According to the City of Seattle Department of Transportation between 4,000 and 8,000 residents commute by bicycle. I decided to look this up as I saw a city employee marking up the sidewalk and street outside my house with white spray paint, and saw what appeared to be bike lanes outlined further west on Yesler.
Adding a bike lane to Yesler Ave is apparently is the 9th priority in Mayor Nickels Top 9 South Priorities to incorporate into the Bicycle Master Plan. 9th Priority out of 9???? Mayor Nickels must not live in my neighborhood because I see large volumes of spandex cruising by my kitchen window every day.
The goals of this plan are to triple the amount of bicycling in Seattle in the next 10 years while at the same time reducing the rate of crashes by one-third. I believe the lanes can encourage more bikers, but I have a hard time believing Seattle will reduce the rate of crashes. Given that Yesler allows street parking on both sides, is on a major bus route and is going to add space for biking, I don't think that crashes will be reduced by much unless this plan is accompanied by driver education on how to look for bikers and factor them into driving.
The performance measures are comedic... performance target for tripling the number of bicyclists until 2017 will be collected in part by bicycle advocacy groups who will count the number of bikers that go by various locations. Hmmmm... I suppose I'm being unnecessarily cynical since I'm completely in support of this plan, but I would suggest that data collection & statistical analysis is a little more impartial.
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2 comments:
I am ok with being the 9th priority of 9. At least we made the list. Commuting downtown on Yesler seems great until you get on your bike and head home. The stretch between 3rd and 9th is a HUGE hill. I could not imagine riding up that thing.
How many miles of bike lane/path are there in Seattle now? We here in Eugene have 119 miles of designated bike ways. 2.9 linear miles for every 1 square mile of city.
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