How Bike Lanes should be done

Hello Seattle DOT, we'd appreciate it if you'd watch this.

This is also how you Do It

Public rental bikes, that is: the check-out stations have to be near everywhere you want to go.

Blueprint for London's Cycling Revolution (The Guardian)

Another car runs amok

Hey, a bicyclist has been hit by another one of those driverless cars. The Seattle Times story in full --

March 11, 2009 10:38 AM
Bicyclist struck by vehicle in Wallingford neighborhood

Posted by Nick Provenza

A cyclist suffered serious head injuries after she was struck by a vehicle just before 10:30 a.m. in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood.

Police and medics are at the scene, near First Avenue Northeast and North 56th Street.

The cyclist, a woman in her 40s, suffered life-threatening injuries and is being transported to Harborview Medical Center, said Dana Vander Houwen of the Seattle Fire Department.

More to come.

Ya missed a Who, Nick.

Another piece of great reporting

The Seattle Times reports on another one of those accidents where a cyclist collides with an -- apparently -- driverless vehicle:

Bicyclist killed in Ballard crash

A 39-year-old cyclist was killed in a collision with a van this morning in Ballard.

By Seattle Times staff

A 39-year-old cyclist was killed in a collision with a van this morning in Ballard.

Medics were called to 24th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 65th Street just before 11 a.m. and performed CPR on the man, according to Dana Vander Houwen, a spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department.

The cyclist suffered life-threatening injuries and later died at Harborview Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson. Police did not immediately provide details of the collision.

Way to get all the 5 Ws, "Staff."

Update, 2/5:

Here's the Street View of the scene, looking south. The Viking is on the left, the turn lane is just ahead. The arrows appear to be where the accident occurred -- pan right 2 clicks, and the telephone pole in the P-I photo is visible.


View Larger Map

Scenario 1. News stories are implying the van was making a legal turn at the intersection with 64th. But the only way the accident makes any sense at that location, and considering the victim, Kevin Black, was an experienced rider, is if he was in the southbound lane preparing to enter the turn lane, and the van driver passed Black and got there first. It's also possible she only thought she was past him, then turned before he did. Drivers think they can share the lane with me all the time.

By the way, for the P-I Soundoff trogs -- there is no law saying you MUST use a bike lane if one is there. There are in fact all sorts of reasons not to use it -- people often insist on loading cargo on the driver's side, someone could be in the middle of parking, a car could be parked in the bike lane. The bike lane is also where all the road debris winds up.

Scenario 2. But the most common reason not to be in the bike lane is if you have to swerve to avoid something -- such as a van that has pulled out in front of you. Interestingly, the accident site is precisely where a southbound vehicle would make a U-turn to get to The Viking (look at where the nose of the white van is in the 13th photo HERE). But that can't possibly be the case here, since U-turns are only allowed at intersections and streetends -- and drivers never EVER break the law, right trogs?

Green era means we should rethink traffic priorities

Today in the Seattle Times:

Seattle is seeking possession of a popular boating-supply store along Mercer Street, even though the city remains $88 million short of the funds it needs to carry out a street reconstruction project there.

West Marine is to be condemned and torn down to make room for a 60- to 70-foot road widening along Mercer Street in an area commonly called the "Mercer Mess," according to the city's plan.

...private contributors won't commit money for the project until Seattle secures the right-of-way. Of the missing $88 million, the city is negotiating to get $36 million from nearby businesses that would benefit from the $201 million rebuild.

. . .

For two generations, commuters have complained about the Mercer Mess between Interstate 5 and Seattle Center. The city plans to add lanes for two-way travel on Mercer, which now goes eastbound to I-5. Valley Street, now an arterial, would be reduced to two lanes.

A study for the Seattle Department of Transportation predicts that drivers would save minutes leaving I-5, because they would gain a straight route on Mercer westbound, instead of navigating a curve to Valley. Overall, there would be little change in congestion, the study says; but bicycling and walking conditions would improve greatly, while landscaping would make the area more pleasant.

Source

Am I understanding this right? The city wants to spend $201 million on this 10-block stretch so drivers can save a few minutes? That's the sole benefit traffic-wise, because there would be no congestion reduction. Let's make a ledger.

Benefits	Costs ($201 million)
Cars: Drivers save a few minutes	Congestion continues at same level
Non-motorized: Improved walking, biking	generally $1 million per block, including curbs and drainage
Other: Nice landscaping	Businesses: Loss of strong retailer; $36 million

Anyone see anything wrong here? Try taking off your Car Culture Hat. How about now?

