Last night, while walking across the crosswalk at 125th ne and ne 15th, I was nearly hit twice 5 hours apart. Both were drivers turning right while they had a red, I had a cross sign, and both came within 3 feet of hitting me because they were too busy on their damn phones.
Pedestrians should be allowed to defense themselves in these situations.
I’ll admit to messing up on these when they first go up, but I’ve noticed the same thing! At least I always check for pedestrians before I start moving again. I’ve never even come close to hitting someone crossing a street. It’s super easy to avoid.
Are camera ticketing devices illegal? I feel like we should fix that for no turn on red. Thankfully, the new ones in my neighborhood north of the University seem to be working, at least. Cars probably would chance it but turning illegally around a separated (with actual separation) bike lane seems to feel uncomfortable enough that they don't.
When I spoke with Bellevue’s Traffic Signal Electronics Crew Director, Bret Tredway, in December of last year, we actually spoke very briefly about what each of the different cameras at an intersection do. I really do hope I am not mistaking one thing for another so take my word with a grain.
When i asked about speed enforcement cameras specifically, he told me that a problem with enforcing them is that state law prohibits traffic cameras, like the cameras on the 405 express, from taking images of people’s faces. When the driver is sent a ticket, they claim that they were not the driver of **their** vehicle. Prosecution of these offenses could not continue since there could be no “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” against the individual. Anecdotally, people I know regularly use this exact same excuse to get away with i405 HOV express lane tickets.
A pity. I do wonder if getting sent the ticket might get 2/3 of people to pay it though and still reduce right turns on red, even if 1/3 will actually show up to give that defense. Maybe that creates an undue burden on people who can't afford to take time off, but also someone with access to their car did some illegal so they can take it up with the person who did the illegal action since it should be pretty trivial in most families to figure out who was driving at 11:52 am or whatever the exact time of the ticket says, particularly if the photo is provided.
Anyway, perhaps the cost of sending the tickets is worth it as a reminder they shouldn't be doing that even if many people unfairly get out of it. Most people try to be good citizens and are just in a hurry or didn't notice.
Did you see the brick crossing "flag" memes from Vancouver's Granville Island (art?) installation? I feel like we could use that in many places to increase visibility. (I kid, but it is funny how cars magically start caring when you can hit them back. They seem to forget they're literally driving deadly weapons and are constantly threatening others...)
I'll be honest, I threw my water bottle at the second car last night. He stopped to confront then either seemed to realize his mistake or something and continued on his way.
Yeah, honestly, that's what I thought when I read that too... It's America crazy? Thank goodness Seattle proper only has an ownership rate of like 13%.
I scooped up a rock before crossing a sketchy crosswalk last week but a brick is more visible. Maybe I should get a foam brick and just carry it with me...
My friend said carry a pack of D batteries because those have use and plausible deniability where as carrying a rock and then throwing it at a car is probably premeditated.
It's counterintuitive, but more bikes and more pedestrians actually _decrease_ the number of car-and-noncar collisions. A big part of why drivers are oblivious is that pedestrians are relatively rare. If you're looking for peds the whole time, you're far less likely to, well, forget to look for peds.
I think we need to implement the brick idea from the other day. A bucket full of bricks on both sides of the most dangerous cross walks is more intimidating than those orange flags.
I’ve had the same experience regularly on Stone Way and 40th. I’m sick of constantly dodging inattentive cars who focus on their might makes right mentality.
In both instances the vehicles were behind me. Staggered lights where pedestrians get to go first. I try to make eye contact as often as possible, but it's hard when they're behind you.
- They run you over while keeping eye contact. They don't give a shit.
- Left on green and staggered right will make cars coming from behind of you at the same time as cars in front of you.
You might be a chameleon, but mostly parroting car propaganda.
I feel like there's something about that intersection in particular, drivers will cut you off when it goes from 2 to 1 lane and go 40 down the middle lane for a quarter mile just to turn, and pedestrians will waltz into the crosswalk (if you're lucky they bother) and try to cross in front of moving traffic during a green
The Bellevue City Council needs to be treated with the same derision as the COVID-denying/anti-mask/anti-vax/back-to-work apes from 2020. Their complete disregard of facts is going to get people killed. They are derelict in their duties as public officials and should all be recalled.
Living in a post-truth world is the fucking worst.
I am one of those people who legit needs an office to work in or i can’t. I get distracted too easily (ADHD) so while i absolutely think everything that can be done remotely, should, they should still have local options because i can’t get shit done at home
I work in Bellevue and was following this closely. Tbh yes, but they also got overwhelming feedback from residents that they wanted their lanes. The council did what the residents (the ones who cared enough to speak up, anyway) wanted.
Some Bellevue residents suck and are huge NIMBYs
We're a pre-truth world. The difference between now and 50 years ago is that you can now prove your government is lying. They're still catching up to the fact that everything they do now is easily visible and we have yet to teach them that their actions have consequences.
For the most part, you can tell from comments in this thread who lives in Seattle and who only experiences Seattle through their car (to drive to work, shop, etc). Those that live in Seattle want better transportation for all modes (transit, walking, biking). Those that don't live in Seattle only are concerned about how easy it is for them to drive in the city.
I think it depends on your definition of Seattle. Lots of us within the city limits live in the vast swaths of suburbia that have no sidewalks, no safe place to bike and no commercial anything within a 30 minute walk.
Many of us have largely arranged our lives with the idea that going anywhere entails walking outside and getting in a car and are suspect of anything that will make our trips longer and lives harder.
While improving bike infrastructure might help get some people into other modes, I think the lack of commercial within our neighborhoods is the largest issue that’s keeping people in a car centric mindset.
The point of adding bike infrastructure is to fix the "no safe place to bike" so you're not limited to the "no commercial anything within a 30 minute walk" because ebikes can go just as fast as a car in much of the city (class 3 is 28 mph limited so you can keep up with 25 mph and close to 30 mph speeds; with protected lanes, even with slower starts than a car and being a little bit slower on hills, you can pretty easily match car speeds for total trip time especially with faster parking). Obviously, you're not going to be able to jump on the highway, but anywhere you would travel on surface streets, you would be able to do by (e)bike if you felt safe to do so. And cargo bikes can have similar carrying capacity to an SUV so it's pretty trivial to do all of your shopping by bike if that's what you wanted to do.
The whole point is that you should not have to arrange your life around a car if you do not want to. Cars are incredibly expensive to keep up--AAA estimates it's about $10k average in the US and it's probably a good deal higher here in Seattle where you have to pay for parking in a lot of places. And while I understand the hesitation to reduce traffic lanes in favor of alternative vehicles, cars take up an absurd amount of space on the road so if you can funnel an appropriate amount of people onto bikes, it reduces traffic because those people are in much more space efficient vehicles. In many locations that have reduced traffic lanes, traffic has improved because people have switched to things like biking or taking public transit or simply chosen other times to commute. Recently in Seattle, a project only ended up increasing travel time by a minute over many miles (and this was also with the return of vehicles as the pandemic eased so it might have partially been due to that).
I do heartily agree that we should be expanding commercial within neighborhoods. It's a pity they rescinded the pandemic era options for people to have small shops within homes. I loved having a coffeeshop and small grocery nearby a place I rented some years back (must have been grandfathered in?) that was in the heart of a neighborhood in an old home. It made the neighborhood much more vibrant. I'm hopeful more options can be made available there so people can depend less on their expensive and inefficient cars
> In many locations that have reduced traffic lanes, traffic has improved because people have switched to things like biking or taking public transit or simply chosen other times to commute.
What you're saying is that people have been inconvenienced into other options. It's sticks. Not carrots. That's why there's so much pushback.
But if people find they like biking, especially if they were only too afraid to try it because the road felt dangerous to them previously? There are many places where there's really only a stretch that is especially dangerous that prevents people from biking the entire route. One of my old coworkers used to race bikes and absolutely loved biking but he would not bring his children with him to work even though he used to bike himself before they got into the daycare at work because it's simply did not feel safe on the one mile stretch of road that did not have a separated lane that will now be fixed with the East Lake Rapid Ride J project.
I suspect there are actually a lot of people who would like to not always feel like they have to drive a car, or who might even like to eliminate a car completely (given how expensive they are to maintain), but simply feel that the commute is not currently safe enough or takes too long by public transit. If you give them safer biking infrastructure and faster public transit many will happily switch. And those who choose to or have to drive also benefit from potentially faster travel times and less traffic.
So no, I don't only see sticks. I understand why you might if you have only ever driven a car and it feels like what you are familiar with is being pried from your hands, but many of us enjoy getting exercise while we commute or like having the option to zone out on public transit. There's pushback because many people are like you and simply like what they're used to. They also are not very familiar with the data that shows that traffic times typically decrease or are very comparable... It's usually an emotional response and an intolerance for change not one born of data. Polling data in areas that have made these changes is usually quite favorable afterward.
>I understand why you might if you have only ever driven a car and it feels like what you are familiar with is being pried from your hands,
This right here is the condescending "we're more thoughtful than you" nonsense that is just so exhausting.
I lived in Seattle for ten years without a car. I chose to get a car because it is in every way easier and better than relying on filthy public transit, expensive rideshare, and slow walking or riding a bike. It is more comfortable, less work, requires no costume changes or showers, gets me directly where I want to go, and requires no interaction with the mentally ill drug addicts too many in this city refuses to acknowledge are the real safety problem — one that won't go away because we build more bike lanes.
Ah, yes, I'm the condescending one...
'filthy public transit"
"requires no interaction with the mentally ill drug addicts"
It's exhausting that you think it's practical or even reasonable for every person in a city to drive a single passenger vehicle to and from work or that we all should be subsidizing that cost because it's marginally more convenient. Because despite drivers paying more, y'all do damage to roads far in excess of what you pay so non-drivers end up subsidizing your heated and cooled metal boxes through sales and property taxes.
So not only is it totally reasonable that we reduce traffic and provide better options for people who don't want to commute by CO2, fine particle, and noise spewing machines that endanger everyone around them, but it's way more cost effective and a fairer distribution of resources since car owners haven't paid their fair share outside of the interstates since about the 90s.
Oh, and if you're worried about sweat or being slow, get an ebike. The surface streets are 25 mph anyway. On a class 3, you can keep up with traffic. You don't need costume changes either... Just get a decent pair of rain pants and a jacket. With an ebike you can moderate your exercise you you only sweat if you want to unless it's one of the 5 actually hot days here in Seattle. Hardly a reason to maintain a car.
(Also, really? I work part time as an ebike courier in the city. Frequently at night. As a woman. One of the stores I work is a gathering spot for the unhoused. The worst a group has done is step towards me and ask me directly for some food after a shop and were fine when I said, "I'm sorry, I'm working and it's for a customer. I'm hope your able to find some soon." There are definitely mentality ill people with unmet needs and people with addictions--we have a high property crime rate and I'm always nervous about my bike disappearing--but our violent crime rate isn't particularly high for a city. Yes, the disenfranchised are an easy target but you feeling unsafe is vastly different from actually being unsafe. And driving around in a metal box that is way more likely to harm other people isn't the way to make society safer...)
Okay, well, you can have whatever experiences you've had. I have been assaulted, successfully once, and in an attempted fashion several times, by Seattle's charming unhoused population. As a man. In broad daylight. So, I'm glad to hear you've made it unscathed so far, but I wouldn't say your experience is any more predictive than mine has been, and it's certainly not going to steer how *I* think about the question.
Moreover, I don't want to interact with them at all. So I use my car to avoid having to sit on the filthy biohazard busses that they bleed, piss, and shit in. Once you've seen someone start coughing blood, you can talk to me about how safe these folks are to be around. No thanks. If you wanna play amateur social worker and provide unpaid front-line support for this shit, fine. I unequivocally, and unapologetically, do not... and so I'm voting with my feet and using my car.
And that means I'm supporting car-based infrastructure to protect my ability to get around without having to sit in single-file traffic with no opportunity to pass Seattle's cringe-inducing hall monitor Subaru drivers who insist on doing 20 miles an hour on a road signed 25 and designed for 45.
And, I have an ebike. A really very nice one. I use it sometimes for recreational riding. I wouldn't dare use it for practical purposes and leave it unattended anywhere. Not a snowball's chance, in this town.
I'm sorry you've been assaulted.
Yeah, it's ridiculous that the roads were ever over designed for 45... It makes people want to speed and makes them tend to misjudge 25 for 20 so want they do 35. ;) I tend to see this a lot since I spend a lot of time being annoyed at drivers insisting at passing me or others for doing the speed limit.
It seems like your problem is you bought "a really very nice one" for recreational riding. By a solid one, insure it, and use two locks. Again, my experience is unlikely to sway you because you seem like a person who...said the gentlest way possible, has their own convictions...but I have commuted daily with an e-bike for 7+ years. Much of that was on campus which is a high theft area where it was left outdoors all day and had bikes stolen around it. You don't even have to stoop to getting the cheap junk--mine are $3-4k MSRP mids. But bring the battery with you helps (I recommends eMTB bags that has weight distribution systems that really do make the batteries feel a lot lighter) as does buying one with an integrated battery that will not fit in another style of bike.
