Seattle Bike Blog

‘Our kid is biking on MLK!’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 26, 2024

This photo turned out much cooler than I expected when I took it.
The new bike lanes on MLK Jr. Way from S Judkins Street to Mount Baker Station feel like a shortcut. It’s both more direct and more gradual than any of the alternative bike route options previously available. You no longer need to scale the cliffside up to Leschi to get between Franklin High School and the I-90 Trail. While a handful of people would just go ahead and bike on the four-to-five-lane road, it was not an experience for the faint of heart.
Even though I have ridden (and reported about) these new bike lanes previously, watching my six-year-old ride comfortably from Mount Baker Station to Judkins Park was still amazing. When my spouse Kelli yelled out, “Our kid is biking on MLK!” that’s exactly how I was feeling. If she can do it, then that means so many more people can, too. Sure enough, I saw more people biking on MLK in one block than I think I have ever seen biking there previously. I’m not even counting the people biking in the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways family-friendly celebration ride we joined Sunday.
Photo from Gordon Padelford of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.
The investments Seattle is making to create bike routes that children can use are going to keep paying off for generations. My child’s experience of growing up here will involve more independence and freedom than children had in my generation. And so long as Seattle passes the transportation levy in November and continues to build bike lanes like the ones on MLK, the next generation of Seattle kids will have even more freedom than my child. After a century of changes to our roads that pushed kids to the side, keeping them confined to their homes or limited areas like parks or a few indoor recreation spaces, we are finally creating real space for them within the fabric of our city. In the process, we’re creating connections and spaces that are comfortable for everyone.

2 comments on ‘Our kid is biking on MLK!’

tags: central district, I-90 trail, mlk way, mount baker station, sdot, seattle neighborhood greenways

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Alert 8/24: 520 Trail closed across the Lake Washington Saturday

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 23, 2024

The 520 Trail across the Lake Washington will be closed from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, August 24, from Montlake to Evergreen Point.
While the roadway is closed all weekend, crews will keep the trail open during the night and on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the new walking and biking path over SR-520 in Montlake is getting a lot closer to completion. Ryan Packer toured the area, which has a nearly complete trail and landscaping. However, the opening date is still TBD, they reported.

No comments on Alert 8/24: 520 Trail closed across the Lake Washington Saturday

tags: 520 trail, Bike Route Alert

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Seattle decided 9 years ago to kill the SLU Streetcar

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 20, 2024

These tables were part of the city’s process in 2015 to decide whether the high capacity transit line on Eastlake and Roosevelt should be a rapid streetcar (RSC) or bus rapid transit (BRT).
The South Lake Union Streetcar broke down Friday, August 9, and nobody even noticed until King County Metro and SDOT sent out a press release about it the next Monday. Like, I searched through social media posts and could not find a single person mentioning issues riding the streetcar line the entire weekend that it was out of operation. Perhaps even more damning for the line is that Metro and SDOT are not even running any kind of replacement service while the streetcar is out of commission, noting that riders are served by existing service on Routes 40, 70 and RapidRide C.
The thing that baffles me about this line is that people keep acting like the city needs to decide what to do with it when Seattle already made this decision nine years ago. The RapidRide J project was initially proposed as an extension of the streetcar from its odd terminus in the middle of Fairview Ave N north to Roosevelt Station, but Seattle decided in 2015 to make the project a bus line instead. The ongoing Route 40 Transit-Plus project was also once vaguely envisioned as a streetcar line (complete with a new Ship Canal crossing), but is now a set of bus reliability improvements. The time to fight for the streetcar happened a decade ago, and the streetcar lost.
The streetcar lines from the 2012 Seattle Transit Master Plan (PDF) are missing in the 2016 TMP update (PDF).
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25 comments on Seattle decided 9 years ago to kill the SLU Streetcar

tags: center city connector, rapidride j, rob saka, sdot, south lake union, streetcars

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$115/mo for an electric cargo bike? Wombi launches bike subscription service in Seattle, sets up in the old G&O space

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 19, 2024

Screenshot from the Wombi website.
Electric cargo bikes are incredible machines that can do a lot of what a car can do (and a lot a car can’t do) for a fraction of the cost. They are also a lot of fun.
But even though $2,500 to $8,000 is not very much money compared to buying a car, it is still a lot of cash up-front for a bicycle. For a car-free family like mine, the cost was a no-brainer. We use it every day and are getting close to putting 10,000 miles on the Tern GSD we bought in October 2021. But folks often get sticker shock when they see how much some of these higher-end electric cargo bikes can cost. The problem is exacerbated by the relative lack of financing options available compared to the (often predatory) auto loan industry.
But what if you could lease an electric cargo bike instead? That’s the concept behind Wombi, which just launched in Seattle. For a monthly subscription fee, people can rent an electric cargo bike rather than buy one. Better yet, service as well as theft/damage insurance is included in the price. And let me tell you, service costs can really add up on these things.
Wombi launched in Los Angeles last summer, and Seattle is now the company’s second market. Wombi is the U.S. sister company to Lug+Carrie, which started in Australia in 2019 and operates in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. They currently offer three models of electric-assist Tern bikes: The Quick Haul budget mid-tail (retail starts: ~$2,500, Wombi starts: $115/mo), the HSD mid-tail (retail starts: ~$4,300, Wombi starts: $135/mo), and the GSD longtail (retail starts: ~$4,500, Wombi starts: $150/mo). You can also get the bikes outfitted with kid-hauling, pet-hauling and cargo-hauling accessories for additional fees. Users will have the option to buy the bike after 18 months as a subscriber, according to the Wombi website.
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3 comments on $115/mo for an electric cargo bike? Wombi launches bike subscription service in Seattle, sets up in the old G&O space

