Go to bed. My life is over, and thereby everyone elses should be too.

Population of Barcelona: 1,673,075. Population of Seattle: 582,174.

I know it's vogue among leftists to pick a European country that has a particular aspect you like and use it to argue how behind-the-times the U.S. is, but when you do that, the least you could do is to get your comparisons straight. Most Spanish cities the size of Seattle are not significantly denser than Seattle, also have busses not subways, and don't have free bike programs. (Spain does differ from the U.S. though, in having this cool, progressive abortion law that bans all abortions except in the most extreme, government-approved circumstances.)

If you want a good European conuntry to illustrate your transit and urban development principals, try the Netherlands.

The Bicing program has been a pretty huge success here. People use them for getting to places the metro doesn't go, for avoiding a taxi, and the other day I saw a food-delivery guy riding one.

Interesting trivia: the name, "Bicing", is a combination of the Catalan word for bike, bicicleta, and the current trend of adding the English suffix "ing" to Spanish and Catalan verbs to make them hip (like Vueling, the airline based here).

Anyway, as a former Seattle resident and Stranger reader, and current Slog fan, I'd be happy to show you around Barcelona or Sitges if you want a guide. Though it sounds like you're doing pretty well on your own.

Well, how is the cycling infrastructure in Barcelona? Is it really the free bikes?

Here in Toronto, I can get a bike cheap enough to beat having a car or taking transit (hell, I can probably buy one every month and it'd STILL be cheaper than taking transit because transit costs stupid here), but I don't do it because I would DIE.

All bikes are equal. It's just that some bikes are more equal than others.

Yes, Seattle isn’t in Europe, and no, we don’t have the same culture of cycling that cities like Barcelona cultivate. But you’ve got to start somewhere. Why not a free bike program?

Because it rains all the time here. Because the densest two thirds of the city is built on hills. Because the densest parts of our city are full of hipster vandals, car stereo thieves and assholes who'd like nothing more than to destroy bikes like these to "get back at the yuppies that are destroying our neighborhood." Because we don't have good bike lanes here, and riding on the streets is dangerous and frightening. Because the commercial liability insurance on a venture like this would be unreasonably expensive. Because people using the service would have to carry bike helmets around with them in order to utilize it.

And so on.

@2:
The metro area populations of Barcelona and Seattle are 5 million and about 3 million. Both are big urban/suburban agglomerations.

As for the statement that Spain doesn't have subways, checkout urbanrail.net, which shows there are many subway/urban rail systems in the Iberian peninsula
(in metro areas with populations larger than, smaller than and roughly similar to ours):
Valencia metro pop. 1 million,
Bilbao metro pop. 1 million
Lisbon 2.6 million
Madrid and Barcelona about 5 mill each

Even the Palma, Majorca, metro area (pop. 462K) has 8 km now and 11 km planned, about the length of the light rail we are building today in the Seattle area.

For all the complaining about Seattle's transit issues there really has not been much done about it over the past decade. The only thing we have seen is light rail (from Seattle to SeaTac) which is great if you need to go to the airport I suppose and a street car that provides transit for a minor portion of the city.

We are a car culture and that is what we have to deal with. Until gas becomes prohibitive to purchase (let's say in the $7.00 or more range) we will have no incentive to try a biking program much less rapid transit. Take a look at how many SOV's you can count on city streets during the weekends. AND gas is hovering around $3.30 a gallon.

sheesh! i always thought it was the p-i that brought out the trolls - looks like it actually is just posting anything about bikes.

anyway, the thing that was most interesting to me in spain about cycling, and this was in all size cities, from madrid and barcelona to pamplona, cordoba and san sebastian (all three of which are significantly smaller than seattle, #2) is the other thing that's in the picture: bike lanes that are physically separated from the car lanes and sidewalks. these made cycling around all of these cities such a joy, i never once felt threatened or endangered, it was easy, fun, no one swore at me, in fact everyone was very pleasant.

i do not have any idea why these are not being implemented here. they are so much safer than bike lanes in the road and take up the same amount of space. you wouldn't even have to build all of these special separate areas for the bike-roads (although it would be nice); any street here that has bike lanes in two directions could easily be reconfigured to have a bike-only lane that runs between the parking lanes and the sidewalk, as they do on as lot of streets there. all of a sudden, everyone is happy because everyone has a place. to me this is really the only sensible bicycle solution in terms of safety for cyclists and city-wide bike/car/pedestrian harmony, which is really lacking here.