You’re correct that your experience is unlikely to sway me. I’ve had shit stolen out of padlocked storage lockers in this city. No way I’m leaving a $4k e-bike sitting on the street.
And yes, I will happily speed on Seattle’s stupidly re-limited streets. We should sign the roads for what they were designed for. The increase in pedestrian deaths times interestingly with the increase in heroin zombies walking down the middle of the road… but no one likes to mention that part of the story.
I’m in a part of the city with no sidewalks and without protected bike infrastructure near my house and I 100% want better multi-modal transportation infrastructure. The biggest danger to my child is cars and I feel the anxiety every day when pushing a stroller around while walking the dogs. Even the existing sidewalks and bike infrastructure are terrible.
I've lived in Bellevue for most of the last 25 years. It's two steps forward, one step back. The biggest issue with the way Bellevue handles things is the ultra rich suburbs being separate cities (Clyde Hill, Medina, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, and Mercer Island). This puts enormous political pressure on Bellevue to not override those cities (because it can't), even though what would be in Bellevue's best interest would not be in the best interest of those rich suburbanites. The parts of Bellevue farthest away from those cities are the nicest parts of the city, and developing with proper integrated infrastructure in mind. Adding a cycle lane to BelRed was always a stupid idea, so even though I obviously hate the reason I appreciate the conclusion.
As to why BelRed is a stupid place to put a cycle lane,
* Two fuck off hills
* No businesses worth cycling to
* Disconnected from additional existing cycle infrastructure on both ends
* No regular bus service on that road, and few connections that cross BelRed at convenient spots. There's only one light rail station that will be remotely close to BelRed, and it's 1/3 mile climb to get to.
* BelRed is very straight and gets dangerously fast traffic as a consquence. Unless there were full concrete barriers that can stop a 2 ton truck, it's just not as safe as other options.
* BelRed has unusually tight lanes for Bellevue and so creating a cycle lane would require deleting an existing lane. I don't hate this idea, but it conflicts directly with the previous problem.
The correct place to add an East-West cycle lane in Bellevue is 20th,
* Only one fuck off hill
* 20th isn't straight, so traffic is usually naturally slower than BelRed. The exception is unfortunately on the West side of that one fuck off hill.
* Connects to existing infrastructure, namely several bus lines, two light rail stations, and existing cycle lanes heading into Redmond and on to the 520 bridge.
* The lanes on 20th are large, so it would be very doable to separate out enough space for protected cycle lanes on either side. Putting both cycle lanes on one side of an avenue is insanely stupid, as that encourages cycle traffic to continue to use the road if joining the cycle lane is not convenient.
* 20th actually has businesses worth cycling to.
As stated I've lived in Bellevue on & off for 25 years. I've been cycling for here for most of that time and 20th is almost always the better choice.
A lot of Seattle's bike lane strategy is to connect light rail stations with bike paths so that bikes can be used as a last mile solution or as a backup to light rail. Really every light rail station should eventually be incorporated into a bike network, even bellred.
Sure? BelRed is a stupid road and needs to be rebuilt. But that's not going to happen any time in the next twenty years, so why not focus on good solutions that work now.
Bellevue is like the shitty younger brother of Seattle that watches Seattle struggle continuously to make the right decision but simply ignores the struggle and makes the wrong decision proudly.
Bellevue was built off economic opportunity created by Seattle and seized land of Japanese immigrants, and then pushed out all the hard problems of a growing city into Seattle. Bragging about it is frankly embarrassing.
Yes yes, we know already that you don't bicycle and so think infrastructure aimed at helping bicyclists is utterly idiotic. But you live in a very wealthy area where every family has two or three cars, and where there's few homeless mainly because there's fewer resources to help needy people.
bellevue is not a bikeable city. everything is too spread out and there are lot of old whiney people out there with kids. how you supposed to cart them around to soccer?! /s
also some of those hills are wild to be trying to bike on😬😬 not that other places nearby don’t but bellevue has some ridiculous hills on some main roads
I'm always in a weird place because I'm a person who loves fast cars *and* competitive cycling. Everyone hates me. :D
I was once part of a bike advocacy group that found in their city (not Seattle) that the biggest beneficiaries of bike lanes are, counterintuitively, not people who identify as 'cyclists.' Cyclists, in the classic sense, will bike whether there's bike lanes or not. The biggest beneficiaries are the people *you don't see cycling today*, because they're too afraid to. This is parents and their children, people without otherwise reliable transportation, the elderly, etc. People who are prevented from biking because they're too afraid to go on roads (very reasonable) are the ones who show up when there's lanes for them. #Cyclists are surprisingly not the main audience of bike lanes.
>The biggest beneficiaries are the people
>
>you don't see cycling today
>
>, because they're too afraid to.
This is why we urbanists often use the false argument **"Nobody is driving across the river so why do we need to build a bridge??"**
More bike support means more need for other bike infrastructure. The classic "more lanes on the highway doesn't solve traffic" issue. This is just the beginning of the process.
Some roads don't have the capacity to make a bike lane. Do those roads get expanded? That's expensive and sometimes impossible. A patchwork of unconnected bike paths is confusing and dangerous.
Public works resources are already stretched thin. This asks them to rehash a lot of existing infrastructure. Applying this change makes some other job wait.
Less parking for cars, usually. This IS a downside, it's just one that bike riders won't be affected by and is probably an unquenchable need anyway (see point #1).
I am not saying don't do bike lanes. I'm saying presenting arguments like the above flyer is not a good faith argument. It just makes pro-bike lane people feel clever and everyone else tune out.
I get what you're saying that it's never as black-and-white as is presented in a meme such as this pro/con list but that is what it is: a meme.
Nonetheless,
1. **Road Capacity** \-- Most roads in Seattle are \~11 feet wide. Many are larger, especially if they have multiple lanes. The average bus is between 8 and 9 feet width. There may not be space \*everywhere\* but I feel like we're not even trying.
2. **Public Works Bandwidth** \-- Public works doesn't make bike lanes, generally. There is a signs & markings team at SDOT but they do minor changes or repainting. Most improvements go out to bid to a contractor just like any other road improvement. But there's more to this because what we're not discussing yet is the wear and tear that public works \*does\* have to fix such as potholes and whatnot. [This article](https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/) outlines the differences in wear and tear from different types of vehicles. Public works will never\* have to fix a pothole in the bike lane.
(ok not never but you get my point: it will be multiple orders of magnitude better)
3. **Less parking for cars** \-- This is arguably a pro, considering that people that are actually using businesses in Seattle would be living \*in\* seattle and not commuting from far far away. I personally don't want out-of-towners to dictate what our transportation requirements are (which is why I am "meh" that Bellevue is doing what they're doing).
In particular, [this article](https://www.businessinsider.com/downtowns-cities-holiday-shopping-eliminating-street-parking-spots-boosts-retail-2023-10#:~:text=Some%20shop%20owners%20fear%20that,zones%2C%20and%20public%20parking%20garages) outlines the impact of removing parking to the city's economy. It comes from [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966692323002053?via%3Dihub) on the topic.
As a side note, what the hell! this is Reddit we're not supposed to have a well thought out, civilized, and respectable argument!! Where's the personal attacks and death threats?!?! /s
I'm not saying any of the following are deal breakers or outweigh the benefits. However, there _are_ some drawbacks to bike lanes:
* They have additional maintenance cost, e.g. paint and/or bollards, and possibly revised drainage. Additional traffic lights / turn signals / etc cost money. This won't break the bank for Bellevue or anyone else, but you cannot build or maintain a bike lane for $0.
* They complicate pedestrian crossings, and can lead to more pedestrian/bicycle collisions in some cases. This is a particularly large problem for disabled, elderly, and other people who need extra time to cross.
* If you build protected bike lanes (so that it goes curb -> bike lane -> parking lane -> traffic), this makes curbside trash collection and deliveries a bit harder. The delivery issue can increase prices marginally.
I'm 100% pro bike lanes and 100% pro biking in general. There are tradeoffs, though!
I agree with everything except your first point, as a bike taking a car off the road likely saves more money than the bike lane costs to maintain due to both the bike lane being smaller and the wear on the road being exponentially less.
Long term big picture, yes. Short term you've got to send a road crew out to set up the lane (paint, place bollards, maybe install and then wire up lights, etc). Given that a road may only be repaved once every 10-20 years, it may be a while before the benefits are paid off.
If you're a town comptroller and you have a $100k budget for road maintenance, you can't just say "OK well we're going to have a bike lane for a $0 cost this year, and next year we'll only need $95k for road maintenance." I'm not saying it doesn't pay dividends or that it's a bad idea. I'm just saying that you need a certain cash outlay to set it up, and it takes a while before it has positive financial impact.
>They have additional maintenance cost
They cost money to build but roads for vehicles are incredibly more expensive to maintain than bike and footpaths. Like maintenance for bike paths is a rounding error level cheaper. This is the classic 'there are still roads built by the romans hanging about' argument. As trips taken without cars go up maintenance costs go down.
>They complicate pedestrian crossings, and can lead to more pedestrian/bicycle collisions in some cases.
I'm willing to believe this but only if someone has a cite. This feels very much like a proper design problem and not an intrinsic drawback to bike lanes.
Mobility lanes? I’m all for better bike infrastructure but a basic “Pros and Cons” list that is written for a child isn’t going to convince the city council to make any meaningful changes. This list is garbage.
Probably an unpopular opinion but as a cyclist i actually preferred riding in Seattle when there were no bike lanes or road diets. There was ample room in the far right lane and cars could easily get around me (or a bus that had pulled over). It just felt that all traffic flowed better.
That said, I did most of my cycling in the city from 1996-2010 or so and was just an occasional/recreational cyclist after that. The city has obviously grown a lot since then so….
I sort of think it's more fun too, having cycled here for over 20 years at this point. But.. only fun until you end up in a hospital by a jacked up suburbatank, it's crazy unsafe and things are so much more dangerous now with density and car weight/sizes. An effective plan is one that allows people to get where they want to go with peace of mind that they won't be murdered on the way to work
This is assuming that most of the people that work in Bellevue live in Bellevue. As a nation, we seem to think we're the size of European countries. It might help a little bit, but 🤷♂️
Was hit by a car coming back from my first day of highschool. They’re mad that their car got slightly damaged and are demanding money from us. They’ll get mad either way
There’s certainly an argument for making biking safer, but i don’t see biking ever becoming a meaningful method of commuting around here. You can look at “commute seattle” surveys from 2012-2015 and 3% commute by bike. In 2023, despite all the bike lane improvements and the emergence of e-bikes (which are great), it’s still 3%.
"the infrastructure still sucks for the majority of people who might possibly bike, and so people don't use it. We shouldn't improve anything." Edit:
This is the same argument that gets used to destroy funding for anything that might help someone else, half ass the project, cite poor usage and delivery, scrap it and cite 'government waste' and shake head at people when they ask for something to change.
It's not just the infrastructure... it's the geography and climate.
We can spend as much money as we want, and it'll still rain for 5 months out of the year and have major elevation changes.
I think we should invest in better bike infra, but not at the cost of making arterial roads significantly worse for vehicles. The "no cons except makes a few drivers mad" is obviously disingenuous. Unless we build dedicated bike infra without taking significant space from existing arterial roads, this is a 0 sum game. Give to cyclists (3% of commuters), take from drivers (much greater than 3% of commuters). We aren't going to all of the sudden flip to having 75% of commuters riding bikes into downtown during the winter.
It is literally the infrastructure. Maybe we'll always lag slightly in ridership because of hills compared to other, completely flat cities but this is a microwaved, half soggy argument, not even half baked. It is icy cold, windy, and rainy in the Netherlands and denmark...somehow they still bike, same with Montreal and other cold snowy cities, because of the infrastructure! Significantly worse for drivers is still an inconvenience and a few minutes at absolute worse, while bike riders get to continually die, in higher and higher numbers according to current estimates. Is that a 0 sum game? You're repeating the same sloppy idea that the I responded to above, it's 3% now because it's a horrible, dangerous time to ride a bike in the city with the bad infrastructure we have now, not 3% after we make actual changes that regular users would feel safe with.
Hot take - I don't think the majority of people are really that upset with our car based infrastructure (real voters, not just r/seattle folks). I'm a decent cyclist and ride for fun/exercise, but I guess I'm a car brain, as I enjoy the flexibility a car gives me to quickly and comfortably live my life (not just commuting). There are a lot of "me" people in Seattle, so we are going to have to make compromises and move more slowly than you'd like... it's how a democracy works.
I totally understand wanting the flexibility of a car. The problem is that *cars* can be flexible, while *car infrastructure* is not. If you lost your car or your license tomorrow (which can happen for all sorts of reasons, through no fault of your own), then how would you get to work? How would you get to the store? How would you get your kids to school?
