"the bicycling advocates said, a contingent of vocal, blue-shirted nutballs are showing up to the design committee meetings as audience members."

Source, please?

To those opposing the Westlake Cycle Track please read
http://tinyurl.com/kuvrut5
http://tinyurl.com/acskm3e
#BikesMeanBusiness #Seattle

Part of the car on wars. Straight from the Obama White House.
Americanism = free parking.

As long as Nimbys have power like this they will always win. Just like salmon bay gravel and the missing link.

Obstruction that leads to nothing, or a mock compromise that benefits only the politicians involved is the best outcome for them.

This project only effects city property, the burden should be on the "residents" to show why they deserve to keep their current subsidies. Not the city needing to show value for a project that benefits everyone in the city.

Residents not involved.
It's all about long-term parking -- for days -- where boaters leave their cars while they are on boating trips or safaris or whatever the fuck they do.

There's no such thing as a non-NIMBY in all cases for all locations for all projects.

@6 is correct about the property tax subsidized "free" parking given to yachts and their rich owners from poor peoples rent money

I took a superb ride through Kent this afternoon at peak sunshine, went up and down the Soos Creek trail, sunbathed at Lake Meridian and then hustled back quickly along the sidewalk (empty as usual) of Kent-Kangley.

Kent -- a superior bicycling experience!

The land at issue here is public street right-of-way. Priority use of public right-of-way is, as the words suggest, the movement of people and goods, not storage of motor vehicles, free storage at that.

The businesspeople and residents along Westlake should be thankful they've had free use of public land for so long. But times change, and the world moves on.

And I've been around long enough to remember back in the '70s when the City was beginning to plan a pedestrian/bike trail completely around Lake Union. This thing has been in the works for just a while now.

Calling people with an opposing point of view "NIMBYs" and "nutballs" is an excellent way to achieve a workable compromise.

What color shirts should we show up wearing? Seriously where was the call to action for the pro-cycle crowd?

I didn't know Westlake had a working waterfront. I thought it was all yaghts, expensive restraints, condos, and some small businesses. I always take dexter where bike lanes already exist.

@12, The pro-bike crowd wears their helmets of course.

@11:

Particularly when said NIMBY's don't seem much interested in compromise themselves.

Westlake hasn't been a "working waterfront" in the traditional sense of the term for decades. The few actual businesses along the track are far outnumbered by the boat owners, liveaboards & houseboaters (as @6 points out), who are simply miffed that the abundant free parking they've had for all this time is finally being put to more productive use. We heard the same things from this contingent several years ago when many of the free stalls were converted to pay-by-the-hour, and somehow everybody still managed to find plenty of places to park. With Belltown development encroaching into the area, there will be more people living & working in adjacent neighborhoods, and the vast, frequently empty expanses of asphalt along the shoreline are needed for other, more vital activities. Somehow, I don't think adding a relatively narrow bike-track is going to kill the relatively small number of remaining restaurants, marine supply & service shops, and boat lots that still call Westlake home.

Like @10 says, "things change"; and things have been changing along the shores of Lake Union since the first settlers set up sawmills along the old Duwamish game trails nearly two centuries ago. This is nothing new, people. Learn to live with it, just like your ancestors did.

I'll bet the anti-cycling shirts in XL ran out quickly. Most of the folks in blue look like they could use some time on a bicycle.

It was actually a pretty even number of pro/against. The problem is that most of the anti people really don't seem interested in figuring out solutions. A few people had good ideas, namely the guys suggesting we repurpose the vegetation and expanded sidewalk in order to make more space. But most of the questions were of the naive anti-bike type that you typically see in the Seattle Times comment section.

What they don't seem to understand is that Dexter doesn't matter. Dexter has OK bike facilities and still people choose to go through a confusing and dangerous parking lot / sidewalk / road. That is behavior that will not change and if anything they can expect more cyclists going through this space in the future.

Saying cyclists are wrong to go through this right of way is just Nimbyism. And their insistence that the separated bike facility be built on Dexter couldn't be a purer example of because "Fuck people on Dexter, right? Don't build it here."

The businesses and live-aboards do not own that right of way. It isn't theirs no matter how much territoriality they feel. It's the city's job to make sure people can move safely through the streets and on this street it makes sense to have a bike track, end of story.

I'd be interested in having the author provide the demographics of the blue shirted folks as suggestions are: residents, business owners & shoppers, industrial, rich yacht & seaplane owners, and Amazon freeloaders who need free parking. Who's who, and why didn't the author do his/her homework?

