Pete Kuhns
Commuters on Dexter Avenue North, one of the city's most trafficked bike lanes.
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BICYCLING COVERAGE
• Wheeled Apparitions - Bicyclists' high-profile political statement is also a savvy urban-art installation.
• The Bicycle Diaries - Why should the average Seattle commuter get exercised about Bike to Work Day?
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Just when you think Seattle's transportation problems couldn't get worse, they get worse. We're only Initiative 912 and a viaduct-flattening earthquake away from total downtown paralysis. One rogue gravel barge on Lake Washington could sink the Highway 520 bridge, and let's not get started on the bus tunnel's rail-retrofit fiasco. And just when you think politics couldn't get any weirder, Congress appropriates money to build bike paths and President Bush is talking about fuel conservation. He's an avid recreational cyclist and a friend of Lance. So, as in the OPEC-shocked 1970s, bicycling is back in the news as alternative transportation. Mayor Greg Nickels has proclaimed the goal of making Seattle a better cycling town; accordingly, a Bicycle Master Plan is being drafted.
Stand at the corner of Dexter Avenue North and Mercer Street in the morning, or at the Montlake neighborhood's 520 interchange, or at the downtown ferry terminal, and it would appear that droves of commuters are on bikes. Seattle has a great reputation as a bicycle-friendly city, though that warm-and-fuzzy image also reflects scenic trails leading away from the metro area. What about the actual numbers of dedicated cycle commuters headed into town, each reducing congestion, pollution, parking demand, and overcrowding on buses? According to the most recent U.S. Census data, about 1.8 percent of Seattle commuters regularly ride a bike to work. (To put that in perspective, in flat, small Copenhagen it's 30 percent.) When the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) conducted a 2000 count of riders entering downtown by bike, the figure was 1,737, up 57 percent from 1992. Everyone believes that trend has continued. SDOT hopes to count again in 2006. Of the counting, says city cycling liaison Pauh Wang, "We don't do it systematically." But anecdotally, "There seem to be more bicyclists on Dexter."
Meanwhile, on the Burke-Gilman Trail, established in 1974 and wildly popular with University of Washington students and staff, the Cascade Bicycle Club this year measured an 18 percent increase of weekday riders since 2000. Of an 8,010-rider sample, 32 percent categorized themselves as commuters.
Numbers are hard to get—you can't measure cycling with those little rubber strips that SDOT uses to gauge vehicle traffic. And there's more to the story than numbers. Says Barbara Culp of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington: "I'm convinced that the numbers are increasing, but I can't prove it to you. It's much easier to count cars."
Culp doesn't think gas prices alone will be the tipping point that shifts more commuters from four wheels to two. "We would like to see more on-street facilities," she says, meaning more bike lanes and racks, better signage for cyclists (just try to find your way from downtown to Alki), and better integration of cycling into overall transportation planning. That third point refers to what David Hiller, the advocacy director of the Cascade Bicycle Club, calls the "connectivity" issue—like the dangerous snarl getting on or off the Ballard Bridge. Or transitioning from the Dexter Avenue bike lane to that on Second Avenue. Being unable to load your bicycle on a Metro bus rack in the downtown ride-free area. Or just getting across Lake Washington on 520, where buses are limited to two bikes per rack. (If it's the last express run of the evening and the rack is full, sorry, you can't bring your precious Bianchi inside.) Ah, but that all costs money—painting lanes, giving up parking-meter revenue, buying rights of way for bike trails, etc.
Speaking for the city, which doesn't have unlimited resources, Wang says bike- specific improvements are typically "opportunity driven" by other traffic projects, as in Rainier Avenue South's recent makeover from four lanes to a boulevard, which created room for painted bike lanes. Likewise, the planned South End Chief Sealth Trail is being constructed in part with fill from the Sound Transit light-rail excavation. Bike-only improvements, like the Burke-Gilman Trail section completed this past summer west of the Chittenden Locks, require separate funding. Already planned is the Ship Canal Trail link that will connect a path that presently dead-ends west of Seattle Pacific University with the Myrtle Edwards/Elliott Bay waterfront trail. The route now is blocked at Fishermen's Terminal.
And what about the demise of all those parking meters downtown to which cyclists could once lock their bikes, replaced by the new green Paystation kiosks? Wang has a pilot program to retrofit the now-headless meter posts with bike racks. He hopes to install about 150 next year.
PUBLIC MONEY has also gone into the downtown Bikestation (311 Third Ave. S., 206-332-9795, www.bikestation.org), a public-private partnership run by a California nonprofit organization. Unfortunately, most of that grant just expired, putting the two-year-old operation into crisis mode. Presently, 65 parking spaces are available to members, who pay $30 to $116 per year for 24-hour access. Bikestation also houses a bike shop. Bikestation Executive Director Andrea White insists, "Seattle's latent demand for cycling is really strong," but it would appear that local funding isn't so generous as in California, where Bikestation has four larger operations.
In this distress lies the Bicycle Alliance's opportunity: According to White and Culp, the alliance plans to assume the Bikestation lease, maintain the membership/parking facility, relocate the alliance's Seattle office to the storefront, and move the repair shop to the back. (Bikestation's expert mechanic, Joe Simoneau, will relaunch the shop as for-profit Pioneer Bicycle Repair when the Bicycle Alliance makes the planned December move.) Says Culp, "This will be a great opportunity for us to be more visible." The Bicycle Alliance of Washington has some 2,500 members, compared to about 5,000 for the Cascade Bicycle Club; both actively lobby the city and state and sit on various advisory boards.