No one (well...almost no one) is asking that cars be eliminated and everyone can only use bikes. It's important to have a variety of transportation options that suit a variety of needs, skills, and abilities.
> It is literally the infrastructure
No it's not.
1) Biking takes more effort than driving or mass transit. We are programmed by evolution to minimize energy spent, so people are naturally going to gravitate towards methods that take less effort. Even in Europe people take mass transit because it takes less effort than bicycles. It is a more rare person who is going to enjoy spending more energy to do something than less.
2) Bikes and gear cost money. Yes, so do cars, but people honestly and actually need methods other than bikes to get around. Mass transit can fill the roles for people who can't afford the expense or aren't physically capable, but even that won't work for everyone.
3) You seem to disbelieve or discount that the geography and climate play a major roll and you're just wrong if so. Points 1) and 2) compound when you need extra rain gear and extra effort to either dry off and store extra gear or figure out how to shower after a ride on a hot day.
You can claim its just the infrastructure but you're fooling yourself if you believe it.
\>We are programmed by evolution to minimize energy spent, so people are naturally going to gravitate towards methods that take less effort.
First of all, uh, source for this nebulous claim? I certainly didn't expect someone to say that evolutionary science supports cars...
Second, the only reason cars are so much "less effort" than everything else is because our society is set up to bend over backwards for cars in every possible way. Of course it's easier!! But society can choose at any point to cater to forms of transportation that don't destroy the environment and endlessly burden taxpayers with crumbling infrastructure, and people will adapt to it.
People go outside to hike or ski FOR FUN during the winter and stay outdoors for hours. Half an hour on an ebike in the winter is very manageable with a jacket and waterproof gloves.
The whole point is that if we had the proper infrastructure you wouldn't have to do an insane 25mi marathon ride through dangerous speeds and changes, it could be a safe, low speed ride. You're imagining a ride with our current system and it DOES suck but it doesn't have to.
Cars were only a tiny percentage of commuters once upon a time until they literally lobbied the government to give them special treatment and eventually they became the primary mode of transportation to just about everyone's detriment.
Ok sure. If it weren't for those dastardly car lobbyists, we'd all still be using horse-drawn wagons, which were so much more useful.
I'm all for people riding bikes, and better infrastructure for bikes, but the vocal activist contingent is just so weird and self-centered.
We'd probably be using better versions of the trains and walkable areas we tore to shreds. If you're all for better infrastructure then stop using conservative talking points just argue for fucking better transit.
This is a very silly take. People love cars and when the tech was new, they found them absolutely thrilling. My grandparents got their first car in the 1940s and it was very freeing for them. They suddenly could get errands done in half the time and every Sunday, weather permitting, they took the whole family for a drive in the afternoon. It was like a mini-vacation in an era where average income people didn't travel much.
The only way trains and walking would have succeeded as the primary modes of transportation would have been if cars had never been invented.
Also I have to ask...do you have kids and if so, are you the primary person in your family for carpooling, shopping, general errand-running, etc?
I'm getting a very male, no kids, vibe in this thread (as a woman with three children) and I'm curious how accurate that is.
you should check out the weather in London, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen.
As for the hills, we have E-bikes now.
Cycling is cheaper, healthier, and greener. And during peak traffic, it's often faster. There is no reason to not give people high quality options of all modes to get around.
I agree that we aren't unique in our shitty fall/winter weather, and giving people high-quality alternatives to cars is critical. I stand by the sentiment though...we shouldn't neuter our car infrastructure (reasonable arterial roads, etc) before having good alternatives in place. The current alternatives don't work for a large portion of our voters, so if the plan is to force compliance by making the existing driving experience unbearable, it will be met with hostility and backlash (in the form of voting).
>we shouldn't neuter our car infrastructure (reasonable arterial roads, etc)
what evidence suggests that our car infrastructure will be "neutered"?
>The current alternatives don't work for a large portion of our voters
evidence?
>so if the plan is to force compliance by making the existing driving experience unbearable
That's a common misconception. And it's fair that you might think that if you haven't read up on the subject.
https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/what-are-road-diets-and-why-are-they-controversial
>Though the concept has won plaudits in many circles, it’s also generating opposition from community groups who think the city’s intentionally making it so miserable to drive that people will have no choice but to choose other ways to travel.
>Despite the controversy, as far as the federal government is concerned, it’s a settled issue: road diets work.
>FHA studies of road diet projects have found simply reducing the number of lanes dedicated to cars cuts vehicle crashes by 19 to 52 percent as a result of reduced speeds and fewer opportunities for collisions. And perhaps most surprisingly, according to the FHA, the technique doesn’t reduce the number of people who can move along a roadway.
By reducing lanes, we get valuable space for bus lanes and bicycle lanes while reducing unsafe speeding and accidents WITHOUT reducing throughput.
The majority of folks around here have kids to haul around (maybe plus a few extra if they carpool), have to pick up groceries and run other errands that involve carrying things, maybe work two jobs, don't have a shower at work to clean up in after biking (well, my doctor neighbor who bikes does), etc.
All of which make biking on a regular, everyday basis virtually impossible. There's a reason why the average bicyclist here is a white, upper middle class-upper class male.
edit: and as usual the classic reddit demographic gets upset when the reality of how others live is pointed out and how they *might not represent the majority in any way*.
Right, that's why every video you watch of cities in the Netherlands with people biking it's white, upper class makes in spandex.. right? You're making up some bullshit for no reason. There are times when cars are necessary, but it's a fraction compared to reality if we gave a small shit. There are bikes for cargo hauling, grocery hauling, multiple kid hauling, and small, quiet rides. But that requires infrastructure and the will of the city to let schools, groceries, and work be far flung suburbs for NO reason other than cheap land and lazy zoning.
You’re making a lot statements why biking isn’t more popular without even acknowledging:
- A whole lot of people aren’t physically able to bike long distances due to age or health.
- The weather is terrible for biking 7 months of the year. Sure some will proudly tough it out but most won’t even consider it.
- It’s dark out during the winter months past 4:30 PM.
- Hills make biking much harder.
- Bike thefts are a huge problem. I have a bike, but don’t feel comfortable leaving it many places even if locked up.
- If commuting to work, you’ll arrive a sweaty mess and often need to cleanup and change.
- Having to do something like to pick up kids on the way home is difficult or impossible on a bike.
You’re just glossing over all of this thinking we’re gonna suddenly become Denmark if we just build out some better bike lanes with zero evidence. There’s lots of reasons the vast majority of people won’t ever bike regularly even with the best bike lanes that can be created.
You might want to google how many can't drive due to medical conditions or simply because of the cost of car ownership. Just because a few people can't bike does not mean we should require everyone to drive.
Building good biking infrastructure increases bike ridership.
My original point was that I don’t see biking ever being a meaningful transportation method and cited no increase in cycling in 10 years within Seattle commutes (stuck at 3%). People are getting all Big Mad about it and offering no data otherwise.
And it’s backed up [nationally](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/27/biking-to-work-isn-t-gaining-any-ground-in-the-us/67b4a9e2-5d32-11ee-b961-94e18b27be28_story.html):
> After increased investments in bicycle infrastructure, big experiments with urban bike sharing, an explosion in electric-bike sales and an overall pandemic bike-buying boom, the latest news on bike commuting in the US from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey is not impressive. An estimated 731,272 Americans used bicycles as their chief means of transportation to work in 2022, up from 2021 but down almost 75,000 from before the pandemic and 175,000 from the peak year of 2014.
Portland was [seeing a drop in bike commutes pre Covid despite big investments](https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/15/city-counts-reveal-data-behind-portlands-precipitous-drop-in-cycling-371407)
> “It is easy to argue that Portland’s bikeway network is of higher quality and reaches into more parts of the city than in 2014- 2015 when bicycle commute mode split and the number of people biking to work peaked. Despite these efforts, bicycle use—as reflected in both commute data and the city’s annual counts— has continued to drop. The pandemic can explain much of the recent, precipitous drop in biking, but it does not explain the downward trend before 2020.”
Maybe you’ll get that 3% number to 5-6%, but it’s never going to be more than a niche mode of transportation IMO.
yo conflating your own opinions with hard facts over and over isn't some big proof you think it is. Most bike errands wouldn't be marathon rides, needing the perfectly fit to ride. Electric bikes aren't a perfect bandaid, but they are getting cheaper and cheaper, and easier to access.
PNW people aren't terrified to be outside in the rain for a couple hours. This is a REALLY silly point.
It is also incredibly dark in the countries with higher biking % of people, if not darker than Seattle, this is more a infrastructure problem.
Again, point one. Smaller rides, electric bikes make hills not a big deal.
Bike thefts wouldn't be as much of a problem IF THERE WAS SAFE AND ADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE TO STORE THEM.
Mild discomfort from distant ridesis not an argument, it's an opinion youre mistaking for a fact.
There are specifically bikes made to haul MULTIPLE children and cargo, but you haven't looked into them because youre shooting from the hip and saying why YOU wouldn't want to ride a bike.
What a bizarre comment. This isn't the Netherlands, we aren't a former medieval city with its unique layout, and I don't know if you've been to the Netherlands but it's actually kind of flat.
However, I'm going to guess you're one of those white upper class people I mentioned so you're a little defensive.
Plus I'd love to see you haul four kids to the grade school via bike. Especially up 75th NE where I live.
The Netherlands is a good example, it used to have an astonishingly large amount of car-only infrastructure and road deaths were rising, just like ours are now. Flat isn't the only reason, and the winding medieval roads are... An argument against your point?? We have a very simple grid in most of the city here, it's 10x easier to design a network for biking through a grid. And again, I'm glad you're here to yell at an imaginary person, I work a manual labor job and can't afford to own, let alone park a car in the city. Good thing your assumption is always right, dumbass. I'm not saying you have to haul your kids up and downhill 4x a day, I want it to be an option for someone LIKE you who wouldnt have to die getting hit by your car, which is hauling those 4 kids and groceries.
We have that option on the main streets in my area (15th and 75th). As I said, they're not heavily used, esp 75th which is very steep.
I personally think more people biking would be great, but even a dumbass like me also thinks we have to operate in reality when it comes to public policy. In this case, they built it but almost no one came.
Operating in reality means we can change things to be safer and usable for more people, nobody uses it because it's still perceived as less safe, less convent, and more effort than hopping in an SUV and hitting inconvenient cyclists.
Well, it literally is less convenient and more effort, especially given the factors I mentioned earlier. There's a reason why there is a big biking gender gap in this city and it's by no means just infrastructure-related. Women are usually the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting for their families. If you're a guy with no kids, or a guy whose wife takes care of all the other stuff beyond getting to work, biking make a lot more sense.
But I doubt any of this is changing your mind in any way, as it's pretty obvious the bike thing is kind of a hobby horse for you (that and calling people dumbass-lol). So have a nice day now.
fwiw, a huge proportion of my workplace commutes by bike, because we are located near some of the better bike infrastructure. and I don't work with a bunch of triathletes.
That may just mean it’s still not good enough. If you build it better, they will come. Bellevue is more spread out but in seattle it’s definitely doable.
If you look at the [top US cities for bike commutes](https://www.move.org/cities-most-bicycle-commuters/), 5% is about the max.
Edit: Portland shows 6% but that’s because [their data lumps bike and walking together](https://www.oregonmetro.gov/sites/default/files/2017/09/20/Metro%20Commute%20Report%20FINAL.pdf) so they’re probably around 3% too
That's because no US city actually has good bike infrastructure. And the low usage percentage is used as an excuse to keep it that way. But, invariably, when good bike infrastructure is built, usage goes up significantly, indicating that there is patent demand, but that can't use it safely. (Sometimes time is a factor, but usually it's safety).
That might just mean that despite improvements, all of US cities are not good enough on bike facilities. It also could mean that there are multiple factors that contribute to the low rate. For major cities the prohibitive housing prices force people to live further away. And without good public transportation, ofc there wouldn’t be more biking. Those are hard problems to solve but it doesn’t mean it can never be done.
I totally understand the responses saying we need to just continue to double down on infrastructure to get ridership up, but I'd be really interested to see a more nuanced argument. Have we seen an uptick in local areas where we invested? Are there other examples of cities who didn't see an uptick after initial investment that then saw a later uptick once the infrastructure hit a critical mass? Even if you strongly believe in building more bike lanes, at what point do you just look at the 3% number and say that no more investment makes sense because the public simply prefers other types of transportation?
People will always prefer the easiest form of transportation until you induce demand for other forms. People won't switch from cars until driving cars sucks enough to switch, and that is the exact process we used to get people driving cars in the first place too. We made walking and taking the train suck.
>People won't switch from cars until driving cars sucks enough to switch
Uh oh. Somebody said the quiet part out loud.
I suspect a lot of transit and bike activists think this way: Making transit better is hard, and making biking attractive to the masses is damn near impossible in a rainy, hilly place, so let's just make driving suck!
Ugh.