Further, "...people on bikes do patronize businesses on Westlake, and will very likely do so more often once the bikeway goes in. This has been found to happen on streets all over the country. This New York City report does a good job of explaining how it works: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pd… "

from comments on http://www.seattlebikeblog.com where a great conversation is going on.

@12: How about the exact same shade of blue? Identical color, identical font, different message. Sell them at the entrance right next to the other ones. For a buck less.

Vocal "nutballs" (*gasp*) showing up at public meetings??? Seattle is doomed, I tell you, DOOMED!!!

Christ! Could you be any more biased, Ansel? No, you couldn't. You don't realize that you are fighting against many working class people who live on their boats because it's cheap, affordable housing for many poor people. Yes, this is true. Do some research for once. It's not a place where "rich people" park cars for their yachts (see #6 and #8 - idiots). That's bullshit. The Westlake corridor is filled with small businesses as well.

"Biker shotgun zone" means it's where the cyclists "shotgun" out of the sidewalk into the parking lot. It's not a place to kill cyclists with a shotgun. God, you really are a bad reporter. This isn't your student paper anymore, Ansel.

It's clear you are the voice for the Cascade Bicycle Club. Your sanctimonious, unbalanced writing is a new low standard for The Stranger.

Man, these arguments really make me lose my faith in humanity. I'm trying to survive in this city. After groceries and the exorbitant rent I pay, there's barely enough left to sock a little away in my kid's college fund. And these folks think that, unless I want to shell out another $10k a year on a car, I don't deserve a safe way to get to and from work?

I'm guessing that the Stranger prefers their t-shirts in red.

@25,

I've worked as a messenger on the east coast, have been a recreational/commuting cyclist for nearly 20 years, have raced competitively and done plenty of infrastructure and advocacy work on behalf of cyclists and pedestrians, and I've never heard that phrase used in the context you suggest was intended. I also just googled it and could find no such usage or reference.

If this cycletrack gets tabled, I'm going to start riding Westlake Ave, taking a lane at 15mph.

@15 and 19
When I was a wage slave at SDOT I had the dubious distinction of working with an "advisory group" of most of these players on establishing paid parking at Westlake. After more than a year of meetings, the "compromise" (some paid parking, some free) was ridiculous and served no one. (I thought SDOT capitulated unnecessarily.)
In any case, Amen to COMTE. It is no longer a working waterfront in the sense of po' ol' sailors just making a living.
I had a yacht service business owner tell me that yacht electricians are hard to find, and if he couldn't offer them free parking they would go elsewhere. There was also a place where they were refinishing the teak on an historical ChrisCraft boat and the business owner opined that if he had to pay for parking he would not be able to continue. (How much were the owners of these very expensive vessels paying for the services, I wondered, and would charging them another $0.50 an hour to pay for employee parking make a difference in their bottom line?)

@27
THANK YOU! No one else notices the ABSOLUTE IRONY of the Stranger screaming about people showing at meetings in matching t-shirts to make the point that maybe too many bicycle lanes at the expense of parking is a bad idea, and makes fun of their matching t-shirts...
BUT, when a bunch of Pabst Blue Ribbon drinking, non-bathing, dubstep listening, white, privileged trusafarian hipster brats show up at council meetings in matching ugly red shirts telling immigrant businesses to go to hell because they think it would be cool if people made 15/hour to flip burgers, you call them heroes.

All I to say to Ansel is this:
https://universalserviceblog.files.wordp…

Really? Saying "we have enough bike lanes, please don't get rid of our parking spaces for what we already has" makes one a "nut-ball," but saying Leon Trosky was a great guy and that if the Taco truck up the road can't pay everyone 31,000 a year to stuff a burrito it shouldn't be in business? No, that makes one an "activist."

The Stranger has now gone full-blown dumb ass.

@29: Really? If you don't get your way, you're going to deliberately make other peoples lives unpleasant? How are you any different than a republican?

Living in a society, especially an urban societ,y means compromise.

Often times this will mean a less than perfect solution.

We all need to accept a society where everybody belongs, and there will be times when we will not get what we want.

If we can't then we all might as well buy guns and join the t-bags out at the Bundy Ranch.

Yes.

