two-way recently. Bicyclists who were getting stuck in the streetcar tracks on Westlake can now use 9th instead and have their own dedicated lane.
I’m all for more two-way streets in Seattle. Except for downtown (and maybe the Roosevelt Ave-11th Ave NE combo in the U District), the traffic doesn’t really justify these wide, 3-lane one-way streets. They encourage speeding and bad driving. Just the other day, I was heading south on 9th Ave when another driver ahead of me decided to slowly drift across all three empty lanes — no turn signal, of course — right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and we came with inches of crashing.
Posted in infrastructure projects, inter-agency compacts
By Frank on March 12, 2008
From an opinion article in The Olympian, advocating allowing bikes on buses if the racks are full:
[Intercity Transit] general manager Mike Harbour, himself a regular bicycle commuter, said he’s heard that an increasing number of prospective bus riders with bicycles are being turned away because racks are full. Each rack holds two bicycles.
Harbour said full racks are prevalent on routes with long, steep hills, including Fourth and Harrison avenues.
He said options being explored are allowing bikes inside, installing three-bike racks on buses and enabling some bus stops to temporarily secure bikes so they don’t have to be brought inside the bus.
The article suggests a test run of allowing people to bring their bikes on the bus. It cites Santa Clara, CA as an example, where the bus drivers have discretion to allow up to two bikes on the bus if there’s room and the racks are full.
Purely based on anecdotal evidence, it seems to me that when the racks are full, the bus is likely to be pretty full as well, so I’m not sure if this is the solution to our problems. I think more sheltered bike racks would help, though.
Posted in infrastructure projects
By Frank on February 4, 2008
An innovative idea for reducing bike-car crashes.
Although, they don’t really work if the car’s turning right and the light isn’t red.
Posted in infrastructure projects
By Frank on July 30, 2007
USA Today explores the idea:
Fourteen states, six counties, 10 regional governments and 52 cities have complete streets policies, according to the National Complete Streets Coalition. In Illinois, a complete streets bill awaits the governor’s signature. In California, a bill passed one house.
Massachusetts and at least 11 cities — including Seattle, Honolulu, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Madison, Wis., and Jackson, Miss. — have approved complete streets policies since last year, the coalition says.
Some states, such as Oregon and Florida, have had the equivalent of complete streets policies for years, but the “overarching concept jelled just in the last few years,” coalition coordinator Barbara McCann says.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, plans to sponsor a federal complete streets bill, spokeswoman Jennifer Mullen says.
It’s interesting that it seems to be gaining support higher up than the local level. This is good, I guess, because streets tend to overlap jurisdictions. Even in Seattle, though, bike lanes can get nixed if there’s even a hint of local opposition.
Posted in i90, infrastructure projects, legislation
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