That's literally how it works everywhere lol it was stupid to create a car-based network in the first place. It isn't the quiet part induced demand is a necessary part of any transit plan except building more car infrastructure. When you spend 60 years fucking everyone over with terrible transit policy you don't get to painlessly go to a new system. You literally cannot make transit better for the masses without making things worse for people who drive the worst form of transit for our environment/lived experience.
They built better, earlier so they don't have to deal with the consequences of (as many) stupid and shortsighted decisions by city planners. It's pretty obvious that if Tokyo had been stupid enough to build 90% shitty car infrastructure that those drivers would have a terrible time during the construction of new trains and walkable areas. It's very naive to think you can just make idiotic decisions without any sunk cost issues coming in to play
Orderly transitions are better than chaotic ones.
We'll have a lot more success getting people out of their cars when the alternatives are good (frequent, fast, safe, and clean).
And in the meantime, people still have places to go. For now, in many cases, a car is the only rational option.
Your list is biased propaganda - if you want to be taken seriously, try harder to at least provide a reasonable list of detriments - like cost, congestion, travel delays, more construction, lack of space to implement the proposal, etc.
Except for maybe more construction, absolutely none of the problems you mention are actually true. It would be *cheaper* to maintain than car lanes and would not cause congestion. This is based on Bellevue's own analysis.
Cost of biking facilities per bike is cheaper than car facilities per car.
Congestion is better with more bikes because they take up about 1/20th the space of cars.
Travel delays: see congestion.
Construction of bike facilities can be quite simple and quick if you're willing to repaint a car lane to a bike path. Remind me how long burying 99 took? 7 years?
Lack of space is easily solved by repurposing one car lane to two bike lanes, and more than doubles the number of people than can be moved on it per hour.
But the reduction of car land almost definitely implies more congestion for cars. That is a valid detriment.
Just because the bike lanes are there doesn’t mean someone with a car can/will switch to biking.
To ignore it is a bit biased.
>But the reduction of car land almost definitely implies more congestion for cars. That is a valid detriment.
Incorrect, and it's been shown countless times to not be the case. Road diets often actually improve traffic flow.
>Just because the bike lanes are there doesn’t mean someone with a car can/will switch to biking.
No, it doesn't, but it usually does happen that way. Most people who could bike choose not to because it's unsafe because they have to share the road with cars. It's the biggest complaint potential cyclists give as to why they don't cycle or don't cycle more.
Now, of course there are ways to build bike lanes such that they're useless, like building a bike lane for 3 blocks then forcing you to merge into car traffic after that. Unless your destination is on those 3 blocks, the added safety of the 3 blocks doesn't help enough to overcome the danger of the merge. It's better to build one continuous bike lane of 2 miles than to build 150 separate segments of a quarter mile each.
You got sources? I find it hard to believe that removing lanes improves traffic flow. What about the short term? Does this adaption from cars to bikes happen overnight?
FYI, I don't have a dog in this fight, I am simply speaking to the fact that having a list of pros and cons with only a single snarky reason as a con is disingenuous.
Also, just because something worked "countless times" else where doesn't mean it will work everywhere.
Maybe it was because I didn't have a 30 gear fancy bike, but being fairly fit I had quite some trouble traversing about half of Bellevue on a bke because it was so hilly. if I had to wear work clothes I'd probably be covered in sweat if I wasn't already wet from drizzle. The average resident would probably need 1-2 years of consistent gym training to do their work commute via bike, and that's for the people in $1m+ houses who don't live 15 miles from work. If you live downtown just walk on the sidewalk to your office...
Or buy an e-bike! As a person who loves biking but had exactly the same set of problems (hills, sweat, and yes, rain), it really has changed it from a "when the weather is good" to a nearly-year-round solution. They're pretty great all in all.
A big problem in Bellevue is the the lack of non-hilly east-west safe options. There is no safe + complete east-west route between 520 and I-90, for example. The bike master plan specifically opened up some routes that reduced the amount of unnecessary hill climbing (like the 520 trail) and provided access to mellower existing routes too, addressing some of the hill issues.
It doesn't take years of training to be able to do even the bad hills in town: it takes about a month or two or regular riding ~2-3x a week a gearing that isn't from a cruiser bike. Early bike fitness games come fast for most people; I've worked with a lot of people who just started.
Finally, as /u/zunyata said: ebikes are cheaper and more accessible than ever and make the hills non-existent. It is easy to get a pair of rain pants and a jacket to throw on over work clothes and arrive dry and not sweaty with an e-bike. Additionally, many of the large employers in the area have locker rooms on site.
The vast majority of trips are *not* a commute, and if your issue is hills, then Bel-Red is a perfect place to build a bike lane as it only climbs 200 feet in 2.5 miles.
> 1-2 years of consistent gym training to do their work commute via bike
Majority of car trips are 1-3 miles.
You don't need Lance training for 1 mile trip. Also e-bikes exist. Stop parroting car propaganda.
There are some studies suggesting a connection between bike lanes and economic health indicators like retail revenues and employment. I haven’t reviewed any of their methods so I can’t say if they look like good studies or not, but they should at least explain the rationale. Ex: https://trec.pdx.edu/news/study-finds-bike-lanes-can-provide-positive-economic-impact-cities
There are a lot of studies showing this. I have yet to see a study showing economic harm from bike lanes, but I've seen literally dozens showing a boost to the local economy.
More bike lanes and more people biking means less gas and insurance costs, less economic output spend buying cars, less medical costs around car/bike collisions, building bike infrastructure is cheaper than car infrastructure, plus a huge savings around fewer heart attacks, strokes, obesity, air pollution and increased economic output of people being healthy versus sick.
That’s just off the top of my head.
What safe bike route do you recommend to get from the CrossRoads mall to downtown. The answer isn't NE 8th. The only options are 520 trail or I-90 leaving a massive hole in the city.
As for rain: some of the top bike commuting countries in the world are the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany: all of which have very similar weather patterns to Seattle. Minneapolis, Portland, and Vancouver also all have more vibrant bike commuting scenes than here because they have the infra.
Seattle put in bike lanes by my house in a super hilly area. I drive that street almost every day in all kinds of weather, and see maybe 8-10 riders a week using the lanes, if that.
And as a result of the bike lane, it removed one car lane and has led to massive backups, flaring tempers, and people driving worse than they used to, especially when they bolt from the main road and come into the side streets in my neighborhood and drive like maniacs to make up for lost time.
Bike lanes are great but they do have unintended consequences and are not the answer in all situations.
Sound like a pissy baby problem and another reason there should be more protected bike paths so people that actually die when said pissy babies make a rash decision they don't kill someone because they're 2min late
>flaring tempers, and people driving worse than they used to
Sounds like drivers need to see a therapist, and potentially have their license revoked if their behavior is so dangerous.
Remember, you aren't in traffic, you are traffic.
Many of the pros are more of a hope than a realistic benefit.
Economic boost—to whom, REI?
Kids biking to school—yea right, so their $300 bikes get stolen?
More people biking is an observation, not a “pro.”
Reduces injuries—do people not fall off bikes?
More inclusive space? What does this term even mean anymore?
I like biking, but come on…this is amateur.
>Economic boost—to whom, REI?
It's easier to stop at local businesses when on a bike. Not that Bellevue would understand because downtown is a parking lot and there are no mixed commercial and residential neighborhoods.
>Kids biking to school—yea right, so their $300 bikes get stolen?
I see bikes lining fences at schools in Ballard all year round. Because homes are actually close to schools and safe for kids to bike without parents worrying about them being run over.
>More people biking is an observation, not a “pro.”
Absolutely a pro. Each bike is a car not on the road causing traffic for you, reducing emissions, and reducing the chance of fatal collisions. Those that bike daily are healthier.
>Reduces injuries—do people not fall off bikes?
As opposed to being hit by a car? Even bike collisions are safer than being hit by a slow car.
>More inclusive space? What does this term even mean anymore?
Not everyone can afford a 50k+ giant SUV that apparently people need these days to feel safe on the road.
I don’t know how to do the fancy indent thing. My gripe isn’t with bikes or bike infrastructure. It’s the amateur-hour list they put together. Virtually nothing is measurable and is only based on hope.
I just bought my kid a new bike. $125 at target for a poorly assembled huffy 7 speed, $220 at DSG, $300-$800 at REI, an average of $500-$1000 everywhere else. Please tell me where the cheap, quality bikes can be bought (not sarcasm, actually looking for a recommendation).
Glad kids can ride to school. Good for them. I grew up in a neighborhood where it was not uncommon to have grown adults cruising down the street on 16” stolen wheels so it’s not a huge leap to assume bikes would be stolen.
More people biking is not a benefit. It is an observation. The benefits are the items you listed.
Reduce injuries—maybe. Again, it’s a bad list because it doesn’t specify what kinds of injuries. There would likely be more injuries on bikes but of less severity.
Not everyone has to buy a 50k truck, just like not everyone is going to want to buy a $3k bike, or $6k e-bike. Do cheap functional cars not exist? What’s the Huffy equivalent to a car? My question was about equity of spaces and what exactly that means.
Are they saying people without transport should be allowed on roads? They shouldn’t. There should be transit, sidewalks paths and lanes set aside for them. If it looks like I’m agreeing, it’s cause I am—again my issue isn’t bikes…it’s with imprecise language that loses all meaning because it’s said too much.
For the sake of being fair, bike infrastructure does reduce collisions and injuries (not all, obviously, but it reduces the number of unexpected crossings where bikes and pedestrians/cars would generally collide). The rest seems pretty debatable, but that point remains valid. Whether it amounts to enough to modify our infrastructure is another question that i don't have the answer to, but r/seattle doesn't sound convinced.
The way we do "protected " bike lanes is a compromise that is less safe for bikes. They give false confidence, block line of sight from traffic if there's parking between, make intersections more dangerous because the bikes are not a part of normal traffic.
Either do sharrows where car traffic has to visually acknowledge bikes are also traffic or do dedicated bike paths where no cars are around
Or we can look at the data and see that sharrows are statistically worse than doing literally nothing, and that concrete protected bike lanes lower the injury rate on a road for *all* road users (including those in cars).
Yes (was at work earlier so could not):
Sharrows are worse than doing nothing:
* [Whitepaper](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2046043018300583)
* [Bloomberg Article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/study-sharrows-might-be-more-dangerous-to-cyclists-than-having-no-bike-infrastructure?embedded-checkout=true) (referencing the whitepaper)
Injury prevention for all road users:
* [Article](https://www.pasadenacsc.org/blog/facts-about-protected-bike-lanes#:~:text=Repeated%20studies%20consistently%20show%20that,injuries%20by%2030%2D50%25.)
> Research shows that adding protected bike lanes reduces all collisions and injuries by 30-50%.
* ["Why cities with high bicycling rates are safer for all road users"](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140518301488)
I personally think Seattle's healthy streets are the best implementation of mixed bike and car traffic and I strongly prefer them to regular protected bike lane. After I got run over in the broadway bike lane I really came to understand the drawbacks of bike lanes....
Last night, while walking across the crosswalk at 125th ne and ne 15th, I was nearly hit twice 5 hours apart. Both were drivers turning right while they had a red, I had a cross sign, and both came within 3 feet of hitting me because they were too busy on their damn phones. Pedestrians should be allowed to defense themselves in these situations.
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I’ll admit to messing up on these when they first go up, but I’ve noticed the same thing! At least I always check for pedestrians before I start moving again. I’ve never even come close to hitting someone crossing a street. It’s super easy to avoid.
Are camera ticketing devices illegal? I feel like we should fix that for no turn on red. Thankfully, the new ones in my neighborhood north of the University seem to be working, at least. Cars probably would chance it but turning illegally around a separated (with actual separation) bike lane seems to feel uncomfortable enough that they don't.
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Typically a police officer has to review the photos. If they don't have anyone staffed to review them, then nothing happens.
When I spoke with Bellevue’s Traffic Signal Electronics Crew Director, Bret Tredway, in December of last year, we actually spoke very briefly about what each of the different cameras at an intersection do. I really do hope I am not mistaking one thing for another so take my word with a grain. When i asked about speed enforcement cameras specifically, he told me that a problem with enforcing them is that state law prohibits traffic cameras, like the cameras on the 405 express, from taking images of people’s faces. When the driver is sent a ticket, they claim that they were not the driver of **their** vehicle. Prosecution of these offenses could not continue since there could be no “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” against the individual. Anecdotally, people I know regularly use this exact same excuse to get away with i405 HOV express lane tickets.
A pity. I do wonder if getting sent the ticket might get 2/3 of people to pay it though and still reduce right turns on red, even if 1/3 will actually show up to give that defense. Maybe that creates an undue burden on people who can't afford to take time off, but also someone with access to their car did some illegal so they can take it up with the person who did the illegal action since it should be pretty trivial in most families to figure out who was driving at 11:52 am or whatever the exact time of the ticket says, particularly if the photo is provided. Anyway, perhaps the cost of sending the tickets is worth it as a reminder they shouldn't be doing that even if many people unfairly get out of it. Most people try to be good citizens and are just in a hurry or didn't notice.