I wish I thought I'd ever get to see Barcelona. I seethe with impotent envy.

this would never work in the united states. americans steal.

Ah yes, beautiful Barcelona. A great city with beautiful ramblas, but you do not want to be an immigrant there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH_D5LF8N2k

This young woman was kicked in the face and beaten, groped, spat at by a racist, but the judge later released him because he felt he didnt threaten her life.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Libre/pese/todo/elpepisoc/20071028elpepisoc_1/Tes

El Pais runs story just about everyday of immigrants beaten by fascists and in one case by the Barcelona police.

But, the architecture is great!

I remember the purple bikes in Spokane. So does the Internet. I guess they tried free white bikes and yellow bikes too, but it only takes a few bad apples to ruin everyone's fun, apparently.

I, too, think bike lanes should be separate, to protect the pedestrians from bikes and drivers from suicide-by-bike.

@ 6: why do you have to spoil everything with "logic".

Also, the red bikes in Amsterdam are free, all the time. Just pick one up if you see it, drop it off on a bike rack when you are done.

Amsterdam tried the public bike idea in the 60's and it failed miserably; the bikes were either stolen or poorly cared for. It's not a guaranteed win.

Is Barcelona a country? They speak French there, right?

The free bike system is developing in France right now, with a deposit system that prevents most of the stealing and maintenance teams to take care of most of the vandalism. As an example, the "velov" system began two years ago in Lyon (in english: www.velov.grandlyon.com/Index.1.0.html?&no_cache=1&L=1)
and works pretty well despite all the hills, for an city of about 500 000 inhabitants. I don't know lots about traffic in Seattle, but as a european, allow me to doubt whether your car-only way of life can last much longer...

BEE-theeng

Thanks, ECB, for poisoning my sweet memories of Barcelona, perhaps my favorite city in the world, with your further juvenile musings comparing apples to oranges.

And, wait, let me guess... Bus drivers in Barcelona also let people off buses at undesignated stops, people do not sneeze in public, and there are taco stands without running water sprout up on every corner.

At least they didn't decide to go with bikes designed by Gaudi, because they'd probably be pretty hard to ride, though funky.
You don't effect changes like this though without changing attitudes from the ground up, and it all starts with eating lots of cured raw pig's leg's, starting the morning off with a small quaff of jerez fino, and cultivating an abiding secret affection for life under fascism (ok that one we have down.)

I don't know lots about traffic in Seattle, but as a european, allow me to doubt whether your car-only way of life can last much longer...

Have you ever actually been to a Western American city? The population of the United States has basically tripled since 1910 and all that new development is car development -- wide dispersal of basic services, low density single family housing, big yards, street parking and so on. American dependence on cars isn't just a lifestyle choice that can be discarded. We have trillions of dollars of infrastructure that's specifically designed for motorized personal transportation.

That doesn't mean we don't need to change how we do things but, "as a European", surrounded by pre-car cities with pre-car street grids and pre-car mass-transit systems, I'm not sure you grasp what's actually involved in that.

The first thing I noticed in that last photograph is that the bikes don't have to ride amidst a bunch of cars. That makes a huge difference for safety.

Where I think this would be useful is for intra-neighborhood transit --- like either around downtown/pioneer square/"uptown" --- where the terrain is fairly flat and errands could be simplified by a bike.

Didn't Seattle (or Portland) have a failed experiment with free Green (or Yellow) Bikes in the 90s? Maybe the small fee is enough to get people to take care of the bike?

Incidentally, didn't Annie Wagner just make fun of the UW's new electric bicycle checkout program?

@22 - when i read "But what I really want to talk about is this:" and then saw a picture of bicyclists on a little miniature road made just for bikes, I got excited.

I thought, "finally, erica is going to say how smart and fun it is to have your bikes segregated from cars."

instead, she talks about flex-car-for-bikes as if the infrastructure that allows such things to happen isn't a pre-requisite. disappointing.

Access to bikes isn't the problem. Safe avenues through which to ride them is.

ECB, I think the only way you're successfully going to convince Seattle that we have a non-road-dependent public transit problem (and we do) is to go to a city that's less populated in North America and is more dependent on cars overall.

That city is Edmonton, Alberta.

