Comments on The Bicycle Master Plan Meeting

What is a "sharrow"? I couldn't find it in the dictionary.

Eli, what was your take on the meeting?

Apparently a sharrow is an arrow painted on the street that means "share this lane". Share + arrow. In other words, fuck all diddly.

Does the city have any other plans to accomodate other tiny, scofflaw minorities?

A "sharrow" is a big arrow painted on the road that reminds motorists the share the space with cyclists. It also sort-of demarcates a lane in which the cyclists should ride.

Click here for more.

As for my take on the meeting... Well, I wasn't able to go. Sorry. But I'm sure more than a few Slog readers were there. Maybe they can tell us more.

Like much of this plan, a "sharrow" is well-intentioned way to lure bicyclists into a false sense of security until WHAM, someone makes a right hand turn or opens a car door.

I'd rather see the money spent on a smaller system of dedicated bike paths than all of these sharrows and bike lanes.

Fnarf, do you have a life outside of commenting on EVERY single Stranger slog post?

I bet you are lot of fun at parties.

While I think road diets are utter idiocy (especially on arterials), a lot of the other ideas are great - particularly designated bike bridges over I-5 and the Ballard Bridge corridor.

FNARF is the best commenter on this blog. He's just doing what he's good at.

Wow. Fnarf has a lot to be proud of then Sean. Must be a nice life.

I was at the meeting last night. And the first meeting a couple of months ago.

The plan goes way, way beyond the "21 miles of new trail" upon which the Times article focuses. The intention is to mainly use existing roadways and make them more bike-friendly, with a goal of expanding bike arterials to something around 250 miles within the City. Currently it's around 40 miles, I think.

There were a lot of complaints from cyclists about sharrows, restriping and road diets, since these simply put bikes onto the same roads as cars. But let's get real: There's no way we're going to get bicycle-dedicated roadways criss-crossing Seattle. At least not right away.

What we CAN do right now is make folks in cars more aware of bicyclists -- sharrows do this. And give bikers more room -- road diets acheive this.

Route signage is another aspect that is being focused on. Not only will this help cyclists find there way from point-to-point, it's an added reminder to drivers that bikes exist on these particular routes and roads.

Years from now (once this plan has some momentum), I hope we can focus on getting rid of on-street parking ("car storage" I heard one guy refer to it as) on non-commercial streets like Dexter and create much safer bike lanes.

Yes, I know, it's "their".

Oh, and Jeff: I'm DYNAMITE at parties. You couldn't handle me at parties.

Do you introduce yourself as: 'Hey I'm Fnarf, yeah I comment on every Stranger slog post. I'm that guy."

I bet that slays.

I'm still undecided about Sharrows. They work OK on Pine, but I suspect some places it would be a farce to have them.

Any talk about making auto traffic stop at crossings with the Burke by the UW?

Does Pine have sharrows? If so, they're new. All I've seen is a regular bike lane.

The only sharrows I know of in Seattle are by the Fred Meyer in Fre-lard. Those sharrows are tiny. The proposed sharrows will be much larger and more visible to drivers.

Maybe it is on Pike. Somewhere East of Melrose...

Heh. I'll look for them tonight.

The ideal sharrow is almost a full lane width. Check out the size of the ones they put in Portland:

http://bikeportland.org/2005/09/28/new-sharrow-markings-in-nw/

I'm curious if the tone of the meeting in South Seattle is similar to that in Ballard. Bike accomdations south of I-90 are largely a joke.

While we're all busy 'sharrowing' each other (?), how about street signage on the Burke-Gilman, so you know which streets you're crossing. You know, like normal vehicles get.

I'm for almost any improvements to the bicycle sitch in town. ESPECIALLY truly safe routes parallelling 15th-Ave-Ballard-Bridge, and Aurora, and Rainier Ave. conduits. Coming from Michigan, Seattle has kick-ass bicycle accomodations. Yeah, they're not 100% perfect, but they're over-all pretty good.

Build more consistant and safe routes through the city, esp. to downtown, and more people will try bicycling. Just no back-pedalling on what we've already got. 'k? Thx.