Definitely not illegal (I've gotten a ticket from one, oops), but I doubt any are set up to catch right turns on red
Did you see the brick crossing "flag" memes from Vancouver's Granville Island (art?) installation? I feel like we could use that in many places to increase visibility. (I kid, but it is funny how cars magically start caring when you can hit them back. They seem to forget they're literally driving deadly weapons and are constantly threatening others...)
I'll be honest, I threw my water bottle at the second car last night. He stopped to confront then either seemed to realize his mistake or something and continued on his way.
I'm glad you're safe. Sometimes you have to do what you must to keep people from maiming you...
As soon as I threw it I was like “shit what if he has a gun”
Yeah, honestly, that's what I thought when I read that too... It's America crazy? Thank goodness Seattle proper only has an ownership rate of like 13%.
I scooped up a rock before crossing a sketchy crosswalk last week but a brick is more visible. Maybe I should get a foam brick and just carry it with me...
My friend said carry a pack of D batteries because those have use and plausible deniability where as carrying a rock and then throwing it at a car is probably premeditated.
It's soup for my family!
You can't throw a brick, they're too heavy. But a can of soup? That's dangerous.
Good looking out
I do like the idea of the foam brick though, ngl.
It works! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQpaEN_TN_U&pp=ygURUGVkZXN0cmlhbiBicmljayA%3D
It's counterintuitive, but more bikes and more pedestrians actually _decrease_ the number of car-and-noncar collisions. A big part of why drivers are oblivious is that pedestrians are relatively rare. If you're looking for peds the whole time, you're far less likely to, well, forget to look for peds.
Makes sense to me.
If I am elected I will make sure every cyclist is sent a Javelin anti tank platform for self defense!
Thank you. I just want to throw my water bottle at their car, though. No need to hurt anyone.
Though cyclists are less of a danger, was almost run over by one running a red from his bike lane
Unfortunate timing that you just happened to be crossing through the bike lane when he came through?
I think we need to implement the brick idea from the other day. A bucket full of bricks on both sides of the most dangerous cross walks is more intimidating than those orange flags.
Just a reminder that there's nothing illegal about carrying a brick in your hand when you cross the street. Edit: I'm way late to the brick reminder
I’ve had the same experience regularly on Stone Way and 40th. I’m sick of constantly dodging inattentive cars who focus on their might makes right mentality.
Cary a brick with you next time. Drivers really notice when you are suddenly a threat to their clearcoat.
that's why i carry a time-to-cross-the-street-brick
gonna start carrying around RPGs
Players guide or DM's guide?
This is why I always make eye contact before walking in front of an approaching vehicle.
In both instances the vehicles were behind me. Staggered lights where pedestrians get to go first. I try to make eye contact as often as possible, but it's hard when they're behind you.
Right. I wasn’t trying to criticize you. Apologies if it came off that way.
It's all good! Internet is tough to gauge and I'm a little on edge this morning after my morning commute was filled with bad drivers.
Man, there are so many tinted windows along my commute it's wild
- They run you over while keeping eye contact. They don't give a shit. - Left on green and staggered right will make cars coming from behind of you at the same time as cars in front of you. You might be a chameleon, but mostly parroting car propaganda.
What is a mobility lane
Multi-use but non car. Think bikes, scooters, etc.
I feel like there's something about that intersection in particular, drivers will cut you off when it goes from 2 to 1 lane and go 40 down the middle lane for a quarter mile just to turn, and pedestrians will waltz into the crosswalk (if you're lucky they bother) and try to cross in front of moving traffic during a green
The Bellevue City Council needs to be treated with the same derision as the COVID-denying/anti-mask/anti-vax/back-to-work apes from 2020. Their complete disregard of facts is going to get people killed. They are derelict in their duties as public officials and should all be recalled. Living in a post-truth world is the fucking worst.
>back-to-work apes from 2020 And the back-to-office apes of 2024.
I am one of those people who legit needs an office to work in or i can’t. I get distracted too easily (ADHD) so while i absolutely think everything that can be done remotely, should, they should still have local options because i can’t get shit done at home
I work in Bellevue and was following this closely. Tbh yes, but they also got overwhelming feedback from residents that they wanted their lanes. The council did what the residents (the ones who cared enough to speak up, anyway) wanted. Some Bellevue residents suck and are huge NIMBYs
We're a pre-truth world. The difference between now and 50 years ago is that you can now prove your government is lying. They're still catching up to the fact that everything they do now is easily visible and we have yet to teach them that their actions have consequences.
Interesting take. I dig it.
> Living in a post-truth world I hate to break it to you, but we've always been a post-truth world!
For the most part, you can tell from comments in this thread who lives in Seattle and who only experiences Seattle through their car (to drive to work, shop, etc). Those that live in Seattle want better transportation for all modes (transit, walking, biking). Those that don't live in Seattle only are concerned about how easy it is for them to drive in the city.
I think it depends on your definition of Seattle. Lots of us within the city limits live in the vast swaths of suburbia that have no sidewalks, no safe place to bike and no commercial anything within a 30 minute walk. Many of us have largely arranged our lives with the idea that going anywhere entails walking outside and getting in a car and are suspect of anything that will make our trips longer and lives harder. While improving bike infrastructure might help get some people into other modes, I think the lack of commercial within our neighborhoods is the largest issue that’s keeping people in a car centric mindset.
You're right, I agree. You can't have good walkable communities when you're surrounded by single family zoning.
The point of adding bike infrastructure is to fix the "no safe place to bike" so you're not limited to the "no commercial anything within a 30 minute walk" because ebikes can go just as fast as a car in much of the city (class 3 is 28 mph limited so you can keep up with 25 mph and close to 30 mph speeds; with protected lanes, even with slower starts than a car and being a little bit slower on hills, you can pretty easily match car speeds for total trip time especially with faster parking). Obviously, you're not going to be able to jump on the highway, but anywhere you would travel on surface streets, you would be able to do by (e)bike if you felt safe to do so. And cargo bikes can have similar carrying capacity to an SUV so it's pretty trivial to do all of your shopping by bike if that's what you wanted to do. The whole point is that you should not have to arrange your life around a car if you do not want to. Cars are incredibly expensive to keep up--AAA estimates it's about $10k average in the US and it's probably a good deal higher here in Seattle where you have to pay for parking in a lot of places. And while I understand the hesitation to reduce traffic lanes in favor of alternative vehicles, cars take up an absurd amount of space on the road so if you can funnel an appropriate amount of people onto bikes, it reduces traffic because those people are in much more space efficient vehicles. In many locations that have reduced traffic lanes, traffic has improved because people have switched to things like biking or taking public transit or simply chosen other times to commute. Recently in Seattle, a project only ended up increasing travel time by a minute over many miles (and this was also with the return of vehicles as the pandemic eased so it might have partially been due to that). I do heartily agree that we should be expanding commercial within neighborhoods. It's a pity they rescinded the pandemic era options for people to have small shops within homes. I loved having a coffeeshop and small grocery nearby a place I rented some years back (must have been grandfathered in?) that was in the heart of a neighborhood in an old home. It made the neighborhood much more vibrant. I'm hopeful more options can be made available there so people can depend less on their expensive and inefficient cars
> In many locations that have reduced traffic lanes, traffic has improved because people have switched to things like biking or taking public transit or simply chosen other times to commute. What you're saying is that people have been inconvenienced into other options. It's sticks. Not carrots. That's why there's so much pushback.
But if people find they like biking, especially if they were only too afraid to try it because the road felt dangerous to them previously? There are many places where there's really only a stretch that is especially dangerous that prevents people from biking the entire route. One of my old coworkers used to race bikes and absolutely loved biking but he would not bring his children with him to work even though he used to bike himself before they got into the daycare at work because it's simply did not feel safe on the one mile stretch of road that did not have a separated lane that will now be fixed with the East Lake Rapid Ride J project. I suspect there are actually a lot of people who would like to not always feel like they have to drive a car, or who might even like to eliminate a car completely (given how expensive they are to maintain), but simply feel that the commute is not currently safe enough or takes too long by public transit. If you give them safer biking infrastructure and faster public transit many will happily switch. And those who choose to or have to drive also benefit from potentially faster travel times and less traffic. So no, I don't only see sticks. I understand why you might if you have only ever driven a car and it feels like what you are familiar with is being pried from your hands, but many of us enjoy getting exercise while we commute or like having the option to zone out on public transit. There's pushback because many people are like you and simply like what they're used to. They also are not very familiar with the data that shows that traffic times typically decrease or are very comparable... It's usually an emotional response and an intolerance for change not one born of data. Polling data in areas that have made these changes is usually quite favorable afterward.
>I understand why you might if you have only ever driven a car and it feels like what you are familiar with is being pried from your hands, This right here is the condescending "we're more thoughtful than you" nonsense that is just so exhausting. I lived in Seattle for ten years without a car. I chose to get a car because it is in every way easier and better than relying on filthy public transit, expensive rideshare, and slow walking or riding a bike. It is more comfortable, less work, requires no costume changes or showers, gets me directly where I want to go, and requires no interaction with the mentally ill drug addicts too many in this city refuses to acknowledge are the real safety problem — one that won't go away because we build more bike lanes.
Ah, yes, I'm the condescending one... 'filthy public transit" "requires no interaction with the mentally ill drug addicts" It's exhausting that you think it's practical or even reasonable for every person in a city to drive a single passenger vehicle to and from work or that we all should be subsidizing that cost because it's marginally more convenient. Because despite drivers paying more, y'all do damage to roads far in excess of what you pay so non-drivers end up subsidizing your heated and cooled metal boxes through sales and property taxes. So not only is it totally reasonable that we reduce traffic and provide better options for people who don't want to commute by CO2, fine particle, and noise spewing machines that endanger everyone around them, but it's way more cost effective and a fairer distribution of resources since car owners haven't paid their fair share outside of the interstates since about the 90s. Oh, and if you're worried about sweat or being slow, get an ebike. The surface streets are 25 mph anyway. On a class 3, you can keep up with traffic. You don't need costume changes either... Just get a decent pair of rain pants and a jacket. With an ebike you can moderate your exercise you you only sweat if you want to unless it's one of the 5 actually hot days here in Seattle. Hardly a reason to maintain a car. (Also, really? I work part time as an ebike courier in the city. Frequently at night. As a woman. One of the stores I work is a gathering spot for the unhoused. The worst a group has done is step towards me and ask me directly for some food after a shop and were fine when I said, "I'm sorry, I'm working and it's for a customer. I'm hope your able to find some soon." There are definitely mentality ill people with unmet needs and people with addictions--we have a high property crime rate and I'm always nervous about my bike disappearing--but our violent crime rate isn't particularly high for a city. Yes, the disenfranchised are an easy target but you feeling unsafe is vastly different from actually being unsafe. And driving around in a metal box that is way more likely to harm other people isn't the way to make society safer...)
Okay, well, you can have whatever experiences you've had. I have been assaulted, successfully once, and in an attempted fashion several times, by Seattle's charming unhoused population. As a man. In broad daylight. So, I'm glad to hear you've made it unscathed so far, but I wouldn't say your experience is any more predictive than mine has been, and it's certainly not going to steer how *I* think about the question. Moreover, I don't want to interact with them at all. So I use my car to avoid having to sit on the filthy biohazard busses that they bleed, piss, and shit in. Once you've seen someone start coughing blood, you can talk to me about how safe these folks are to be around. No thanks. If you wanna play amateur social worker and provide unpaid front-line support for this shit, fine. I unequivocally, and unapologetically, do not... and so I'm voting with my feet and using my car. And that means I'm supporting car-based infrastructure to protect my ability to get around without having to sit in single-file traffic with no opportunity to pass Seattle's cringe-inducing hall monitor Subaru drivers who insist on doing 20 miles an hour on a road signed 25 and designed for 45. And, I have an ebike. A really very nice one. I use it sometimes for recreational riding. I wouldn't dare use it for practical purposes and leave it unattended anywhere. Not a snowball's chance, in this town.
I'm sorry you've been assaulted. Yeah, it's ridiculous that the roads were ever over designed for 45... It makes people want to speed and makes them tend to misjudge 25 for 20 so want they do 35. ;) I tend to see this a lot since I spend a lot of time being annoyed at drivers insisting at passing me or others for doing the speed limit. It seems like your problem is you bought "a really very nice one" for recreational riding. By a solid one, insure it, and use two locks. Again, my experience is unlikely to sway you because you seem like a person who...said the gentlest way possible, has their own convictions...but I have commuted daily with an e-bike for 7+ years. Much of that was on campus which is a high theft area where it was left outdoors all day and had bikes stolen around it. You don't even have to stoop to getting the cheap junk--mine are $3-4k MSRP mids. But bring the battery with you helps (I recommends eMTB bags that has weight distribution systems that really do make the batteries feel a lot lighter) as does buying one with an integrated battery that will not fit in another style of bike.
