Comments on Am I Wrong About the SLUT Tracks?
Eli you are out of touch with the people. Time to admit you are MSM.
I didn't here it.
And as long you don't come across as a whiney bicyclist complaining about urban structures foiling you leisurely and selfish mode of transportation, then it's all good.
Well, there are tram tracks all over Amsterdam and old people seem to handle them just fine. Simple rule: go perpendicular whenever you have to cross.
Eli - Any experienced rider can cross tracks that run across a road - just make sure the wheels are perpendicular and all will be good. But riding parallel to tracks is something else. Try to cross tracks with a deep groves in them when the bike wheels are at almost the same angle would be difficult for even the most experienced riders. I'd love to see how you manage that. Do you bunny hop laterally across them? Please tell us when can meet you down on Westlake for a demonstration in traffic?
"SLUT tracks" makes me think of "skidmarks."
i rode it two ways yesterday. heading north on westlake and south on fairview.
on westlake. not so bad as long as your willing to ride in the left hand lane of traffic. drivers find this anoying but it is undeniably legal as long as you dont hold anyone up to much. oh. signal your turns. drivers like that as much as cyclists.
crossing fairview, heading south at that weird left turn. this spot is very dangerous. the key to crossing rails safely, and its pretty easy, is to cross them at an angle of greater than 30 or so degrees. the problem is theres not enough room to swing wide right and cross those tracks because theres fast moving traffic on your right.
it seems like this spot was not well thought out.
the system overall though, no big deal. just get out in traffic, make yourself know and signal.
Riding bikes iz haaaaaaaaard!
Just take your time and there won't be a problem. Are the riders bitching about the tracks or the fact that they might have to take mind of their surroundings?
The great SLUT track controversy only proves one thing. Seattle residents love to complain.
Get a job, hippies!
nope, not wrong.
hey ecce hommo, id hardly call cycling in traffic leisurley. if sweating and breathing hard are leisurely, sure. and why is it selfish? because i might prevent you from getting to the next red light 4 seconds faster? is it selfish of me to want to reduce the overall carbon footprint of seattle? is it selfish of me to desire a clean environment for all of us?
maybe you can justify it by saying that by holding up traffic i cause more congestion. but thats just as easily countered with, make it more attractive to commute by bike and there will be less congestion.
so why the hate?
I bike that route every single day. I crossed those tracks at 8:30 this morning, and I'll cross them again this evening whenever I stumble out of happy hour. There's really nothing to it: Make sure you're stable on your bike, cross the rails with your wheels as close to perpendicular as you can, and most importantly, STOP YER BITCHING.
There are so many things that we bicyclists can and should be fighting for - more bike lines, dedicated bike ways, prosecution of aggressive drivers, etc. - but any mass transit system that encourages people to get out of their cars, including the silly SLUT, is a boon to cycling.
Hate is all he has, teddancin. Hate and bad spelling.
Experienced track-crossers learn a little zig-zag maneuver to hit them at just the right angle, but that's not always practical. Gosh, if only there was some way to move the tracks out of the way -- suspend them up in the air, maybe, or put them in an underground tunnel. But I guess that's impossible.
The tracks on Westlake are more mentally difficult than they are physically for cyclists because of the placement of the tracks. If you don't feel comfortable riding in the lane with the tracks, then you've got the lanes closest to the center of the road. But cars may not realize why you're there, seeing only that you're in the middle of the street. I ride Westlake everyday, and although it can be frightening to cross sets of tracks, a little confidence usually helps. You are after all riding in traffic anyways, so you can't be that spineless. Go for it!
Most people drive cars and walk on sidewalks. A trip by car or a walk down a sidewalk that includes any encounters with bicyclists is significantly more unpleasant than a trip without bicyclists. If you can get where you are going without seeing any bicyclists, then you will be that much happier. Even if we went balls out for bicycling, like Portland, we'd still only have a pathetic 5% of trips by bicycle, which is hardly worth it. The self-righteousness and non-stop complaining don't help win any popularity contests either.
That's why the hate. No bicyclists is expected to understand, but it isn't like bicyclists just got all unpopular spontaneously for no logical reason at all.
I heard the SLUT tracks were purposely designed to catch bike tires.
i want to make myself clear.
the tracks on westlake.
no big deal.
stop bitching.
the turn from fairview to fairview.
frightening.
have to cross both tracks with very little romm to swing wide and do that little zig-zag. (why do i want a whiskey?)
I don't think the debate is at all transit vs. bicycles. It's about good engineering practices.
