FoS.blog: The Friends of Seattle blog

The City Needs Bike Boulevards

We're not always fond of traffic calming techniques. Our reasoning is that traffic calming often makes a street near-useless for any purpose other than neighborhood parking. If the City is going to impose traffic calming on so many streets, at least it could do what Portland does and make the traffic-calmed streets useful for other purposes, like biking:

Happily, the Bicycle Master Plan provides for bicycle boulevards of Seattle's own. Unhappily, the Plan calls for only 18.1 miles of bicycle boulevards. More! More! More!

Using Belgian Blocks to Improve the Urban Environment for Pedestrians

Car-dominated streets are lousy places to walk. To reduce the impacts of traffic, the City of Seattle runs a Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program. "Traffic calming" refers to the tricks that the City uses to make it a pain in the ass to drive through side streets---traffic circles, chicanes, speed humps, and curb bulbs. We like curb bulbs because they make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street, but we confess to being frustrated with the other measures. They turn side streets into little more than glorified parking lots for single-family neighborhoods. A better solution is surely available---a solution that is friendly to pedestrians, and yet does not defeat the purpose of having streets in the first place. Here's an interesting idea: pave streets with Belgian Blocks. It's not a new idea; Belgian Blocks once covered city streets everywhere.

Photo of New York's Greenwich Village by Flickr User wallyg, Used Under a Creative Commons License

Still, it's an idea worth revisiting. Not only are stone-paved streets lovely to look at, but they are longer-lasting than concrete and blacktop. Most important of all, their rougher ride induces drivers to slow to a more reasonable speed. Streets paved with Belgian Blocks could strike the right balance between making the urban environment pedestrian-friendly and keeping our streets usable for vehicles. Of course, stone-paved streets might be bad for bicyclists.

Growth Is an Opportunity to Create Better Urban Communities

We love the optimism in today's op-ed by Futurewise's Dan Cantrell and Transportation Choices Coalition's Jessyn Farrell:

The Seattle region, for the first six years anyway, has grown somewhat faster than the 2002 forecasts predicted. Growth brings challenges, but also opportunities. Seattle is growing because of our strong regional economy and new jobs, our fabulous landscape and natural amenities, our many diverse and unique neighborhoods with new parks and new libraries. We are a desirable place to live for current and new residents — and that is a good problem to have.

To take advantage of these opportunities, Cantell and Farrell correctly recognize that we need to invest more in infrastructure, particularly transit. Urban neighborhoods---dense, vibrant, walkable, and affordable---are great to have, but they need to be sustained by good infrastructure.

Times Editorial Board Applauds Metro Fare Increase

The Seattle Times editorial board likes the $0.25 Metro fare increase.

A 25-cent bump in adult fares on Metro Transit will help keep buses rolling and routes expanding. That is worth an extra two bits.

The King County bus system is not immune to the same soaring fuels costs that helped fill bus seats with a record number of passengers. County Executive Ron Sims has a stark choice: raise rates in October or cut service.

We agree with the Times's conclusions. But again, soaring transit-ridership numbers suggest that Seattle needs more than light rail to Northgate and streetcar lines in the city center. Better, expanded bus service would help too. Doug McDonald has some great ideas for improving local bus service, but we don't necessarily endorse his assessment of Sound Transit.

Because of High Gas Prices, Ex-Suburbanites Might Flock to Cities

From today's Seattle Times.

A Portland economist predicts that buyers soon will choose where to live based on what they would spend for gasoline.

That, eventually, will devalue suburban housing while strengthening in-city home prices, says Joe Cortright, whose Portland consulting firm, Impresa, recently released a report saying as much to U.S. mayors.

"The new calculus of higher gas prices may have permanently reshaped urban housing markets," said Cortright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit Washington, D.C., think tank. "What this really means is that as people move, they're going to look for places that enable them to drive shorter distances and avoid places where they have to drive a lot.

One little problem: Seattle isn't prepared. Whether it's our inadequate alternative-transportation infrastructure or our ugly multifamily housing neighborhoods, Seattle can and should do better. That's why Sound Transit expansion, streetcar network expansion, and the multifamily housing zoning code are issues we're closely tracking.

Commuters Are Choosing to Bike More, But Seattle's Cycling Infrastructure Isn't Keeping Up

So reports the Seattle Times. Maybe it's just the nice weather. But bicycle shops are reporting huge sales boosts, and we've noticed more bicyclists on the streets recently.

The City's Bicycle Master Plan will provide more infrastructure for bicyclists:

With a bike advocate in Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, city officials have approved a Bicycle Master Plan to promote commuting and recreational riding, via a network of bike lanes and trails. Nickels has said he wants to triple the use of bicycles in the city within a decade.

The Bicycle Master Plan identifies a goal of 143 miles of bike lanes by 2016 (there are currently 31 miles), along with making bike lanes at intersections more noticeable. The Seattle Department of Transportation counted 2,273 cyclists riding into downtown on one day last September during the morning rush hour.

That's great, but what we really want to see are more separated bike planes:

That we could get behind.

Paris Planning New Electric Car Sharing Program

After posting about municipal bike sharing progams, we came across CoolTown Studios' post about a new electric car sharing program in Paris.

Zipcar is great, but Paris's Autolib program seems better. It's car sharing 2.0. Not only are the cars electric, but the computerized system allows users to park the cars at any drop-off point (700 of them!) and then, after completing the trip's purpose, to pick up a different car. This system would allow for more efficient use of the cars and the city's curb space. With Zipcar's system, in contrast, the cars just sit there unused when the driver doesn't need it, and the cars are more tethered to their parking spots.

Hey City of Seattle, why let Paris have all the fun?

Bike Sharing and So Can Seattle

Barcelona:

Read more about the Barcelona program.

Corporate-sponsored program in Vancouver, BC:

Paris:

Read more about the Paris program.

Bring this to Seattle, please!

UPDATE: Portland is struggling to get its own bike-sharing program off the ground. (Via Planetizen)

We Should Start Our Own "Ciclova," the Ultimate Street Festival

Watch this video by Streetfilms:

Dear City of Seattle:

Please make this happen here.

Sincerely,

Friends of Seattle

Americans Continue to Drive Less, Take Transit More

An amazing graph in the Times:

With our buses and commuter trains full, these irreversible trends beg the question: how are we going to invest in what people are demanding -- transit? Sound Transit expansion, without more, is not enough to meet our needs.