With a 7-0 vote (Burgess and Godden excused), the Council gave a big thumbs up to the public bikes system, which will allow people to check out bikes for short trips from station docks located all around the city center and the University District.
Exact station locations and permits will be decided at a later date, likely in early 2014.
Here’s a statement from PSBS Director Holly Houser about the approval:
“The support of the Seattle City Council is a key element to bike share’s success, and we’re grateful that they have embraced this new option for public transportation. We still have work to do, both in signing up corporate sponsors and ensuring that the local laws work for bike share, but we can move much faster with the broad support of our community. Thanks to their backing, bike share continues to be on track for a spring 2014 launch.”
Comments
5 responses to “City Council unanimously approves bike share ordinances, launch on track for Spring 2014”
I can see this working OK in the U District, but downtown has no bike infrastructure to speak of. My prediction is that this will lead most trips there to take place on the sidewalk, causing lots of complaints from pedestrians. I can only hope that will finally put the fire under the city leadership to stop punting on the issue of safe downtown bicycle infrastructure.
What were the 2 ordinances? I’m assuming one was allowing bike share stations, what was the other?
It’s a little confusing, but one of the ordinances essentially allowed something like a bike share program, and the other related specifically to PSBS.
Here’s the text of them:
http://clerk.seattle.gov/~scripts/nph-brs.exe?s1=&s3=31468&s2=&s4=&Sect4=AND&l=20&Sect5=RESNY&Sect6=HITOFF&d=RESF&p=1&u=%2F~public%2Fresny.htm&r=1&f=G
http://clerk.seattle.gov/~scripts/nph-brs.exe?s1=&s3=117847&s4=&s2=&s5=&Sect4=AND&l=20&Sect2=THESON&Sect3=PLURON&Sect5=CBORY&Sect6=HITOFF&d=ORDF&p=1&u=%2F~public%2Fcbory.htm&r=1&f=G
I really hope SDOT can coordinate with PSBS on these projects to install public bike parking at the same time — especially when these PSBS docking stations occupy precious street parking spaces that could otherwise be used as, for example, Portland-style bike corrals. It would be great to see public bike parking increasingly move off of the sidewalks and onto the streets, and this is a great opportunity to do just that, at a reduced cost.
[…] City Council unanimously approves bike share ordinances, launch on track for Spring 2014 […]