That's right: Although I'm mixing qualitative and quantitative, the costs for the automobile portion is the biggest, maybe $150-155 million, while returning the littlest benefit -- a few minutes per driver.

Want to reduce congestion? Want to make the transition away from the car culture? THEN STOP FACILITATING IT. Spend $10 million on non-motorized transportation on Mercer, and a few more million on landscaping and trees. Mandate Low Impact Development to protect Lake Union.

Road-diet what's there now, and maybe you'll get more people biking and taking Metro and the S.L.U.T. (and North Link whenever that's supposed to happen).

Wonder where that bureaucratic inertia comes from

SDOT Fun Facts #1

The Seattle Department of Transportation's phone number is 684-ROAD.

Not 684-BIKE. Or 684-WALK. 684-ROAD.

Bicycle safety PSA

This video contains a power-of-suggestion trick that actually worked on me.

New Product Corner

So I'm riding home yesterday from Pioneer Square, northbound on the Myrtle Edwards/Interbay route. You know where you have to make that left turn at Dravus and Elliott Avenue to get onto the Ballard Bridge? Well I'm making this turn, in the left lane, when I glance about 18 inches to my left to discover two fatasses in a newish white Infiniti next to me. Clearly they had misunderstood the expression "share the road."

At that moment I wished that my keys weren't at the bottom of my pannier. Then I had an idea. Here's the concept -- what if I had a stack of thin key-shaped refrigerator magnets, bearing the slogan "YOU'VE BEEN KEYED," and the section in RCW46 about bicyclists having the same rights and duties as a motor vehicle driver.

Whenever I get cutoff or otherwise endangered, I'd throw a "YOU'VE BEEN KEYED" magnet on the offender's car.

Much more civil than screaming "Fucktard" at them -- and educational to boot!

Idea for streetcar collision avoidance

SUV, streetcar collide; no one hurt


A sport-utility vehicle ran a red light Wednesday morning and was hit by one of the new South Lake Union streetcars... The crash at Mercer Street and Terry Avenue North happened at 7:28 a.m., when the SUV was going east toward Interstate 5.
. . .
The SUV driver told police he was maneuvering around a large puddle in the left lane of Mercer, then couldn't stop in time for a red light... More

If we treat this the way the City treats traffic safety out in the residential neighborhoods, then the Mercer & Terry intersection should get a traffic circle!

It would probably only take a few months to re-do the tracks to curve around the traffic circle. Not much of an inconvenience, as that amounts to only a tiny percentage of the overall streetcar line -- the same way that tracks in the Westlake curb lanes aren't much of an inconvenience for bicycles, in the overall scheme of things. So win-win!

Skid - Crash - @#^$!

I haven't ridden down Westlake since the SLUT construction crossed Mercer Street. Today's Mike Lindblom piece in the Times is not an incentive for me to try it now:

Cyclists, skinny tires, streetcar rails -- not a good mix

New streetcar tracks on Seattle's Westlake Avenue have turned into a trap for bicyclists.

The tires on a standard road bike are narrower than the 1 ¾-inch groove that holds a streetcar wheel. If a bicycle veers into that gap, it can easily get stuck, pitching the rider onto the street.

Seattle bike activists plan a wheeled protest next Wednesday, when the South Lake Union streetcar begins service from Westlake Center to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Despite the goal of Mayor Greg Nickels to triple bicycle use, the new streetcar line includes long stretches of track in the curb lanes of Westlake Avenue, where bicyclists normally ride. Many riders have adapted by riding on sidewalks, to the left of the tracks — or in the left lane, which aggravates motorists.

"The streetcar isn't operating yet, and we're already seeing people crashing," said Seattle Likes Bikes member Michael Snyder, who said he has heard of eight or nine accidents.

. . .

Alan Durning, founder of Sightline Institute, an environmental think tank, calls the Westlake situation one example of "bicycle neglect" — the American tendency to treat bikes as recreational vehicles, not primary transportation. A street posing similar hazards to cars would never be designed, he said.

More

Also in the news

Mayor Nickels want to give City employees "free bus passes." Very laudable. But free??? Someone's paying for it down the line, Greg-o.

Cyclist killed by driverless dump truck

At least that's what you're led to believe upon reading last night's Post-Intelligencer web story (today's print edition, B1) about the fatality accident at Eastlake & Fuhrman:

"A bicyclist was killed instantly and another was rushed to Harborview... after a dump truck turned into them Friday afternoon..."

This is typical journalism practice -- it's the motor vehicle that hits you; its driver is one degree of separation away from the accident. Or in the case of Casey McNerthney's story, all the way down in the eighth graf (out of of eleven), where the existence of a driver of the dump truck is finally acknowledged.