A couple of years ago, during the much heralded McGinn administration, NE 125th St. Between Lake City Way and 15th Ave. NE was restriped to change it from two lanes in either direction to one lane in either direction with a left turn lane and a bicycle lane.
The howling and gnashing of old, white, NIMBY teeth was epic in both scope and volume, much like the blue shirted fraidy cats now howling and mewling over this minor infrastructure enhancement.
Perhaps someone should point out to these very privileged folks that a bike lane in their neighborhood is somewhat less of a threat than, say, the militarization of urban police departments. Or climate change. Or income inequality. Or cutting public transportation. Or, well, a lot of things.
Maybe even most things.

Oh, and incidentally, driving on NE 125th is not any different now than it was then.
I recall an old parable about a boy and a wolf...

@34:You do realize (I hope) that many of these people, perhaps most, feel the same way about those things as you do. They just happen to disagree about the location of a bike trail.

They may be right, or they may be wrong, or more likely each side has legitimate points.

Perhaps if you got to know some of them you'd find out that they weren't so scary after all.

Hating people who disagree with us, and trying to make their lives unpleasant is a terrible way to go through life, and in the end leaves us nothing but bitterness.

@37- of course. And yet, they spend truly inordinate amounts of time and very passionate energy fighting relatively minor, inconsequential battles. Over a proposal that has been in the works for along time. I mean, it's not as if this plan was drafted last week and sprung from nowhere on an unsuspecting community.
I get it. Change can be scary. For some, even threatening. When lots of things change at once in very dramatic ways, as has happened in the last decade in South Lake Union, it can create feelings of powerlessness, leading to reactionary thinking. That's normal. And sometimes even logical and necessary.
I just don't see the opposition here as particularly logical.
Or necessary.

@38: interesting, and rather telling that you assume that you're right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, and ignorant.

Personally I've never had the luxury of always knowing that anyone who disagrees with me has no valid view point.

@28 - Thank you Mr. Cycle Nomenclature.

When I saw the "shotgun" comment written on the map, I did what junior writer Ansel Herz did not do - I asked several people near the map what that meant. Instead of assuming, I investigated by simply asking around. A number of people - from BOTH sides of the issue, informed me that the person who wrote that meant that was the spot on the map where, and I quote, "The cyclists shotgun out from the sidewalk into the parking lot" and create a danger zone for cyclists and cars. It was not, in any way, a place to shoot cyclists with a shotgun, despite Ansel Herz's pointed implication.

One of the people (a Cascade Bicycle Club member) then directed me to the person who wrote the comment. I asked the commentor what they meant by "shotgun" and they said it was where the cyclists "shotgun" into the parking lot from the sidewalk.

That entire exchange took about two minutes, maximum, and it was easy to do and clarified the comment. See how easy that is Ansel? I realize you are a kid and don't have much experience, but this is pretty basic journalism. Instead of fanning the fire and printing inflammatory lies, you could have just done your job, but it's apparent that you don't know how to do it.

I put in 5-6K miles bike commuting and 1-2K on the weekends on my road bike. Although I live in Chicago now, I lived in Seattle for a few years after college and I love to hear about cycling infrastructure improvements anywhere. However, I'm afraid that I have to agree with the criticisms above regarding this "reporting." The Stranger is not being a friend to cycling by adopting a Fox-news style approach here. You guys need to take a long hard look at how you're going about things if you want to be a real news source.

@39: Did you ask about "tire spikes for bikes" note?

Even if you're correct about how the term "shotgun blast" was being used, the fact that cyclists are moving quickly "into the parking lot from the sidewalk" illustrates exactly why we need a designated cycletrack in this corridor. The current "trail" (the Cheshiahud Loop, implemented during the Nickels administration) hops erratically between sidewalk and parking lot and is very dangerous to everyone.

Sorry, the above is a response to @40.

I really don't get it. Let's find a way to make the corridor safer for everybody, minimize parking loss, and better manage the parking that remains. Everyone can't have everything they want, but the status quo is clearly not the best use of public land (that is, assuming that "best use" means that the benefit of that public land is shared among the most people).

@39- where did I call anyone ignorant or wrong? I said I thought they were expending an inordinate amount of energy on a relatively minor issue. Even if they were 100% correct, I would still feel that to be the case. I think the opponents are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

@45: So you will not care if the cycle track is not built then?
I mean if its such a minor issue.

There are many fools on this thread who are confusing their selfish interest with some kind of public interest. The number of cyclists in Seattle is growing rapidly while the percentage of drivers is shrinking, and common sense demands that cycle infrastructure be improved. The land in question is obviously not being used to its best advantage, and it is hardly caving to an agenda to say it. Carry on Ansel, you are doing fine work.