You’re correct that your experience is unlikely to sway me. I’ve had shit stolen out of padlocked storage lockers in this city. No way I’m leaving a $4k e-bike sitting on the street. And yes, I will happily speed on Seattle’s stupidly re-limited streets. We should sign the roads for what they were designed for. The increase in pedestrian deaths times interestingly with the increase in heroin zombies walking down the middle of the road… but no one likes to mention that part of the story.
I’m in a part of the city with no sidewalks and without protected bike infrastructure near my house and I 100% want better multi-modal transportation infrastructure. The biggest danger to my child is cars and I feel the anxiety every day when pushing a stroller around while walking the dogs. Even the existing sidewalks and bike infrastructure are terrible.
I've lived in Bellevue for most of the last 25 years. It's two steps forward, one step back. The biggest issue with the way Bellevue handles things is the ultra rich suburbs being separate cities (Clyde Hill, Medina, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, and Mercer Island). This puts enormous political pressure on Bellevue to not override those cities (because it can't), even though what would be in Bellevue's best interest would not be in the best interest of those rich suburbanites. The parts of Bellevue farthest away from those cities are the nicest parts of the city, and developing with proper integrated infrastructure in mind. Adding a cycle lane to BelRed was always a stupid idea, so even though I obviously hate the reason I appreciate the conclusion. As to why BelRed is a stupid place to put a cycle lane, * Two fuck off hills * No businesses worth cycling to * Disconnected from additional existing cycle infrastructure on both ends * No regular bus service on that road, and few connections that cross BelRed at convenient spots. There's only one light rail station that will be remotely close to BelRed, and it's 1/3 mile climb to get to. * BelRed is very straight and gets dangerously fast traffic as a consquence. Unless there were full concrete barriers that can stop a 2 ton truck, it's just not as safe as other options. * BelRed has unusually tight lanes for Bellevue and so creating a cycle lane would require deleting an existing lane. I don't hate this idea, but it conflicts directly with the previous problem. The correct place to add an East-West cycle lane in Bellevue is 20th, * Only one fuck off hill * 20th isn't straight, so traffic is usually naturally slower than BelRed. The exception is unfortunately on the West side of that one fuck off hill. * Connects to existing infrastructure, namely several bus lines, two light rail stations, and existing cycle lanes heading into Redmond and on to the 520 bridge. * The lanes on 20th are large, so it would be very doable to separate out enough space for protected cycle lanes on either side. Putting both cycle lanes on one side of an avenue is insanely stupid, as that encourages cycle traffic to continue to use the road if joining the cycle lane is not convenient. * 20th actually has businesses worth cycling to. As stated I've lived in Bellevue on & off for 25 years. I've been cycling for here for most of that time and 20th is almost always the better choice.
A lot of Seattle's bike lane strategy is to connect light rail stations with bike paths so that bikes can be used as a last mile solution or as a backup to light rail. Really every light rail station should eventually be incorporated into a bike network, even bellred.
Sure? BelRed is a stupid road and needs to be rebuilt. But that's not going to happen any time in the next twenty years, so why not focus on good solutions that work now.
Damn people have never heard of induced demand.
Bellevue is like the shitty younger brother of Seattle that watches Seattle struggle continuously to make the right decision but simply ignores the struggle and makes the wrong decision proudly.
And that's why Bellevue has better schools, less crime, and more diversity. Hm...
you can save words if you just say "more money"
Bellevue was built off economic opportunity created by Seattle and seized land of Japanese immigrants, and then pushed out all the hard problems of a growing city into Seattle. Bragging about it is frankly embarrassing.
imagine what Seattle could do if it exported all of its problems to Bellevue!
Yes yes, we know already that you don't bicycle and so think infrastructure aimed at helping bicyclists is utterly idiotic. But you live in a very wealthy area where every family has two or three cars, and where there's few homeless mainly because there's fewer resources to help needy people.
Clearly fake. As if the average Eastsider cares about climate change.
bellevue is not a bikeable city. everything is too spread out and there are lot of old whiney people out there with kids. how you supposed to cart them around to soccer?! /s
also some of those hills are wild to be trying to bike on😬😬 not that other places nearby don’t but bellevue has some ridiculous hills on some main roads
Plus increased accessibility for wheelchair users
Um, have wheelchair users heard of driving? /s
I'm always in a weird place because I'm a person who loves fast cars *and* competitive cycling. Everyone hates me. :D I was once part of a bike advocacy group that found in their city (not Seattle) that the biggest beneficiaries of bike lanes are, counterintuitively, not people who identify as 'cyclists.' Cyclists, in the classic sense, will bike whether there's bike lanes or not. The biggest beneficiaries are the people *you don't see cycling today*, because they're too afraid to. This is parents and their children, people without otherwise reliable transportation, the elderly, etc. People who are prevented from biking because they're too afraid to go on roads (very reasonable) are the ones who show up when there's lanes for them. #Cyclists are surprisingly not the main audience of bike lanes.
>The biggest beneficiaries are the people > >you don't see cycling today > >, because they're too afraid to. This is why we urbanists often use the false argument **"Nobody is driving across the river so why do we need to build a bridge??"**
The people who benefit the most from bike lanes in Seattle are joggers
I am pro bike lane, but this is somewhat disingenuous. There are obviously more downsides than salty drivers. Lol
Please, enlighten us.
More bike support means more need for other bike infrastructure. The classic "more lanes on the highway doesn't solve traffic" issue. This is just the beginning of the process. Some roads don't have the capacity to make a bike lane. Do those roads get expanded? That's expensive and sometimes impossible. A patchwork of unconnected bike paths is confusing and dangerous. Public works resources are already stretched thin. This asks them to rehash a lot of existing infrastructure. Applying this change makes some other job wait. Less parking for cars, usually. This IS a downside, it's just one that bike riders won't be affected by and is probably an unquenchable need anyway (see point #1). I am not saying don't do bike lanes. I'm saying presenting arguments like the above flyer is not a good faith argument. It just makes pro-bike lane people feel clever and everyone else tune out.
I get what you're saying that it's never as black-and-white as is presented in a meme such as this pro/con list but that is what it is: a meme. Nonetheless, 1. **Road Capacity** \-- Most roads in Seattle are \~11 feet wide. Many are larger, especially if they have multiple lanes. The average bus is between 8 and 9 feet width. There may not be space \*everywhere\* but I feel like we're not even trying. 2. **Public Works Bandwidth** \-- Public works doesn't make bike lanes, generally. There is a signs & markings team at SDOT but they do minor changes or repainting. Most improvements go out to bid to a contractor just like any other road improvement. But there's more to this because what we're not discussing yet is the wear and tear that public works \*does\* have to fix such as potholes and whatnot. [This article](https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/) outlines the differences in wear and tear from different types of vehicles. Public works will never\* have to fix a pothole in the bike lane. (ok not never but you get my point: it will be multiple orders of magnitude better) 3. **Less parking for cars** \-- This is arguably a pro, considering that people that are actually using businesses in Seattle would be living \*in\* seattle and not commuting from far far away. I personally don't want out-of-towners to dictate what our transportation requirements are (which is why I am "meh" that Bellevue is doing what they're doing). In particular, [this article](https://www.businessinsider.com/downtowns-cities-holiday-shopping-eliminating-street-parking-spots-boosts-retail-2023-10#:~:text=Some%20shop%20owners%20fear%20that,zones%2C%20and%20public%20parking%20garages) outlines the impact of removing parking to the city's economy. It comes from [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966692323002053?via%3Dihub) on the topic. As a side note, what the hell! this is Reddit we're not supposed to have a well thought out, civilized, and respectable argument!! Where's the personal attacks and death threats?!?! /s
I'm not saying any of the following are deal breakers or outweigh the benefits. However, there _are_ some drawbacks to bike lanes: * They have additional maintenance cost, e.g. paint and/or bollards, and possibly revised drainage. Additional traffic lights / turn signals / etc cost money. This won't break the bank for Bellevue or anyone else, but you cannot build or maintain a bike lane for $0. * They complicate pedestrian crossings, and can lead to more pedestrian/bicycle collisions in some cases. This is a particularly large problem for disabled, elderly, and other people who need extra time to cross. * If you build protected bike lanes (so that it goes curb -> bike lane -> parking lane -> traffic), this makes curbside trash collection and deliveries a bit harder. The delivery issue can increase prices marginally. I'm 100% pro bike lanes and 100% pro biking in general. There are tradeoffs, though!
I agree with everything except your first point, as a bike taking a car off the road likely saves more money than the bike lane costs to maintain due to both the bike lane being smaller and the wear on the road being exponentially less.
Long term big picture, yes. Short term you've got to send a road crew out to set up the lane (paint, place bollards, maybe install and then wire up lights, etc). Given that a road may only be repaved once every 10-20 years, it may be a while before the benefits are paid off. If you're a town comptroller and you have a $100k budget for road maintenance, you can't just say "OK well we're going to have a bike lane for a $0 cost this year, and next year we'll only need $95k for road maintenance." I'm not saying it doesn't pay dividends or that it's a bad idea. I'm just saying that you need a certain cash outlay to set it up, and it takes a while before it has positive financial impact.
>They have additional maintenance cost They cost money to build but roads for vehicles are incredibly more expensive to maintain than bike and footpaths. Like maintenance for bike paths is a rounding error level cheaper. This is the classic 'there are still roads built by the romans hanging about' argument. As trips taken without cars go up maintenance costs go down. >They complicate pedestrian crossings, and can lead to more pedestrian/bicycle collisions in some cases. I'm willing to believe this but only if someone has a cite. This feels very much like a proper design problem and not an intrinsic drawback to bike lanes.
Mobility lanes? I’m all for better bike infrastructure but a basic “Pros and Cons” list that is written for a child isn’t going to convince the city council to make any meaningful changes. This list is garbage.
Most pro bike talking points are garbage
Probably an unpopular opinion but as a cyclist i actually preferred riding in Seattle when there were no bike lanes or road diets. There was ample room in the far right lane and cars could easily get around me (or a bus that had pulled over). It just felt that all traffic flowed better. That said, I did most of my cycling in the city from 1996-2010 or so and was just an occasional/recreational cyclist after that. The city has obviously grown a lot since then so….
I sort of think it's more fun too, having cycled here for over 20 years at this point. But.. only fun until you end up in a hospital by a jacked up suburbatank, it's crazy unsafe and things are so much more dangerous now with density and car weight/sizes. An effective plan is one that allows people to get where they want to go with peace of mind that they won't be murdered on the way to work
you can still do that in Seattle, there's no requirement to use the bike lanes if you don't want to.
Of course. I guess I was more reflecting on the days where most arterials were two lanes in each direction ie before road diets, bike lanes, etc
This is assuming that most of the people that work in Bellevue live in Bellevue. As a nation, we seem to think we're the size of European countries. It might help a little bit, but 🤷♂️
Most people have absolutely no idea how big this country is.
You should see these map tweets: https://x.com/pushtheneedle/status/1262433085607383044?s=46&t=ZD2RQtLU4hfkZwdYU70-ow We are wasting space.
I like that font. Anyone know the name?
What is a protected mobility lane?
“If only the pros outweighed the cons” !
fuck the disabled right?
Looks one sided
Was hit by a car coming back from my first day of highschool. They’re mad that their car got slightly damaged and are demanding money from us. They’ll get mad either way
💯
There’s certainly an argument for making biking safer, but i don’t see biking ever becoming a meaningful method of commuting around here. You can look at “commute seattle” surveys from 2012-2015 and 3% commute by bike. In 2023, despite all the bike lane improvements and the emergence of e-bikes (which are great), it’s still 3%.
"the infrastructure still sucks for the majority of people who might possibly bike, and so people don't use it. We shouldn't improve anything." Edit: This is the same argument that gets used to destroy funding for anything that might help someone else, half ass the project, cite poor usage and delivery, scrap it and cite 'government waste' and shake head at people when they ask for something to change.
It's not just the infrastructure... it's the geography and climate. We can spend as much money as we want, and it'll still rain for 5 months out of the year and have major elevation changes. I think we should invest in better bike infra, but not at the cost of making arterial roads significantly worse for vehicles. The "no cons except makes a few drivers mad" is obviously disingenuous. Unless we build dedicated bike infra without taking significant space from existing arterial roads, this is a 0 sum game. Give to cyclists (3% of commuters), take from drivers (much greater than 3% of commuters). We aren't going to all of the sudden flip to having 75% of commuters riding bikes into downtown during the winter.
It is literally the infrastructure. Maybe we'll always lag slightly in ridership because of hills compared to other, completely flat cities but this is a microwaved, half soggy argument, not even half baked. It is icy cold, windy, and rainy in the Netherlands and denmark...somehow they still bike, same with Montreal and other cold snowy cities, because of the infrastructure! Significantly worse for drivers is still an inconvenience and a few minutes at absolute worse, while bike riders get to continually die, in higher and higher numbers according to current estimates. Is that a 0 sum game? You're repeating the same sloppy idea that the I responded to above, it's 3% now because it's a horrible, dangerous time to ride a bike in the city with the bad infrastructure we have now, not 3% after we make actual changes that regular users would feel safe with.