The driver "was not cited, police said."

Here's the biggest, screaming, maddening, backhanded smear in the story: "Neither was wearing a helmet". As though a helmet is going to help you survive being run over by a dump truck.

Imagine the reporter writing Neither was wearing a helmet, tsk tsk. Because that's what that little sentence means -- it's the automobile-dominant-society's check on whether the pedaling oddball was following the equipment rules, which is totally irrelevant to the matter of who committed the moving violation. In this case, the fatal collision.

The effect is to put some of the blame on the victims. Where it does not belong, because the facts are right there in the story:

The truck apparently turned right into the cyclists at the intersection [photos in Monica Guzman's bulletin]

I know that intersection, thousands of local riders know it. You approach from the south in a bike lane of less-than-ideal width. Then when you get to Fuhrman you're in a double danger zone: drivers from the University Bridge as well as Eastlake want to turn onto Fuhrman; they are in a hurry to get to Montlake, or on their way to Capitol Hill or eastbound 520. They are looking for gaps in car traffic, not for YOU on your two wheels. You are an inconvenience at the entrance to their shortcut.

Cyclists who look at Guzman's photos know what really happened yesterday. The northbound dump truck driver sped to the intersection. Two cyclists were in the bike lane in front of Romio's Pizza, and as the driver passed them we know they immediately disappeared from his/her memory, because he/she then turned into their path and drove the dump truck over them.

And yet, "the driver of the truck was not cited."


Addendum

To SDOT-- save the paint and leave out the sharrows! 99% of drivers don't know what they mean; if they did it would change nothing.

To all Seattle cyclists-- obey the freaking traffic laws; red means stop!

A chip off the old fiasco

The Seattle Department of Transportation's motto (when did they get that?) is "A vibrant Seattle through transportation excellence." NO, REALLY! I'M NOT MAKING THAT UP! Stop laughing, it's mean.

The latest bit of excellence recently took place in Carkeek, Broadview and Maple Leaf: street chip sealing, scheduled for the second week of July. Chip sealing is an innocuous-sounding process for extending the life of pavement; tar is sprayed on the existing asphalt, then rock chips are layered-on. It's like Oily Roca.

I know about this because Greenwood streets underwent Chip Seal Hell 5-6 years ago, turning neighborhoods into combat zones for months. Here's how SDOT is describing the process today:

The maintenance work will involve the application of emulsified asphalt followed by rock chips on the surface of the street...
Within several days after the street is sealed, our mechanical sweepers will sweep the street to remove any excess rock.
...
DRIVE SLOWLY (no faster than 10 mph) on the new surface for several days. This will prevent loosening the aggregate in the newly resealed street.
Bicyclists and motorcyclists should use extra caution due to loose rock.
Source

OK, this is where I pull out the red card: in Greenwood we never saw any mechanical sweepers. For a couple of weeks we would occasionally see a pickup truck with guys with brooms who would sweep up some of the rock. But no one actually changed their driving habits, resulting in rock being dislodged on an ongoing basis, for about a year. Loose rock piled up, especially at intersections. We never saw the guys with brooms again.

Oh, and telling bicyclists and motorcyclists to use "caution" is a massive understatement. SDOT should really tell you "stay off the streets unless you want your tires and drive trains covered with sticky rocks" (and remember, in this part of Greenwood there are no sidewalks to ride on). And the aforementioned piles of loose rock continued to present hazards for at least two years. It was like my street was both paved and unpaved at the same time.

From their blythe description of it, it doesn't sound like SDOT learned anything from the Greenwood chip seal operation. If you live in Carkeek, Broadview or Maple Leaf, I'd like to hear from you how it's going on your streets.

Bicycle Safety

I'm always on the lookout for new safety technology for my bicycle. It's the one area where I am more likely to shell out a few extra bucks as far as cycling gadgetry goes. Shave a few ounces off with some new clipless pedal? Um, no. But $44 for a durable, bright LED road flare? Yes, please.

I read about the the new device, intended to replace polluting, chemical emergency flares, in the Seattle P-I in May. Made by the PowerFlare company, it's a hockey puck-sized thing containing an array of LEDs, encased in a rubber cage. There's a video on the Powerflare site of one of them surviving being run over by a fire truck.

So what the heck, I ordered one. It arrived a few days later, and I zip-tied it to the inside-left of my Tubus rear rack. I used it on the glum, showery afternoon last week, and it performed well. Of course, the real test will be the first evening we go back to Standard Time (aka Seattle Night Time).

What's really great is the variety of modes, here's a video of two of them:



Powerflares come in CR123 lithium and rechargeable (if you by a six pack of them) versions.