@25:

Have you ever actually owned a boat? Even a modestly-priced cruiser, say in the 26-28 foot range, which is just barely large enough for liveaboard purposes - I know, having lived on one moored at AGC Marina on SLU for more than 4 years - is rather expensive to maintain between the constant cleaning, repair work, general upkeep, fuel, moorage, utilities, pump-outs, insurance, off-site storage (you can't keep everything on-board), not to mention the occasional haul-out for dry work that simply can't be done on-the-wet; all of which can add up to tens of thousands of dollars per year (that's why boat owners only half-facetiously use the term "B.O.A.T. units" - Bring Out Another Thousand). Now, that may not sound like much by homeowner standards, but when you figure the cost per-square-foot for a living space that would make an Apollo Command Module feel roomy by comparison, it's still quite a lot. And again, that's for a boat less than 30' long and maybe 10' wide; costs go up almost exponentially as length increases.

And most of the boats on Lake Union are NOT occupied by liveaboards. Marinas are limited by state regulations to no more than 10% of their slips being rented for residential purposes (which includes vessels, barges & houseboats), so the fact is more than 90% of the boats on the lake are owned by either weekenders or snowbirds who pay thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars per year (depending on the length of the slip) just to keep their boats - which can run from a few thousand dollars for a small runabout or day-sailer, up to several million for a top-of-the-line motor yacht - on the water.

Then there are the houseboats/barges, which aren't exactly inexpensive either. Sure, you can occasionally find one in the $100K range (not including the roughly $400 - $500 per month in moorage & utility fees charged by marinas), but typically they go for quite a bit more, because - guess what? - everybody's seen freaking "Sleepless In Seattle" and thinks living on a houseboat would be tres magnifique! (BTW, that particular houseboat sold for around $2.5mm back in 2008 before the housing bubble burst, but even today, many of the larger houseboats on the lake fall easily in the $1mm-plus range; not exactly "working class" by anyone's standards.)

So, maybe, before you jump down someone else's throat with your "truthiness", do a little research on your own - or at least talk to someone who has some actual experience in the area - and get YOUR facts straight first.

@46- I have no skin in the game. I really don't care one way or the other.

I used to work down there. I sometimes rode my bike to work, but usually drove since I had to make calls on clients.
Around my building, parking was a major issue. It wasn't as bad all the way down at the end, but that's too far to reasonably walk back and forth several times a day. At one point I was paying to use a garage because it got so hard to find a spot in the morning. A client of mine stopped coming to the office specifically because he hated the hassle of parking there. After a couple years of dealing with it, I just moved my office out of there. So yeah…something seemingly small like parking can make a big difference.
Now here's the catch…I actually support putting in a cycle track there. It's just that SDOT really needs to understand from the people who work there what they're dealing with. It's not the same situation along that entire couple miles. Some places always have a bunch of spots, while others have people waiting and circling for a spot that they can actually use…a time limited spot is a hassle if you're going to work all day.
If SDOT can fit a cycle track in there with angled parking and a one way traffic flow so that it doesn't kill off too many spots, then that could work.

@48 - I live aboard a boat. An inexpensive, affordable one (not a "rich yacht owner" here), and have for years. No need to lecture me on the details of living aboard. Got it?

@51:

Perhaps not about living aboard, but you sure seem to know squat about the demographics of the Lake Union neighborhood.

COMTE, I really don't want to keep checking this goddamn comment string for your next bitchy comment, and I'm sure you don't want to keep checking this goddamn comment string for mine, so we will disagree about this and let it go. I know the Lake Union/Westlake neighborhood way better than you could imagine and I know things about this place that your four years never showed you.

The funny thing is, as soon as you said where you lived (AGC) I put your comments together and realized we know each other. We get along well and agreed on politics and life issues. Now I just want to punch you in the face. Comment sections have a way of bringing out the worst in people. Now, let's go our separate ways and when I see you again, we can have a laugh about this...I hope.

@25 is right about the shotgun zone -- there's a section on lower Eastlake to Vally then to Westlake where all bikes hop up on the sidewalk or cut through the parking lot. But you would know that if you actually rode this route, which clearly you don't.

Most actual bike commuters seem to hate the existing cycle tracks and take back streets around them.

The funny part is that Westlake as it is now is a really easy ride up the SLUT tracks, as drivers have already discounted the tracks as a viable lane. Take the entire lane and use finger liberally.

And grow a fucking pair while your at it.

@33, your entitled, sanctimonious attitude is exactly why many people detest cyclists.