I think the SLUT is actually a pretty good idea, but why'd they go and put the tracks on the wrong part of the road on Westlake? How much money did they "save", and how much are they going to lose trying to patch it up and avoid lawsuits?
Right idea, wrong implementation.
The cyclists bitching about the tracks are full of shit. If push comes to shove you just plant your feet and lift the bike over the fucking rails. That SLU interchange between Westlake and Eastlake has always been miserable for cyclists. There are places where we can't turn and have to use the crosswalk, places where we have to merge into heavy traffic to turn left. It sucks. The rails are hardly the fucking dealbreaker. But people who can't handle it should take the high road, Boylston to Lakeview to Melrose and then ride down at Denny or Pike/Pine, rather than making all cyclists look like a pack of twats by "protesting" a transit option that's already in place.
It's not a matter of changing your position, Eli, it's about educating yourself on the issue. I certainly hope SLOG will not be your only source of enlightenment.
Every time I read "SLUT" I just laugh so hard. It is so damn clever and it just never stops being funny. It will be as funny 10 years from now as it is today.
again, none of the cyclists i know are against the rail line at all. everyone is against HOW IT WAS BUILT. other cities have put in rail lines like this and done it with a little intelligence.
they should be in the center lane, and have gap fillers.
fuck, if the city put gap fillers in them now, it would probably be alot less of a problem.
ps, im about to eat a huge pepperoni and pineapple pizza.
Gap Fillers?
But that would be a modern design.
We can't have that!
It's just one more thing on a long list of things that you have to pay attention to as you ride along that street and it didn't have to be that way. Catching my wheel in some poorly placed railroad tracks, getting thrown from my bike and then run over by a passing car shouldn't even approach becoming a reality in a city that promises to be bike friendly. Riding a bike is dangerous, period. The city shouldn't be constructing obstacle courses to make it even more dangerous. I've watched friends, experienced riders, catch wheels in those tracks and fall. If they can do it, anyone can. I'm sorry if standing up for ourselves and our rights as cyclist sounds like whining to you. Maybe you'd feel differently if you'd ever been in a needless accident?
I'm sorry if standing up for ourselves and our rights as cyclist sounds like whining to you. Maybe you'd feel differently if you'd ever been in a needless accident?
I've been in needless accidents. In fact, I still have some scars from wiping out on the plastic "gap fillers" where the Burke-Gillman crosses the tracks between Fremont and Ballard. But I've also got enough perspective to realize that that accident was my fault for going to fast around that corner.
And that you're a bunch of whiners.
Where, exactly, are bicyclists having trouble? There are plenty of alternative N/S routes in SLU itself, like Dexter, and soon 9th Ave, which will become two-way with bike lanes next year.
So is it South of Denny? North of Mercer? Both?
I've always found Westlake South of Denny to be a crappy street to ride, because the light timings are all funky. So I usually ride SLUT-free on one of the neighboring avenues.
seattle city planners don't think.
dumb... shits... over... and... over.
this all wouldn't even be a conversation... if they weren't such dumb fucks.
I missed the show, I'll have to listen to the archive.
The tracks are just another thing on the road demanding respect and attention.
High voltage electrial wires are handled safely every day by professionals, but without the proper respect and attention they will kill even the professionals.
As cyclists, we have many things to keep our attention on because we can get hurt so easily, from side traffic to cars behind us, pedestrians, traffic signals, parked cars opening doors, defects in the roadway, and now Westlake has the added item of the tracks.
Yes, it is possible to ride up Westlake on a skinny tire bike without crashing. I cross tracks at an acute angle every day, but it requires attention to make sure I hit the angle right and the streetcar has the problem of varying angles. If traffic pulls my attention away from the tracks, I risk getting caught.
Since I am not a hipster bike messenger, I can't just hop my bike out of the tracks and I will crash.
Already one sad incident has shattered the elbow of one rider. Another incident caused another rider to flip over their handlebars and cause a fair amount of damage to a car. A streetcar driver has seen two cyclists wipe out in front of him. More reports keep coming in from people who have been injured here.
The horrible thing is that it is preventable. SDOT's bicycle group and area bike clubs warned the streetcar project manager of the dangers and they were ignored. Portland had the same experience and now has guidelines to put their new streetcar lines in the CENTER of the road, not on the right hand side like the SLUT is.
The SLUT is fine on Valley/Fairview where the tracks run in the center lane. The SLUT is problematic on Westlake where the tracks run in the right, curb lane.