They only have two lines, but at least it's two lines. But ETS runs every 5 to 10 minutes, mostly underground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_Light_Rail_Transit

I was there on a Sunday at noon on a nice enough sunny day. The amount of people that were using it? One. The station was empty. Yet there it was, a fully decked out subway station that dwarfs the aesthetics of an NYC MTA station, which is saying a lot.

Seriously. Go to Edmonton, and ride ETS. There's a chunk of your arguments supported. Come back to Seattle and say "Look!". I can't stop thinking about how much light rail Edmonton has compared to us, given how much smaller and more car-driven that city is.

@19 - there are also no breast- or woman-shaped novelty items there. Mustn't forget that. It's heaven on earth, I tell you!

Don't miss Parc Guell, Erica. Train and bus service is so-so, perfect place to ride a bike to.

Mostly good stuff, ECB. However:

Even if some people rode the bikes downhill only (from Capitol Hill to the U District, say) and took the bus or a cab back, that would be a huge improvement over driving both ways, right?

Then there's a shortage of bikes at the top of the hill and a mostly unused surplus at the bottom. Unless the owners spent money to haul bikes back up the hill (which, then, would gradually increase the cost of the bikes' usage for everyone else), that would create a problem in the long term.

Notice the helmet-less riders? So you're cool with that, Eric? As long as it's not a fixed-gear bike, I guess, anything goes.

I know someone who works for Metro and they were specifically looking to do something like this but couldn't because of Seattle's mandatory helmet law. unless they rented out helmets along with the bikes they would have had legal trouble, and nobody wants a lice infested helmet that somebody puked in.

thats the real barrier to this happening in seattle. if Metro could provide the bikes without risking liability for the injuries that happen when helmetless lawbreakers road their bikes it would already be happening here

ECB is right. If Seattle was more like Manhattan or Europe we could have a dense, vibrant urban city with great restaurants and free bike. Bus transportation is only for losers. I'd never ride the bus in Seattle. But if they'd only put in a Subway like we had in Manhattan I'd ride it every day.

@21,

I doubt that she's saying that it would be easy to completely remake American culture, but rather that we're going to have to do it eventually.

I thought the UW program was going to experiment with electric bikes--ones that you can either pedal assist or not, and which would be plugged in at the stations for recharging. An electric bike dispenses with much of the hill problems. Also, if there is a fee for using the program--one which requires the giving up of personal information, it seems that would prevent a lot of the theft problem.

Still, I agree that the helmut issue is a problem, as is the rain (and riding on a day like today, you need good rain gear. Also, for all that it rains so much in Seattle, no one seems to have entry ways or mud rooms in their houses or businesses. So when one walks inside, dripping and muddy, there's nothing to do but drip all over the nice rug, or the racks and displays, or other people's dinner tables. There's an outside infrastructure problem, and no place to drip inside. We're doomed.

"We need action and we need action now!"

@21:

That's absolute bullshit. Americans did without cars for oh, several hundred years. I'm tired of hearing cop-outs from lazy Americans that throw temper tantrums whenever the topic of eschewing car use comes up. Stop making excuses for what simply comes down to LAZINESS, and grow a fucking pair already.

ECB so how many air trips this year or did you take a sailboat? Each air trip is equivalent to 12,000 miles of driving and that's for a transcontinental trip, to Europe maybe 25,000 miles of driving.

And as for your complaining about not being able to afford a car or rent or ...

@35, if my memory serves correctly, Judah doesn't even own a car. So, I don't think it's laziness on his part that is making him question changing our car culture.

@35

Not only do I not own a car, but I'm 35 years old and I've never owned a car. I didn't even get a driver's license until I was 26 and, in my entire life, I've spent less than 40 hours behind the wheel of a car. Also, I generally walk the 3 miles to and from work. In fact, I walked 3 miles to work this morning in the pouring rain. So if the magnitude of one's anti-car credentials is a measure of the size of one's "pair", I'm pretty sure my junk makes you look like fucking Farinelli. In any event, no, my opinion about American car culture is not based on laziness.

It's based on what I think is a fairly considered view of the evolution of Western cities over the last 100 years.

You're the one pitching a tantrum, @35.

#35 You are a complete retard.

#36 Right the fuck on!!!