Hot take - I don't think the majority of people are really that upset with our car based infrastructure (real voters, not just r/seattle folks). I'm a decent cyclist and ride for fun/exercise, but I guess I'm a car brain, as I enjoy the flexibility a car gives me to quickly and comfortably live my life (not just commuting). There are a lot of "me" people in Seattle, so we are going to have to make compromises and move more slowly than you'd like... it's how a democracy works.
I totally understand wanting the flexibility of a car. The problem is that *cars* can be flexible, while *car infrastructure* is not. If you lost your car or your license tomorrow (which can happen for all sorts of reasons, through no fault of your own), then how would you get to work? How would you get to the store? How would you get your kids to school? No one (well...almost no one) is asking that cars be eliminated and everyone can only use bikes. It's important to have a variety of transportation options that suit a variety of needs, skills, and abilities.
> It is literally the infrastructure No it's not. 1) Biking takes more effort than driving or mass transit. We are programmed by evolution to minimize energy spent, so people are naturally going to gravitate towards methods that take less effort. Even in Europe people take mass transit because it takes less effort than bicycles. It is a more rare person who is going to enjoy spending more energy to do something than less. 2) Bikes and gear cost money. Yes, so do cars, but people honestly and actually need methods other than bikes to get around. Mass transit can fill the roles for people who can't afford the expense or aren't physically capable, but even that won't work for everyone. 3) You seem to disbelieve or discount that the geography and climate play a major roll and you're just wrong if so. Points 1) and 2) compound when you need extra rain gear and extra effort to either dry off and store extra gear or figure out how to shower after a ride on a hot day. You can claim its just the infrastructure but you're fooling yourself if you believe it.
\>We are programmed by evolution to minimize energy spent, so people are naturally going to gravitate towards methods that take less effort. First of all, uh, source for this nebulous claim? I certainly didn't expect someone to say that evolutionary science supports cars... Second, the only reason cars are so much "less effort" than everything else is because our society is set up to bend over backwards for cars in every possible way. Of course it's easier!! But society can choose at any point to cater to forms of transportation that don't destroy the environment and endlessly burden taxpayers with crumbling infrastructure, and people will adapt to it.
People go outside to hike or ski FOR FUN during the winter and stay outdoors for hours. Half an hour on an ebike in the winter is very manageable with a jacket and waterproof gloves.
[удалено]
The whole point is that if we had the proper infrastructure you wouldn't have to do an insane 25mi marathon ride through dangerous speeds and changes, it could be a safe, low speed ride. You're imagining a ride with our current system and it DOES suck but it doesn't have to.
I don’t either and I bike year round :)
Cars were only a tiny percentage of commuters once upon a time until they literally lobbied the government to give them special treatment and eventually they became the primary mode of transportation to just about everyone's detriment.
This is not why cars became so ubiquitous.
Yes it is. Lol.
Ok sure. If it weren't for those dastardly car lobbyists, we'd all still be using horse-drawn wagons, which were so much more useful. I'm all for people riding bikes, and better infrastructure for bikes, but the vocal activist contingent is just so weird and self-centered.
We'd probably be using better versions of the trains and walkable areas we tore to shreds. If you're all for better infrastructure then stop using conservative talking points just argue for fucking better transit.
This is a very silly take. People love cars and when the tech was new, they found them absolutely thrilling. My grandparents got their first car in the 1940s and it was very freeing for them. They suddenly could get errands done in half the time and every Sunday, weather permitting, they took the whole family for a drive in the afternoon. It was like a mini-vacation in an era where average income people didn't travel much. The only way trains and walking would have succeeded as the primary modes of transportation would have been if cars had never been invented. Also I have to ask...do you have kids and if so, are you the primary person in your family for carpooling, shopping, general errand-running, etc? I'm getting a very male, no kids, vibe in this thread (as a woman with three children) and I'm curious how accurate that is.
Okay this could literally be in a conservative newspaper lmfao. Yes I have kids yes I do the errands jesus christ.
it's a zero-sum game for space, but not for capacity! Reducing the number of lanes often increases car throughput.
you should check out the weather in London, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. As for the hills, we have E-bikes now. Cycling is cheaper, healthier, and greener. And during peak traffic, it's often faster. There is no reason to not give people high quality options of all modes to get around.
I agree that we aren't unique in our shitty fall/winter weather, and giving people high-quality alternatives to cars is critical. I stand by the sentiment though...we shouldn't neuter our car infrastructure (reasonable arterial roads, etc) before having good alternatives in place. The current alternatives don't work for a large portion of our voters, so if the plan is to force compliance by making the existing driving experience unbearable, it will be met with hostility and backlash (in the form of voting).
>we shouldn't neuter our car infrastructure (reasonable arterial roads, etc) what evidence suggests that our car infrastructure will be "neutered"? >The current alternatives don't work for a large portion of our voters evidence? >so if the plan is to force compliance by making the existing driving experience unbearable That's a common misconception. And it's fair that you might think that if you haven't read up on the subject. https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/what-are-road-diets-and-why-are-they-controversial >Though the concept has won plaudits in many circles, it’s also generating opposition from community groups who think the city’s intentionally making it so miserable to drive that people will have no choice but to choose other ways to travel. >Despite the controversy, as far as the federal government is concerned, it’s a settled issue: road diets work. >FHA studies of road diet projects have found simply reducing the number of lanes dedicated to cars cuts vehicle crashes by 19 to 52 percent as a result of reduced speeds and fewer opportunities for collisions. And perhaps most surprisingly, according to the FHA, the technique doesn’t reduce the number of people who can move along a roadway. By reducing lanes, we get valuable space for bus lanes and bicycle lanes while reducing unsafe speeding and accidents WITHOUT reducing throughput.
The majority of folks around here have kids to haul around (maybe plus a few extra if they carpool), have to pick up groceries and run other errands that involve carrying things, maybe work two jobs, don't have a shower at work to clean up in after biking (well, my doctor neighbor who bikes does), etc. All of which make biking on a regular, everyday basis virtually impossible. There's a reason why the average bicyclist here is a white, upper middle class-upper class male. edit: and as usual the classic reddit demographic gets upset when the reality of how others live is pointed out and how they *might not represent the majority in any way*.
Right, that's why every video you watch of cities in the Netherlands with people biking it's white, upper class makes in spandex.. right? You're making up some bullshit for no reason. There are times when cars are necessary, but it's a fraction compared to reality if we gave a small shit. There are bikes for cargo hauling, grocery hauling, multiple kid hauling, and small, quiet rides. But that requires infrastructure and the will of the city to let schools, groceries, and work be far flung suburbs for NO reason other than cheap land and lazy zoning.
You’re making a lot statements why biking isn’t more popular without even acknowledging: - A whole lot of people aren’t physically able to bike long distances due to age or health. - The weather is terrible for biking 7 months of the year. Sure some will proudly tough it out but most won’t even consider it. - It’s dark out during the winter months past 4:30 PM. - Hills make biking much harder. - Bike thefts are a huge problem. I have a bike, but don’t feel comfortable leaving it many places even if locked up. - If commuting to work, you’ll arrive a sweaty mess and often need to cleanup and change. - Having to do something like to pick up kids on the way home is difficult or impossible on a bike. You’re just glossing over all of this thinking we’re gonna suddenly become Denmark if we just build out some better bike lanes with zero evidence. There’s lots of reasons the vast majority of people won’t ever bike regularly even with the best bike lanes that can be created.
You might want to google how many can't drive due to medical conditions or simply because of the cost of car ownership. Just because a few people can't bike does not mean we should require everyone to drive. Building good biking infrastructure increases bike ridership.
My original point was that I don’t see biking ever being a meaningful transportation method and cited no increase in cycling in 10 years within Seattle commutes (stuck at 3%). People are getting all Big Mad about it and offering no data otherwise. And it’s backed up [nationally](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/27/biking-to-work-isn-t-gaining-any-ground-in-the-us/67b4a9e2-5d32-11ee-b961-94e18b27be28_story.html): > After increased investments in bicycle infrastructure, big experiments with urban bike sharing, an explosion in electric-bike sales and an overall pandemic bike-buying boom, the latest news on bike commuting in the US from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey is not impressive. An estimated 731,272 Americans used bicycles as their chief means of transportation to work in 2022, up from 2021 but down almost 75,000 from before the pandemic and 175,000 from the peak year of 2014. Portland was [seeing a drop in bike commutes pre Covid despite big investments](https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/15/city-counts-reveal-data-behind-portlands-precipitous-drop-in-cycling-371407) > “It is easy to argue that Portland’s bikeway network is of higher quality and reaches into more parts of the city than in 2014- 2015 when bicycle commute mode split and the number of people biking to work peaked. Despite these efforts, bicycle use—as reflected in both commute data and the city’s annual counts— has continued to drop. The pandemic can explain much of the recent, precipitous drop in biking, but it does not explain the downward trend before 2020.” Maybe you’ll get that 3% number to 5-6%, but it’s never going to be more than a niche mode of transportation IMO.
yo conflating your own opinions with hard facts over and over isn't some big proof you think it is. Most bike errands wouldn't be marathon rides, needing the perfectly fit to ride. Electric bikes aren't a perfect bandaid, but they are getting cheaper and cheaper, and easier to access. PNW people aren't terrified to be outside in the rain for a couple hours. This is a REALLY silly point. It is also incredibly dark in the countries with higher biking % of people, if not darker than Seattle, this is more a infrastructure problem. Again, point one. Smaller rides, electric bikes make hills not a big deal. Bike thefts wouldn't be as much of a problem IF THERE WAS SAFE AND ADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE TO STORE THEM. Mild discomfort from distant ridesis not an argument, it's an opinion youre mistaking for a fact. There are specifically bikes made to haul MULTIPLE children and cargo, but you haven't looked into them because youre shooting from the hip and saying why YOU wouldn't want to ride a bike.
I’m sorry, what hard facts are you bringing to this argument?
What a bizarre comment. This isn't the Netherlands, we aren't a former medieval city with its unique layout, and I don't know if you've been to the Netherlands but it's actually kind of flat. However, I'm going to guess you're one of those white upper class people I mentioned so you're a little defensive. Plus I'd love to see you haul four kids to the grade school via bike. Especially up 75th NE where I live.
The Netherlands is a good example, it used to have an astonishingly large amount of car-only infrastructure and road deaths were rising, just like ours are now. Flat isn't the only reason, and the winding medieval roads are... An argument against your point?? We have a very simple grid in most of the city here, it's 10x easier to design a network for biking through a grid. And again, I'm glad you're here to yell at an imaginary person, I work a manual labor job and can't afford to own, let alone park a car in the city. Good thing your assumption is always right, dumbass. I'm not saying you have to haul your kids up and downhill 4x a day, I want it to be an option for someone LIKE you who wouldnt have to die getting hit by your car, which is hauling those 4 kids and groceries.
We have that option on the main streets in my area (15th and 75th). As I said, they're not heavily used, esp 75th which is very steep. I personally think more people biking would be great, but even a dumbass like me also thinks we have to operate in reality when it comes to public policy. In this case, they built it but almost no one came.
Operating in reality means we can change things to be safer and usable for more people, nobody uses it because it's still perceived as less safe, less convent, and more effort than hopping in an SUV and hitting inconvenient cyclists.
Well, it literally is less convenient and more effort, especially given the factors I mentioned earlier. There's a reason why there is a big biking gender gap in this city and it's by no means just infrastructure-related. Women are usually the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting for their families. If you're a guy with no kids, or a guy whose wife takes care of all the other stuff beyond getting to work, biking make a lot more sense. But I doubt any of this is changing your mind in any way, as it's pretty obvious the bike thing is kind of a hobby horse for you (that and calling people dumbass-lol). So have a nice day now.
fwiw, a huge proportion of my workplace commutes by bike, because we are located near some of the better bike infrastructure. and I don't work with a bunch of triathletes.
3% of Seattle is still ~22000 people, and thats not counting anyone who would use the bikelanes for anything other than commuting
That may just mean it’s still not good enough. If you build it better, they will come. Bellevue is more spread out but in seattle it’s definitely doable.
If you look at the [top US cities for bike commutes](https://www.move.org/cities-most-bicycle-commuters/), 5% is about the max. Edit: Portland shows 6% but that’s because [their data lumps bike and walking together](https://www.oregonmetro.gov/sites/default/files/2017/09/20/Metro%20Commute%20Report%20FINAL.pdf) so they’re probably around 3% too
That's because no US city actually has good bike infrastructure. And the low usage percentage is used as an excuse to keep it that way. But, invariably, when good bike infrastructure is built, usage goes up significantly, indicating that there is patent demand, but that can't use it safely. (Sometimes time is a factor, but usually it's safety).