The laws and social norms dictate cyclists should ride as far to the right as is safe.
Unfortunately some poor traffic engineering put train tracks in the right hand lane, rendering it unsafe for cyclists. Thus cyclists must ride in the left lane to be safe, violating the general understanding that they should be on the right.
This causes motorist/bicyclist conflicts due to poor driver education. Got it?
Just another example of natural selection at work…
@10,
so why the hate?
Because he's an idiot, that's why.
Does anybody know if these rubber gap fillers work? If so, how well? Could they have prevented the accidents that have happened?
Eli,
You were right. I rode through there this morning. SLUT tracks and Mr. Allen’s Neighborhood Trolly are minor components of the danger. I am all for bicycle safety, but mass transit is not a good target of bicyclist’s frustrations regardless of the design flaws.
the gap fillers work alright for reducing the trapped wheel situation but i dont think they really do much overall because the steel tracks are still there at ground level. when a tire hits the tracks, the change of surface, especially in the rain, can cause the tire to slip out from underneath you.
my opinion, only way to cross them safely is to come at them obliquely.
there are some gap fillers on alaskan way by the coast gaurd depot/base/dock.
go and give em a try.
@28 - Michael
Did any of the people in those accidents report the accidents?
You report accidents by calling 911. Yes, that 9-1-1. Call and say you want to file a report - insist on it. Even if you were the only person in the accident. They may not send an officer out right there and then, but they will call you back later in the day and let you file a report over the phone. And get the case number when they do that.
The traffic/road accident reports get forwarded (eventually) to the transportation department, who keeps counts and that is what they use to decide if a road or traffic condition is dangerous. See more on this here.
If an accident isn't reported, then it NEVER happened as far as the city is concerned. So if you want the city to start taking you seriously, then start reporting your accidents so that the city's own records start to make your case for you.
And sue them. It's beginning to sound as if there are enough accidents that have already happened on the SLUT tracks to consider a class action lawsuit with multiple victims, yes? Seriously, yes.
It isn't the mass transit that is the target of our frustrations, it is the total neglect of prior experience and writing-off of cyclist safety concerns in the design phase.
There is a bike lane planned by the Bicycle Master Plan just a few blocks away, but it isn't on the schedule to be implemented until late 2008 or early 2009. Why?
The mass transit could have been implemented in a way that is much safer to cyclists, but it wasn't. Other cities put streetcar tracks in the center of the road.
There is a discussion in the forums on cascade.org about the rubber track filler. It isn't obvious to cyclists that SDOT seriously considered the filler options. Some of the fillers on the market are designed to prevent this type of problem.
When Seattle had lots of trolleys decades ago, they knew better than to put them in the right lane.
When Seattle started its design studies for the SLUT, its own reports said putting the tracks in the right lane would make the streets unacceptably dangerous for bicycles -- but said bicycles would have to take a different route, rather than alter the layout of the tracks.
When the city put the tracks in, they already had it in their own reports that the tracks would be dangerous for bicycles, so what warnings did they install? Signs? Pavement markings? Public outreach? Coordination with the Bicycle Master Plan? Zip, zero, nothing, not a sign, not a drop of paint, no effort to warn the public of a danger the city knew it was creating on public streets.
Now the city is talking about expanding the trolley system. They know right-lane tracks are more dangerous for bicycles, pedestrians, the disabled, and parked vehicles. But they knew that before. Will they make use of that knowledge this time?
I'm starting to think maybe the problem is that people are riding bicycles that simply aren't safe for travel on city streets. Maybe track bikes with super-narrow tires just aren't the best idea. You wouldn't drive a Formula 1 race car through Seattle for any number of safety and practicality reasons, so why would you ride a race bike?
Why the hate? People in cars, at least slog commenters in cars, hate people on bicycles because they spend way too much time driving around in traffic, which is stressful and miserable. Of course, it's not bicycles that cause the vast majority of traffic slow-downs, it's other cars. But if you hate people in cars, and you're in a car, then you have to hate yourself, so it's just easier to bitch about the folks on bikes.
Eli,
Riding parallel to the tracks is very different than riding across them at a 90 degree angle. Try riding from the Whole Foods to Westlake Center and vice versa. Just be careful.
@35 - Like everything, some yes, some no. Who wants to sit on the sidewalk for 2 hours waiting for an officer to show up, or go out of their way to visit a precinct office to pick up a form so they can file a report? The success or failure of the Bicycle Master Plan is partially graded on the number of cyclist accidents, but even the city council admits that the city needs a better way to measure accidents than police reports.