Hi trolls,

Not going to respond to the usual crap about how I'm juvenile, Seattle is totally different than any other city anywhere ever and we can't do ANYTHING here except keep driving forever, etc., except to say this: There are tons of cars here too. People ride in the streets here too. It isn't just on separated lanes. And theft is a problem in Barcelona just like it is in Seattle--that's why they designed the bikes to deter theft of parts (plus, they're not very fancy).

And Barcelona rocks, so screw all y'all.

ECB

@35 - are you french?

I was there in March and I'm happy to see my favorite piece of graphiti is still in tact. Barcelona, so lovely. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprizee/430027559/in/set-72157600007699912/

What is it with you guys at the Stranger slogging on your vacations? ECB, just enjoy your trip and don't worry about us trolls back home.

Excuses excuses.

There's nothing qualitatively different about the way Barcelones and Seattle-ites live. Both cities are progressive islands in a sea of conservatism, both have been "it" cities in their respective lands, both have more than their share of immigrants and new arrivals, both cities have hills, waterways, thieves, drivers, and hip young people eager for something new. The biggest difference between the two in terms of transportation is that Seattle-ites are Americans, and are therefore burdened with an ungodly wealth and sense of entitlement.

Yanks feel entitled to drive cars whenever they want, burning as much gas as they choose, with the "privilege" of ignoring the needs and wants of every human being other than themselves. The Spanish, and the Catalans, were dirt poor until relatively recently, and have the recent experience of living through a ghastly war and the ensuing deprivation. They know what it means to be aware of other people and to conserve resources, and are therefore more willing to make choices that may make their lives slightly less convenient for the sake of saving a few dollars and contributing to a healthier environment.

As the Spanish get richer, the culture is changing. It's great that the free bikes exist, but you can also now see many single-passenger cars and S.U.V.'s on the streets of Barcelona, which simply didn't exist 10 years ago. Given the luxury of weath (or the availability of bottomless debt) most people will choose to drive. It takes someone with a more generous spirit or larger vision to give up their "entitlement" to a car for a much more sensible bicycle.

@41: No I'm not French, thank god. I am very very Septic. Regardless, I think other Seppos that think cars are some kind of irrevocable birthright are complete dickheads that should be pushed off of a cliff. And then given the AIDS.

ECB--thanks for posting from Barcelona. The Erica-haters were just jonesing for an outlet. Have a great trip.

The biggest difference between the two in terms of transportation is that Seattle-ites are Americans, and are therefore burdened with an ungodly wealth and sense of entitlement.

I'm sorry, is that meant to be funny? This is a density comparison between Los Angeles and Barcelona. There's a lot of variation around the West Coast, but LA's density characteristics may be viewed as typical for comparison with European population centers generally.

That difference in density implies other things about the basic design of the city. So, for example, a grocery store needs a certain number of customers in order to stay open. Call it 5,000 people. The population density in Ballard is about 6,000 people per square mile, so you get a grocery store about once per square mile -- which means that the nearest grocery store can be about a mile away. Which means that someone living in Ballard may have to cart a load of groceries a long-ass way.

Compare that to downtown Barcelona, where the population density runs to 35,000 people per square mile. Those people get 7 grocery stores per square mile, so they don't have to go very far to buy groceries and therefore don't need cars to haul them.

This dynamic applies to everything: schools, mass transit, hospitals, government offices and so on. If you were to take someone from virtuous Spain and dump them in a city where the nearest grocery store was a mile a way, you know what they'd do? They'd buy a fucking car.

The situation in American cities can and should be changed. The zoning regs that protect low-density single family housing in North Seattle should be changed to allow higher density in the city. The resulting increase in tax revenues should be used to build permanent mass transit. Resources should be diverted from freeways to cover the costs of some of these measures.

But it's unbelievably expensive, and requires a sea change in our political priorities that would be no easier to create an Europe than it is here, romantic "Aren't Europeans great and enlightened?" bullshit notwithstanding.

Europeans are the inheritors of a dense pre-car infrastructure that took 2000 years to build and consumed the resources of several global empires in the process. They don't have denser cities because they're morally superior. They have denser cities because their cities are old, and that's all there is to it. Go to the edge of any town in the UK, where the new development is happening, and you'll see low-density fully detached housing with big fucking yards, just like in Ballard.

Fuck sake.