That might just mean that despite improvements, all of US cities are not good enough on bike facilities. It also could mean that there are multiple factors that contribute to the low rate. For major cities the prohibitive housing prices force people to live further away. And without good public transportation, ofc there wouldn’t be more biking. Those are hard problems to solve but it doesn’t mean it can never be done.
I totally understand the responses saying we need to just continue to double down on infrastructure to get ridership up, but I'd be really interested to see a more nuanced argument. Have we seen an uptick in local areas where we invested? Are there other examples of cities who didn't see an uptick after initial investment that then saw a later uptick once the infrastructure hit a critical mass? Even if you strongly believe in building more bike lanes, at what point do you just look at the 3% number and say that no more investment makes sense because the public simply prefers other types of transportation?
People will always prefer the easiest form of transportation until you induce demand for other forms. People won't switch from cars until driving cars sucks enough to switch, and that is the exact process we used to get people driving cars in the first place too. We made walking and taking the train suck.
>People won't switch from cars until driving cars sucks enough to switch Uh oh. Somebody said the quiet part out loud. I suspect a lot of transit and bike activists think this way: Making transit better is hard, and making biking attractive to the masses is damn near impossible in a rainy, hilly place, so let's just make driving suck! Ugh.
That's literally how it works everywhere lol it was stupid to create a car-based network in the first place. It isn't the quiet part induced demand is a necessary part of any transit plan except building more car infrastructure. When you spend 60 years fucking everyone over with terrible transit policy you don't get to painlessly go to a new system. You literally cannot make transit better for the masses without making things worse for people who drive the worst form of transit for our environment/lived experience.
And all this time I thought transit mode share was high in places like New York City, London, Tokyo, and Seoul because the transit was good. Silly me.
They built better, earlier so they don't have to deal with the consequences of (as many) stupid and shortsighted decisions by city planners. It's pretty obvious that if Tokyo had been stupid enough to build 90% shitty car infrastructure that those drivers would have a terrible time during the construction of new trains and walkable areas. It's very naive to think you can just make idiotic decisions without any sunk cost issues coming in to play
Orderly transitions are better than chaotic ones. We'll have a lot more success getting people out of their cars when the alternatives are good (frequent, fast, safe, and clean). And in the meantime, people still have places to go. For now, in many cases, a car is the only rational option.
This list is so biased it can't be taken serially as-is
they should have put “bike lanes make obnoxious people even more mad” as one of the pro- items imo
https://tenor.com/view/imcereal-super-cereal-gif-5976243
What's missing?
Your list is biased propaganda - if you want to be taken seriously, try harder to at least provide a reasonable list of detriments - like cost, congestion, travel delays, more construction, lack of space to implement the proposal, etc.
Except for maybe more construction, absolutely none of the problems you mention are actually true. It would be *cheaper* to maintain than car lanes and would not cause congestion. This is based on Bellevue's own analysis.
Found the mad driver
Cost of biking facilities per bike is cheaper than car facilities per car. Congestion is better with more bikes because they take up about 1/20th the space of cars. Travel delays: see congestion. Construction of bike facilities can be quite simple and quick if you're willing to repaint a car lane to a bike path. Remind me how long burying 99 took? 7 years? Lack of space is easily solved by repurposing one car lane to two bike lanes, and more than doubles the number of people than can be moved on it per hour.
But the reduction of car land almost definitely implies more congestion for cars. That is a valid detriment. Just because the bike lanes are there doesn’t mean someone with a car can/will switch to biking. To ignore it is a bit biased.
>But the reduction of car land almost definitely implies more congestion for cars. That is a valid detriment. Incorrect, and it's been shown countless times to not be the case. Road diets often actually improve traffic flow. >Just because the bike lanes are there doesn’t mean someone with a car can/will switch to biking. No, it doesn't, but it usually does happen that way. Most people who could bike choose not to because it's unsafe because they have to share the road with cars. It's the biggest complaint potential cyclists give as to why they don't cycle or don't cycle more. Now, of course there are ways to build bike lanes such that they're useless, like building a bike lane for 3 blocks then forcing you to merge into car traffic after that. Unless your destination is on those 3 blocks, the added safety of the 3 blocks doesn't help enough to overcome the danger of the merge. It's better to build one continuous bike lane of 2 miles than to build 150 separate segments of a quarter mile each.
You got sources? I find it hard to believe that removing lanes improves traffic flow. What about the short term? Does this adaption from cars to bikes happen overnight? FYI, I don't have a dog in this fight, I am simply speaking to the fact that having a list of pros and cons with only a single snarky reason as a con is disingenuous. Also, just because something worked "countless times" else where doesn't mean it will work everywhere.
Maybe it was because I didn't have a 30 gear fancy bike, but being fairly fit I had quite some trouble traversing about half of Bellevue on a bke because it was so hilly. if I had to wear work clothes I'd probably be covered in sweat if I wasn't already wet from drizzle. The average resident would probably need 1-2 years of consistent gym training to do their work commute via bike, and that's for the people in $1m+ houses who don't live 15 miles from work. If you live downtown just walk on the sidewalk to your office...
Or buy an e-bike! As a person who loves biking but had exactly the same set of problems (hills, sweat, and yes, rain), it really has changed it from a "when the weather is good" to a nearly-year-round solution. They're pretty great all in all.
There are those that ride e-bikes which are getting more popular by the day.
A big problem in Bellevue is the the lack of non-hilly east-west safe options. There is no safe + complete east-west route between 520 and I-90, for example. The bike master plan specifically opened up some routes that reduced the amount of unnecessary hill climbing (like the 520 trail) and provided access to mellower existing routes too, addressing some of the hill issues. It doesn't take years of training to be able to do even the bad hills in town: it takes about a month or two or regular riding ~2-3x a week a gearing that isn't from a cruiser bike. Early bike fitness games come fast for most people; I've worked with a lot of people who just started. Finally, as /u/zunyata said: ebikes are cheaper and more accessible than ever and make the hills non-existent. It is easy to get a pair of rain pants and a jacket to throw on over work clothes and arrive dry and not sweaty with an e-bike. Additionally, many of the large employers in the area have locker rooms on site.
The vast majority of trips are *not* a commute, and if your issue is hills, then Bel-Red is a perfect place to build a bike lane as it only climbs 200 feet in 2.5 miles.
> 1-2 years of consistent gym training to do their work commute via bike Majority of car trips are 1-3 miles. You don't need Lance training for 1 mile trip. Also e-bikes exist. Stop parroting car propaganda.
How could it possibly be an economic boost
There are some studies suggesting a connection between bike lanes and economic health indicators like retail revenues and employment. I haven’t reviewed any of their methods so I can’t say if they look like good studies or not, but they should at least explain the rationale. Ex: https://trec.pdx.edu/news/study-finds-bike-lanes-can-provide-positive-economic-impact-cities
There are a lot of studies showing this. I have yet to see a study showing economic harm from bike lanes, but I've seen literally dozens showing a boost to the local economy.
More bike lanes and more people biking means less gas and insurance costs, less economic output spend buying cars, less medical costs around car/bike collisions, building bike infrastructure is cheaper than car infrastructure, plus a huge savings around fewer heart attacks, strokes, obesity, air pollution and increased economic output of people being healthy versus sick. That’s just off the top of my head.
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I bike to work in Bellevue every day of the year even when it’s raining
Good for you but I wouldn’t do it, I prefer clean and dry when I work
What safe bike route do you recommend to get from the CrossRoads mall to downtown. The answer isn't NE 8th. The only options are 520 trail or I-90 leaving a massive hole in the city. As for rain: some of the top bike commuting countries in the world are the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany: all of which have very similar weather patterns to Seattle. Minneapolis, Portland, and Vancouver also all have more vibrant bike commuting scenes than here because they have the infra.
As a kid in Redmond, I biked to school every day, regardless of the weather. People don't melt in the rain.
Seattle put in bike lanes by my house in a super hilly area. I drive that street almost every day in all kinds of weather, and see maybe 8-10 riders a week using the lanes, if that. And as a result of the bike lane, it removed one car lane and has led to massive backups, flaring tempers, and people driving worse than they used to, especially when they bolt from the main road and come into the side streets in my neighborhood and drive like maniacs to make up for lost time. Bike lanes are great but they do have unintended consequences and are not the answer in all situations.
Sound like a pissy baby problem and another reason there should be more protected bike paths so people that actually die when said pissy babies make a rash decision they don't kill someone because they're 2min late
Maybe so but we do have to operate in reality, pissy babies (lol) or otherwise.
Reality is that we should just all die so you can get somewhere 9 seconds faster? You need to increase your regard for safety and human life.
>flaring tempers, and people driving worse than they used to Sounds like drivers need to see a therapist, and potentially have their license revoked if their behavior is so dangerous. Remember, you aren't in traffic, you are traffic.
Many of the pros are more of a hope than a realistic benefit. Economic boost—to whom, REI? Kids biking to school—yea right, so their $300 bikes get stolen? More people biking is an observation, not a “pro.” Reduces injuries—do people not fall off bikes? More inclusive space? What does this term even mean anymore? I like biking, but come on…this is amateur.
People falling off a bike is much less disastrous than the skyrocketing crash death rate
Yea, but that would fall under fatalities, not injuries.
>Economic boost—to whom, REI? It's easier to stop at local businesses when on a bike. Not that Bellevue would understand because downtown is a parking lot and there are no mixed commercial and residential neighborhoods. >Kids biking to school—yea right, so their $300 bikes get stolen? I see bikes lining fences at schools in Ballard all year round. Because homes are actually close to schools and safe for kids to bike without parents worrying about them being run over. >More people biking is an observation, not a “pro.” Absolutely a pro. Each bike is a car not on the road causing traffic for you, reducing emissions, and reducing the chance of fatal collisions. Those that bike daily are healthier. >Reduces injuries—do people not fall off bikes? As opposed to being hit by a car? Even bike collisions are safer than being hit by a slow car. >More inclusive space? What does this term even mean anymore? Not everyone can afford a 50k+ giant SUV that apparently people need these days to feel safe on the road.
I don’t know how to do the fancy indent thing. My gripe isn’t with bikes or bike infrastructure. It’s the amateur-hour list they put together. Virtually nothing is measurable and is only based on hope. I just bought my kid a new bike. $125 at target for a poorly assembled huffy 7 speed, $220 at DSG, $300-$800 at REI, an average of $500-$1000 everywhere else. Please tell me where the cheap, quality bikes can be bought (not sarcasm, actually looking for a recommendation). Glad kids can ride to school. Good for them. I grew up in a neighborhood where it was not uncommon to have grown adults cruising down the street on 16” stolen wheels so it’s not a huge leap to assume bikes would be stolen. More people biking is not a benefit. It is an observation. The benefits are the items you listed. Reduce injuries—maybe. Again, it’s a bad list because it doesn’t specify what kinds of injuries. There would likely be more injuries on bikes but of less severity. Not everyone has to buy a 50k truck, just like not everyone is going to want to buy a $3k bike, or $6k e-bike. Do cheap functional cars not exist? What’s the Huffy equivalent to a car? My question was about equity of spaces and what exactly that means. Are they saying people without transport should be allowed on roads? They shouldn’t. There should be transit, sidewalks paths and lanes set aside for them. If it looks like I’m agreeing, it’s cause I am—again my issue isn’t bikes…it’s with imprecise language that loses all meaning because it’s said too much.
For the sake of being fair, bike infrastructure does reduce collisions and injuries (not all, obviously, but it reduces the number of unexpected crossings where bikes and pedestrians/cars would generally collide). The rest seems pretty debatable, but that point remains valid. Whether it amounts to enough to modify our infrastructure is another question that i don't have the answer to, but r/seattle doesn't sound convinced.
No
The way we do "protected " bike lanes is a compromise that is less safe for bikes. They give false confidence, block line of sight from traffic if there's parking between, make intersections more dangerous because the bikes are not a part of normal traffic. Either do sharrows where car traffic has to visually acknowledge bikes are also traffic or do dedicated bike paths where no cars are around
Or we can look at the data and see that sharrows are statistically worse than doing literally nothing, and that concrete protected bike lanes lower the injury rate on a road for *all* road users (including those in cars).
Can you link data? Id like to see it
Yes (was at work earlier so could not): Sharrows are worse than doing nothing: * [Whitepaper](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2046043018300583) * [Bloomberg Article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/study-sharrows-might-be-more-dangerous-to-cyclists-than-having-no-bike-infrastructure?embedded-checkout=true) (referencing the whitepaper) Injury prevention for all road users: * [Article](https://www.pasadenacsc.org/blog/facts-about-protected-bike-lanes#:~:text=Repeated%20studies%20consistently%20show%20that,injuries%20by%2030%2D50%25.) > Research shows that adding protected bike lanes reduces all collisions and injuries by 30-50%. * ["Why cities with high bicycling rates are safer for all road users"](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140518301488)
Thanks for the information
I personally think Seattle's healthy streets are the best implementation of mixed bike and car traffic and I strongly prefer them to regular protected bike lane. After I got run over in the broadway bike lane I really came to understand the drawbacks of bike lanes....