Other cities put streetcar tracks in the center of the road.
Are you people stupid or what? Right-lane tracks require either an additional center lane for passenger platforms, or wider roads where passenger platforms displace adjacent traffic. Passenger platforms are necessary because nobody wants to be standing in the middle of the fucking street with nothing but a yellow line to protect them from oncoming traffic.
Either way, you're talking about a huge cost multiplier on the project. And for what, exactly? So a couple of scores of cyclists can ride faster on a corridor that serves thousands of drivers and is intended to serve hundreds of trolley passengers?
the tracks would be dangerous for bicycles, so what warnings did they install? Signs?
There are signs on the tracks in Ballard that basically say, "Cyclists, be careful crossing the tracks!" Every time I blow past them I think, "And don't stick your finger light sockets. Don't lick steak knives. Wipe front to back not back to front."
In other words, if you're too stupid to avoid a fucking railroad track, you're too stupid to be riding a bike through traffic.
Apparently other cities are capable of building tracks down the center of the street without going bankrupt. Why can't Seattle?
And what would be the increase in cost to the project to build the tracks down the center? Whatever the additional cost is, that is the price of a bicyclist's life, as far as the city is concerned.
It'll be pretty harsh to go to a loved one of a dead cyclist and say "for only $250,000 more dollars we could have built the tracks that took your loved one's life in such a way that they would be alive today, but we just thought your loved one's life wasn't worth the extra cost. Have a nice day."
Why do cyclists hate America?
@41: Excellent! I await your upcoming white paper on how the state should save money by omitting guardrails from future road projects. After all, if you're too stupid to slow down on curves or in dangerous driving conditions, you're too stupid to be driving at all.
@41 -- When the city installs a road hazard that violates established standards for public roads, it needs to justify the deviation and warn about it.
If these tracks were crossing the road at a right angle, or close to it, a normal railway crossing sign would suffice. Not that the city seems to have bothered with those, either.
But these aren't crossing the road at a right angle, they're in the right lane, parallel to traffic, or oblique to normal traffic within an intersection.
When a cyclist is riding in heavy traffic and the road ahead is full of cars, the cyclist can't see the road surface itself, only the vehicles on the road. Unlike some of the folks on SLOG, I make no claims to psychic abilities. Nor do most riders, I think.
Someone who is familiar with a particular street and rides it frequently may know well ahead of time that a hazardous lane is coming up. Someone who is not so familiar with a street may not see the tracks until they're already trapped within them.
The safest approach then is to stop despite the heavy traffic, walk the bike out from between the tracks, and ride in a different lane. That does slow down motorists more than if the tracks had been designed competently, but it is safer, and legal.
Motorists will do doubt blame the cyclist for being slow, rather than the city for putting the tracks in the wrong place, but anyone who rides in traffic is used to motorists being largely oblivious to road conditions.
@44
There is empirical evidence that removing sings, stop lights, guard rails, painted lines and even curbs can reduce accidents and speed traffic flow in congested areas, while discouraging speeding on open roads.
The reason is simply that people wake up and pay attention when you don't constantly give drivers specific instructions on what to do, when, where, and how. You can force them to think if you don't help them too much.
@46: I've heard that trend referred to as "naked roads." There's some really interesting psychology behind it.
Absent from all of this debate is the question of "what the fuck is the SLUT good for?". Really, I'd like to know. It's not as if bus service to this neighborhood didn't already exist, it's not as if it was infrequent, it's not as if it was an inconvenient way to get back and forth to downtown. So why the fuck did we need to spend 50 million dollars to put in this toy train system? The SLUT is nothing more than the route 70 on rails, and wait until there's an accident involving it. The whole line will be shut down until it's cleared. If you have buses you can route around this sort of thing, not so when you're on tracks.
Westlake, up until a month or so ago, was one way going north, towards the lake.
Where were all of these Bicyclists in this notorious right lane riding against traffic heading south? All of a sudden, you act as if this was a lane that you used all the time!
Answer: There wern't any. Quit your bitching and STFU.
Take 9th and Dexter, like you always have, and stop trying to find things to complain about.
@46: I've heard that, too. But, since the city is not going to remove all signs on Westlake (or 44th in Ballard), a more prudent approach seems to me to add the signs, not to whine about how people who get into accidents are stupid.
@49: For all your claims about your superior local knowledge, you still haven't enumerated a good northbound alternative from downtown to the University District. Hint: Dexter doesn't work.