tags: g&o family cyclery, tern gsd, tern hsd, tern quick haul, wombi

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You did it! WSDOT will not cut the Harvard Connection path to planned Roanoke Lid

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 16, 2024

Concept diagram from a 2020 report to the Seattle Design Commission.
The efforts by advocates at Central Seattle Greenways as well as readers like you have paid off. WSDOT announced that they are no longer planning to cut the Harvard Connection path to the planned Roanoke Lid as part of the SR-520 Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid Project.
“Following conversations with legislators, our contractor, project partners and community advocates, we have decided to maintain the Harvard Connection,” wrote WSDOT Program Administrator Omar Jepperson. “It is clear the community feels strongly about keeping this bicycle and pedestrian connection. We look forward to delivering these multimodal improvements to the city and region.”
We wrote about the community effort to save the trail connection Wednesday while also arguing that the path would recreate one of Seattle’s very first bicycle paths from the 1890s. There’s some really interesting potential for public art or historical markers of some kind to connect people with the history of white colonial settlement and development of this place, which began with a bike path that grew into a freeway.
There are still budget gaps to figure out before this final segment of the 520 freeway megaproject project begins its long construction phase. But the cutting the trail connection would barely scratch the surface of the project budget, which includes a full replacement of the entire Portage Bay Bridge between Montlake and I-5. Community advocates previously fought to keep a biking and walking trail on the new bridge, which will shorten several major regional bike routes between the city center and UW, the Burke-Gilman Trail, and Eastside communities along the 520 Trail.
Below is the full text of the letter from WSDOT:
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4 comments on You did it! WSDOT will not cut the Harvard Connection path to planned Roanoke Lid

tags: central seattle greenways, harvard ave e, roanoke lid, sr 520, wsdot

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Let SDOT know the Market/Leary Burke-Gilman route needs to separate walking and biking near storefronts

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 15, 2024

Top two images from SDOT’s early designs. Bottom is Seattle Bike Blog’s loose concept.
It is a great idea to redesign Leary Way NW and NW Market Street so they are safer for everyone while also connecting the Burke-Gilman Trail through Ballard, but SDOT’s current design needs significant work in order to achieve those goals.
SDOT has not released any new details about Councilmember Dan Strauss’ Market/Leary plan since we last reported on it, but they now have a simple online form for collecting public feedback. So go fill it out!
Question 1 regarding the Market Street segment is the most important. SDOT’s most recent 30% design includes several significant “mixing zones” where the trail and the sidewalk would merge together. SDOT’s own design guidelines for intersections say, “A mixing zone is not appropriate for two-way protected bike lanes.” The current design would create situations where people trying to bike in both directions along the route would mix with shoppers, people heading to the bus, people waiting for the walk signal to cross the street, and anyone else hanging out this this busy business district. This would be frustrating for people on bikes and it would be uncomfortable for people on the sidewalk. People should be able to hang out on the sidewalk without worrying about bikes coming through, and people biking should be able to rely on being able to travel along this route without needing to crawl through a crowd of people. It is in everybody’s best interest for walking and biking spaces to be separated in a busy business district, and the design team should be following best practices for two-way bike lanes through a business district. The Market segment also needs more traffic calming and safer crosswalks, goals that combine well with the goal of separating biking and walking spaces. SDOT’s Vision Zero research found that 80% of pedestrian deaths in Seattle occur on streets with multiple lanes in the same direction, so reducing the number of lanes on Market in this highly-walked business district is a worthy project entirely on its own merits while also creating the space needed to keep biking and walking separate.
If this project is designed well, the bike and scooter volumes could be very high, so it needs to be designed accordingly. Imagine a nice day with a constant stream of people biking and scootering out to Golden Gardens while another stream of people walk and bike through here to a bustling Sunday Farmer’s Market. That should be the design team’s use case.
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8 comments on Let SDOT know the Market/Leary Burke-Gilman route needs to separate walking and biking near storefronts

tags: ballard, burke-gilman trail, dan strauss, leary way, market st, missing link, sdot

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