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Bike News Roundup: The Classic American Road Diet

It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s some interesting stuff floating around the web lately.

First up, here’s a pretty good explanation of one way to redesign a four-lane street to be safer and more efficient. Seattle has so many streets that need this:


Pacific Northwest News


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Halftime Show! Here’s SDOT’s Kyle Rowe explaining how to park your bike share like someone who isn’t an asshole:

National & Global News

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11 responses to “Bike News Roundup: The Classic American Road Diet”

  1. sb

    The ofo saturation is kinda of annoying.

    Sunday around noon there were about 60 bikes lining the inner path Green Lake (counted on my 1st and 3rd laps around so that number isn’t from just one specific point in time). Some of these groups were obviously left by ofo (like when you notice 6 all lined up nicely together). While there were a few ofo riders that were looping the lake, there were also a few limebikes. I’m curious how many of those parked bikes naturally got there via riders compared how many were placed there.

  2. Regarding the road diet video, if standard designs call for 12′ minimum two-way bike paths Seattle will find a way to narrow them down to 10′. I shudder to think what Seattle would do with at an 8′ standard!

  3. Ballard Biker

    I’m wondering if all bike share riders riding to Ballard could park their bikes in the public space in front of Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel. It would be great to get a big mass of bikes there in support of completing the Missing Link that they are obstructing. Kind of like a Critical Mass. Maybe line them up nose to tail all along the route – the rail route on 54th. Yeah, that’d be great.

    1. Ballard Resident

      How about doing it on the day of the walking tour on Oct 14th? There are lots of bikes at the locks.

  4. Matthew Snyder

    Is there a rough timeline for final design and construction of the Accessible Mt. Baker project? And is there already funding secured? The latest update on the AMB website says that 2019 is the earliest projected completion date, which probably means more like 2020-2021. My understanding from SBAB meetings is that AMB is the bottleneck that’s holding up the (potential, but likely?) bike lanes on Rainier Ave. It sounds like SDOT isn’t willing to make safety improvements on Rainier north of Alaska until after AMB is completed and they can redirect more cars onto MLK instead of Rainier through the Rainier Valley.

    Sure would be nice to get an “interim” project on Rainier before 2020… even if it’s only paint + posts. Vision Zero needs more urgency behind it (and an updated dashboard).

    1. asdf2

      I’m somewhat lukewarm about the Acciessible Mt. Baker Project because, for all its faults, the existing ped bridge works well for getting between the light rail station and Mt. Baker Blvd. to the east; the proposal gets rid of the bridge and replaces it with not one, but two stoplights to wait you. Of course, they’re going to be timed so that a car going east/west can get through both lights in on go, which means, as a slower pedestrian, you will always just miss the second light. And of course, both lights are going to have long, car-throughput-maximizing cycles, complete with beg buttons. To all this, I say “no thanks”. I’d rather just deal with the extra up and down and walk across the bridge that’s already there.

  5. Brian

    Bothell’s new design is a mess. The “bike lane” has door zones on both sides. The whole layout is poorly signed and confusing to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. I’ll be sticking to their “fast lanes” (i.e. the traditional road in the center).

  6. asdf2

    What will it take to get Green Lake Way and Bridge Way a road diet, like shown in the video? I was walking through there the other day at 5:30 on a Thursday afternoon, and there wasn’t anywhere near enough car traffic to justify a 4-lane street. A narrower street would be much easier to cross, and make it much safer to get between Fremont/Wallingford and Woodland Park/Green Lake Park.

    (Of course, if would even better if Green Lake Way could just be closed altogether…but one step a time; start with the road diet first).

    1. Matthew Snyder

      What will it take? It will take more injuries and serious crashes. It’s a numbers game. The most recent reply I got from SDOT about this street reads, in part, “We evaluated this location, including a review of the safety history, and the data suggests the section of roadway is operating as planned for ordinary travel.”

      Maybe we could get a HAWK crossing, a marked crosswalk, or a pedestrian refuge? No. “When marking a crosswalk we like to see approximately twenty pedestrians crossing an hour.” The chicken-and-egg problem here is that people don’t like to walk across the street since it’s a 5-lane drag strip, so SDOT can just claim there’s no pedestrian demand, or that it’s not concentrated enough at one specific crossing.

  7. eddiew

    Actually, Seattle has few such four-lane arterials remaining. Note the video arterial did not have transit service. The lane widths were narrow. The video arterial still uses significant curb space for car storage.

  8. Ben P

    The 72 hour parking rule is not always enforced. I left a car parked in one spot for a month this past summer and it was ticket free. Maybe it is only enforced if someone complains

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