I think @29 said it best - the reality is that the sections where the line runs in the center lane are not as bad as the sections where the line runs on the curb lane just after the hill - a cyclist has to deal with the pitch change, braking, checking for traffic (car drivers and trucks don't always respect bikes in crossings if they want to turn), and wet slick tracks all at once.
ecce homo: Fantasy Unlimited to City Limits DVD via bicycle, how would you do it?
Yeah, I've done it. Westlake is the only good way.
Best way to get from downtown to U-District? Jesus, there's about a thousand ways. Take Eastlake, or take dexter, Westlake to the Fremont Bridge then across on the Burke. Eastlake to Lakeview and wind your way down Bellvue etc. Hell, ride up Capital hill down to montlake for all I care.
I had no idea that one street would screw up Bicycle commutes so badly.
So I guess that extra block to 9th make's it impossible to get around the city. Bicyclists are dense.
You didn't answer the question. What did you do before Westlake was a two way street? Did you ride against traffic and dodge the parked cars on the street? Or were you so crippled by city planning that you couldn't ride...
@53: Before Westlake was changed, I took Valley to 9th or Dexter southbound, Westlake northbound. Now I take Westlake exclusively, since I ride a mountain bike, and the tracks are no big deal to me.
But enough of the arguing, since ecce homo is basically in favor of everything the Seattle Likes Bikes people are recommending. He doesn't want cyclists to use Westlake, they want the city to put up warning signs (which will have roughly the same effect). He wants them to use alternate routes, they want the city to install the signed alternate bike route (on 9th) that they've proposed.
Glad to see you're on our side.
#54
I am
What I am not in favor of is the endless freaking complaining about how the City doesn't decide every little move in the course of it development without their narrow agenda and specific needs at the forefront.
#55
The city can't have it both ways.
Out of one side of their mouth, they claim to want to TRIPLE the number of bicycle commuters in the next decade while REDUCING accidents by one third. See page 8 of the recently passed Bicycle Master Plan.
Out of the other side of their mouth they beat the professional cycling advocates into submission, forcing them to choose between a design that will injur cyclists and completely banning cyclists from a road that is commonly used.
To tell you the truth, I hate to freaking out and complaining to the city about how they screwed up. I'd love it if for once I could get an actual human, not a form letter, response to a concern. Write the mayor about Stone Way today and you will get the same form letter response that I got 5 months ago.
I take time to explain how bike lanes spaced closely to parked cars on steep downhill slopes encourage dangerous cyclist placement, counter to "speed positioning" that is taught by good cycling instructors and the Mayor's form letter response proclaims "you will be glad to know that we are adding bike lanes on both directions of Fremont Ave"...exactly what I am trying to get SDOT to STOP doing!
How do we get anyone from the city to listen? All we get in response is canned form letter responses. Is *anyone* home in city hall? I don't care if they don't agree, I just want to know that someone understands the problem.
So, when we can't get the city to listen, we are forced to do things like organize www.SeattleLikesBikes.org protest rides. The city could stop us from protesting very easily: Listen to our concerns and Talk to us about what will be done to mitigate the dangers.
We really don't want to have to plan any more memorial rides like we did for Bryce Lewis. We aren't being whining babies here, we just don't want to see our friends die from preventable problems.
"How do we get anyone from the city to listen?"
Unfortunately what it takes is a body count, an actual pile of corpses.
Seriously, that is what does it. I wish I were joking but I'm not.
Only when the city's own statistics show serious accidents resulting in injury or death will they begin to perceive a street or traffic condition as dangerous.
The (twisted) good news is that once there is a body count, then the national "warrants" that govern traffic engineering will compel the city to make changes.
The sad part is that it takes several serious injuries or deaths before the city and transportation department will begin to use the common sense god gives morons.
There are several notable examples of this pattern of behavior. Perhaps the current most notorious example is the death of Della city council aide Tatsuo Nakata who was killed in 2006 in a West Seattle crosswalk which neighbors and businesses had been warning and pleading with the city to do something about for years.
Of course in the month following this death the city began to take action to "improve" the intersection. And of course now there is the Matthew “Tatsuo” Nakata Act. (HB 1588) at the state level to "improve" driver education about sharing the road with pedestrians and bicyclists, blah, blah.
The city transportation department has a well-developed system of denial that prevents them from acknowledging a road condition is dangerous until someone dies because of it.
(sigh)
I guess the proper thing to do is ask if there are any volunteers out there willing to die on the SLUT tracks so we can begin to get the damned thing fixed?
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