Posts Tagged ‘Streetcar’

Top 10 goals for 2010

Monday, January 4th, 2010

It is new year and a new decade with a new mayor and new city council members in Seattle.  It seems fitting, as everyone makes resolutions for the new year, to list what we want to see for bicycling in 2010.

  1. Pass a vulnerable user law.  A traffic ticket isn’t enough when you take a life.

  2. Bring the Sharrows in Seattle in compliance with the MUTCD as we described in our earlier story.

  3. Don’t let the First Hill Streetcar become a cyclist deathtrap.  Keep cycling concerns and risks on the top of the list at every design discussion and make sure that all stakeholders are aware of the potential dangers.

  4. Keep a bicycle-able waterfront no matter what happens with the viaduct.  We have too many tourists and too many bicycle commuters along the waterfront to let bicycle infrastructure to be treated as an afterthought.

  5. Make driving while talking on a cell phone or txting a primary offense.

  6. Finally push through the legal battles to finish the Burke-Gilman Trail Missing Link and start construction.

  7. Start a bicycle boulevard network.  We have one, let’s make it a gold-standard route with full signage and stop signs for the cross traffic and then plot out a full network of boulevard routes for the potential cyclists who are afraid to mix it up with 35 and 45 mph motor traffic.

  8. Train a few SPD officers and SDOT engineers to be League of American Bicyclists Certified Instructors and spread a deeper understanding of vehicular cycling within the city staff.

  9. Require all city staff to try an alternate commute mode for at least 12 days this year.  If they drive, they should bike or bus or take the train or ferry or walk.  If they bike, great they should try the bus.
  10. Keep the Bicycle Master Plan fully funded and the implementation moving at full steam and look hard at what more we should be doing.

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Posted in Advocacy, Bicycle Master Plan, education, legislation, missing link | 2 Comments »

The First Hill Streetcar – Bicycle killer

Monday, December 14th, 2009

I crash Seattle

Seattle should have learned her lessons by now.

We have the South Lake Union Streetcar that sits in the right hand lane where bicycle riders are expected to be.  As a result, the city is facing a class action lawsuit from cyclists who have been caught in the tracks and have suffered injuries like shattered elbows.

We have the Ballard Shortline Railroad tracks that cross the Missing Link at a slight angle, garnering hundreds of signatures on Cascade’s petition including several fingerprints in blood drawn from the pavement.  SDOT has made several sets of changes to try to remediate that particular problem.

So why in the world haven’t we learned?  Why are we proposing to put a set of streetcar tracks along Boren in the right hand lane merging at a slight angle onto 12th Ave at the bottom of a hill no less.  Take a minute to look at the map here:

http://seattlestreetcar.org/about/docs/alignment/Alignment%20Figure%203%20Dec%2011.pdf

And the other proposed First Hill streetcar route documents:

http://seattlestreetcar.org/firsthill.asp

Then go take a look.  Think about bicycles with their 1/2″ wide tires traveling at 35 mph or more by the time they hit that intersection.

Feel the inertia of your bike pushing against you, resisting the turn to avoid slipping in the tracks.  Feel your stomach sink with the split-second feeling of helplessness as your bicycle is wrenched out from under you and your body is slammed sideways against the pavement, shattering your bones and twising your body up in your bicycle frame as you skid for the next 40 feet as the flesh of your face and shoulder and legs provides the road-rash friction that brings your battered flesh to a skidding stop.

It won’t be the cyclists in a class action lawsuit against the city. 
It will be the families of the dead cyclists who can’t have an open casket funeral who will be suing.

If the streetcar is worth doing, it is worth doing right.

Tuesday 12/15, 6-8pm, Seattle Central Community College
Wednesday 12/16, 6-8pm, Yesler Community Center
Thursday 12/17, 6-8pm, Union Station

The city has this project on the fast track, the public forums are all compressed into the week before Christmas and we will live with this nightmare for the next 100 years or more if it isn’t done right.  Please go ride the route and speak up at the forum.  Otherwise, we can just park the ambulence hearse at 12th and Boren.

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Posted in Advocacy, Streetcar, announce, public meetings | 5 Comments »