The Bicycle Diaries

We've all seen the gaunt, grizzled, and usually bearded guy pedaling up Dexter during a dark, rainy rush hour, weird lights flashing from his head. Or, wearing one of those neon-colored beetle-backed jackets, he's grinding his way along the Burke-Gilman Trail in a snowstorm, icicles dangling from his graying hair, snot-cicles from his nose. Or, on an otherwise pleasant summer morning ferry ride into town, he's the smelly, sweaty fellow walking around duck-footed in those dorky shoes that go clack-clack-clack on the metal deck. (And let's not get started with the recumbent crowd.)

Is this the face of cycling in Seattle? Look in the mirror, fair readers; chances are he's not you.

Not yet, anyway.

As traffic reaches all-time and seemingly insurmountable levels, maybe it's time to revisit one of the few artifacts not yet revived by the '70s nostalgia craze: biking to work.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO the lost promise of saving the earth, reducing congestion, and promoting fitness? And what about the rest of us? Can cycling be a viable way for us average desk jockeys to reach the office?

Several staffers at Seattle Weekly do ride bikes to work (this writer included). A few of us have been hit by cars (ditto). Some of us have crashed (let me show you the scars), while others are too intimidated to even contemplate bicycle commuting. So, for the uninitiated, let us encourage the neophyte ("My Bike Buddy," p. 22) and address safety issues ("The Road Warriors," p. 21). We've also got the memoirs of a bicycle messenger ("Messenger Memoirs," p. 23) and news about transportation funding (Outward Bound, p. 88).

But first, in no particular order, some of my own random cyclist-on-the-street impressions, interspersed with news and views of those trying to fit Seattle to bikes and bikes to Seattle.

THIS FRIDAY IS THE 12TH ANNUAL Bike to Work Day, an event that drew some 6,500 King County participants last year. (In fact, all of May is Bike to Work Month—who knew?) Riders will be counted and freebies dispensed at 36 sponsored checkpoints from Auburn to Everett (call 522-BIKE or see www.biketoworkday.org for information and locations).

Badly in need of exercise, Mayor Greg Nickels expects to break a sweat with the main body of riders (potential voters all), who will gather at Seattle Center, then begin parading to Westlake Center at 7:45 a.m. This follows his May 1 meeting with Seattle's volunteer Bicycle Advisory Board (BAB), which presented him with a five-point plan for a more bicycle-friendly Seattle (www.cityofseattle.net/sbab). Long in remission after the '70s OPEC crises, the B-word may finally return to the transit conversation, if the Bicycle Alliance of Washington (BAW) and Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC) have anything to say about it.

On one side of the table sit the idealists, like BAB chair Tom Bertulis, who expects "minute progress until the gas tax is raised." In the meantime, he and the board lobby for dedicated bike trails, painted bike lanes, bike racks, and even shower facilities at transportation hubs.

Pragmatists like CBC advocacy director Mark Keller look beyond government measures. "You need to have the people willing to bike," he says. "You need to have an environment that's conducive to biking. And you need to have bike-friendly places to get to. Without all of those things in place, we really can't see a cultural shift toward more bicycles."

EVEN IF CYCLING remains, for now, a transportation subculture, last November Bicycling magazine rated Seattle the most bike-friendly city of its size (between 500,000 and 1 million residents), with a 67 percent increase in downtown cyclists between 1990 and 2000. U.S. census figures indicate a doubling of bicycle commuters to some 197,000 statewide, but absolute numbers are unclear. (Although the state's population obviously hasn't doubled.) Census estimates place cyclists at 1 percent of Seattle commuters, which extrapolates to 5,600 riders out of roughly 560,000 citizens. That, of course, says nothing about how often those hypothetical 5,600 ride. Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Annually?

The city is certainly helping the trend. Seattle boasts 28 miles of dedicated bike trails (e.g., the Burke-Gilman), 15 miles of striped lanes (e.g., Dexter or Second), and 90 miles of signed bike routes (e.g., Lake Washington Boulevard). Since 1994, Metro's fleet of over 1,300 buses and vans has sported bike racks—used some 300,000 times per year! To cut down on bike theft, Seattle now provides some 1,900 racks and 60 fancy lockers at Metro Park & Ride locations.

Most significant is the city's ongoing project to complete its urban trail system. With its first section completed in '78, the venerable Burke-Gilman is the most established of the five planned trails and the most popular. Peter Lagerwey, Seattle Transportation's Pedestrian and Bicycle Program coordinator, says about $25 million in work remains—not all of it solely dedicated to bikes—to finish the trail system within the next decade.

"In many cases we are filling in gaps," he explains, like this summer's Burke-Gilman connection between the Ballard Locks and Fremont Fred Meyer. Other planned arteries like the Interurban and Chief Sealth trails have yet to be built.

Still, there's more to cycling than pavement and paint. Notes the CBC's Keller, "I think we're fairly well advanced in the infrastructure. I think we're behind in the actual promoting of bicycling."