Judah, dick though he may be, is correct, and I'm frankly astonished that people would try to argue otherwise. You really think there's no particular difference between American and European city design? Are you high? With a few exceptions, US cities had the bulk of their development in the early-to-mid-20th century and were quite clearly designed with the assumption that most people have easy access to cars. Clearly that's been a destructive assumption, but it's not going to be easily undone. And anyone declaring that it's a product of Americans simply being too lazy and selfish as compared to those Europeans (who, we are apparently assured, happily eschew cars without any personal incentive to whatsoever) is just blind.

Let's try this one Judah.

Beijing has around 14 million people. The area of Beijing is estimated at a large 16,800 square kilometers. Therefore Beijing, despite its massive population, has a very reasonable population density of 833 people per square km., quite a bit lower than either Los Angeles or Barcelona. Therefore, by your logic, they should be a city of SUV drivers who avoid bicycles like the plague.

Instead, guess what? Beijing is one of the most bicycle friendly cities on Earth. An estimated 10 million people ride bikes in Beijing, meaning that everyone except the very young, the very old and the very wealthy gets around on bicycles. It's not that they're more enlightened, more environmentally aware, or cooler. They just don't have a history of excess cash to spend on luxuries. As wealth patterns change, more people are buying and driving cars, but the government is still building additional bike trails and encouraging still more bike use.

I agree with you completely that infrastructure and attitudes need to change before we can make only real progress toward alternative means of transportation. But stomping your feet, acting like you possess the only accurate view point, and selectively using information doesn't make a very convincing case.

Fuck sake.

Gurldoggie, please. Beijing proves Judah's point, if anything; it's more than 2000 years old, and its core is old and quite dense, having been designed long before automobiles could be assumed. It is bicycle friendly because bicycle enjoyed wide use long before cars were available to the general populace in any capacity. Your density figures are misleading, as Beijing's current legal boundaries include a fair amount of less developed and sparsely populated suburban/rural land; Beijing proper is far smaller and has more than 22,000 people/sq km. A proper comparison would be to compare Beijing not only to LA, but to the entire LA metropolitan area.

http://english.cri.cn/811/2006/03/22/53@65431.htm

Talk about selectively using information.

A proper comparison would be to compare Beijing not only to LA, but to the entire LA metropolitan area.

Talk about selectively using information.

tsm beat me to it.

But stomping your feet, acting like you possess the only accurate view point

Ah yes, once again it comes down to my attitude.

The thing I always find amusing about this particular criticism is that the subjects under discussion when it's made usually have to do with global warming or pollution or accident fatalities or something -- topics where, I would think, self-interest would provide sufficient incentive to consider an argument on its merits, regardless of whether it ends with "fuck you" or not.

Whatever. Frankly, I can't be arsed.

Likewise.

There will always be those who believe that change for the better is impossible. I consider myself fortunate not to be among them.

@52, no one is saying change is impossible. (Well, I'm not, anyway). I'm saying it's far more than a matter of adding bike lanes and scolding people for being so fat, lazy, and *ugh* American. Build neighborhoods where people can walk or bike and you can persuade them to walk or bike. Tell them how they just need "a more generous spirit or larger vision to give up their 'entitlement'" and they'll roll their eyes at your self-righteousness and continue to drive their SUVs.

"Hi trolls?"

"Hi trolls?!?

God. Erica C. Barnett. Jesus.

All these serious, sincere people making all this effort to have a deep and far-ranging discussion of this topic. And all fucking ECB can say is hi trolls.

It makes me sick. When will this nightmare end?

ECB you as big a hypocrite as Larry Craig. Are you buying carbon offsets? Or did you go on a freighter?

Air travel has a particularly negative impact on the atmosphere due to two factors, expressed here in as close to lay terms as I can muster: 1) planes emit a stew of other harmful gases in addition to carbon dioxide, and 2) gases released in the upper atmosphere where planes cruise have a much greater impact than gases released on the ground due to something called the "radiative forcing" effect. The sum total of the damage is about 1.9 times that of driving a relatively fuel-efficient car.

Thus, if the average American drives 10,000 - 15,000 miles each year, it takes only a trip to Europe for a West Coaster, a trip to Hawaii for an East Coaster or a couple of cross-country flights to do as much damage (or more) as you do during an entire year of commuting and cruising in your car.

@54 - she has contempt for each and everyone of us. she just wanted to drop in and remind us that she's the queen, and she's having a RAD TIME in europe.

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