The city's first Car-Free Sunday was not treated well by the weather, but according to the Bus Chick the Car-Free Sunday, Columbia City version, was well-attended on Sunday. Of course, Nicole Brodeur famously whined that "Seattle is so desperate to be green and gracious, it's making some of us red with rage." She complained about the city's plans for turning over city blocks to people, letting happy walking, playing, and bicycling take priority over noisy, dirty automobiling. From the looks of the Bus Chick's photos, the people -- including many families -- who visited Rainier Avenue on Sunday's Car-Free Day didn't seem to be "red with rage." Instead, they were enjoying each the city as it's best enjoyed -- as people, as a community. We love the car-free days; now let's take it to the next level and start our own full-blast Ciclovia street festival.
By the way, here's a great video of how they do car-free days in Milwaukee:
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!
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.
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:
