Blogs Mar 11, 2013 at 8:33 am

London Pledges $1.3 Billion for Bikes

Dominic Holden
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Comments

1
WAR ON CARS WAR ON CARS! CAR WARS!
Former Lurker on March 11, 2013 at 8:45 AM Report this
2
notice how this right of way is like about 12 lanes wide?
plenty of room for bike lanes AND very broad sidewalks.

much of seattle has "arterials" that are 1.4 the width of this; with tiny, narrow sidewalks; and there is simply not the same amount of room to put in bike lanes.

solution: designate parallel "side" streets (not "side" for bikes, just cars) as the suggested major bike routes. seattle has tons of those. get off the arterials and create bike arterials that connect all the way north and south thru seattle, with separated bike lane infrastructure at the key points like the university bridge and ballard bridge and some damn way to get from beacon hill to west seattle without hauling a bike down stairs on some set of stairways connected to freeways.

london is tidal; flat; broad; we are hilly, and do have some challenging topography, which has meant we have few broader avenues. you could make broadway a cycle track and a trolley line -- but then you'd have to take the cars off it. same with roosevelt and many arterials that just aren't 12 lanes wide here in seattle.
on March 11, 2013 at 8:47 AM Report this
3
So, that's like 7-9 car lanes there, including sidewalks. Four for cars, 1.5 for bikes, .5-1 for barrier, plus another couple for the sidewalks.

Please, tell me where you would like to put this in Seattle. For 15 miles.

Also, Cascade Bicycle Club and Seattle Bike Blog needs to stop lying and fabricating statistics.
TheMisanthrope on March 11, 2013 at 9:48 AM Report this
4
Lots of things the Seattle Times opposes have passed. Could be there is some other teeny, tiny imperfection, almost undetectable, hiding somewhere in Seattle bike advocacy. Gosh, but what could it be?
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on March 11, 2013 at 10:02 AM Report this
5
I dunno if you've ever been to London, Dom, but one thing that distinguishes it from Seattle is that it's flat. Really, really flat. Like, almost as flat as Copenhagen or Amsterdam.

Which makes cycling an actual option for people who happen to not be young or particularly fit.

I'm all in favor of safe bicycle infrastructure, but could we please stop pretending that a given location's geography has no impact on the percentage of its community well-served by bike-centric urban planning, and also that there's no noticeable difference at all between Seattle and cities built on European lowlands?
robotslave on March 11, 2013 at 10:21 AM Report this
6
For all its snowflakeness, I have run into countless fuckhead Seattle people who viscerally HATE cyclists. Not passive-aggressive loathing, I mean white-hot why-don't-they-just-die, they don't belong on roads with real people in real SUVs.

This is bullshit, America is full of selfish pricks.
Karlheinz Arschbomber on March 11, 2013 at 10:29 AM Report this
7
Compare to New York, where every single one of the candidates for the upcoming mayoral election has pledged to rip out all of their bike lanes that Bloomberg so carefully put in. The only difference between them seems to be whether they would then go out of their way to mow down some cyclists in their official SUV limo for the cameras, or not.
Fnarf on March 11, 2013 at 11:09 AM Report this
8
What #5 said...... Need some cable lifts in Seattle to change altitudes ...
pupuguru on March 11, 2013 at 11:53 AM Report this
9
London also has a very prohibitive scheme to keep cars from entering the inner city core. Large parking fees work to keep cars away and encourage bikes and public transport.
pupuguru on March 11, 2013 at 12:02 PM Report this
10
I just wish Seattle would fix some fucked up intersections. 35th and Fremont. Eastake/Harvard/Fuhrman. Greenlake/50th/Stone. Even the intersection of the Burke Gilman at Pacific/7th/40th is pathetic and stupid. These are just some of the more egregious examples near my house. They're all over the fucking city.

Instead of these and other critical fixes, they're painting literally pointless "greenways," like the one in Walkingford by my house. A slow route to nowhere. Thanks a lot, bike activists. Oh, how Luke I forget the bike lane by Dick's on 45th. Is SDOT trolling us with that?
emor on March 11, 2013 at 12:28 PM Report this
11
BUT CRITICAL MASS!
Pridge Wessea on March 11, 2013 at 2:07 PM Report this
12
There are tons of narrow streets all over Copenhagen and Stockholm that have dedicated bike lanes.

And—surprise—London has mostly narrow streets too, and they're going to put dedicated bike lanes on narrow streets too.

Next.
Dan Savage on March 11, 2013 at 6:10 PM Stranger Staff
13
How about Rainier Ave S to Jackson, Jackson to 3rd or 4th through downtown , then down Western to Ballard. There are flat ways through town. Eastlake could be for bikes. Dexter. 4th Ave south of downtown. Broadway. I am a 49 year old mom of three. If I could have separated paths, we would give up the car.
on March 15, 2013 at 9:07 PM Report this

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