I know there were two sets of petitions going around - both were just Cascade's "Safe, Complete Streets" thing.

My set has 32 signatures. Did someone get the other one?

I stopped at chatted with the "Bikes are Bullies" guys for about half an hour.

Their fear is that their delivery trucks are going to be delayed by 30 minutes going up and down Stone Way. If you didn't notice, they looked to be in their 60's and were near a paint store and a print shop.

They claimed to have had no knowledge of those bicycle master plan meetings or of the complete streets meetings. They apparently first got wind of this 6 months ago, found some report that claims traffic is turning to gridlock because they don't have four lanes for the ENTIRE length of Stone Way, and told me that the Stone Way Hardware guy had to wait 30 minutes one day to get out of his business parking lot. They are worried about the reduction in lanes and that it will put them out of business.

They don't have a lot of walk-up or probably any bike-up traffic because their storefronts aren't condusive to it.

Anyway, they have been holding business group meetings (apparently involving SDOT) with no bicycle input for 6 months and now they feel like we are trying to bully the city into taking away their extra lanes.

Since I work over in Fremont, I am going to try to have a longer conversation with them. The businesses would like us on Woodlawn, but there isn't a stoplight to protect the crossing on Bridge Way...and it still doesn't solve the pedestrian issue.

I do find it interesting that we had a year of bicycle master plan work, not sure how much complete streets work and they didn't know about any of those meetings, but then they had 6 months of meetings and can't figure out why we weren't at their meetings.

They seem like nice enough guys, they are just frustrated and imagine a sea of gridlocked cars preventing them from doing business.

good on ya for chatting it up with this guy. How is it though that there:
a) have been a year of discussion and that area has been neglected?
b) is the impression that endless hordes of bikes and cars will clog that minuet stretch of road to the extent that it negatively effects businesses?

WE NEED TO CONTINUE THIS NEXT WEEK!!!

Redundancy and tenacity will get our message solidified more so than a single incident.

Get ready to repeat this!

I'm up for riding again. My 2 cents: We should limit the route to the Stone Way corridor. Now that the BGT issue is resolved, there's less reason to ride along there. And a limited route might have more impact by keeping us in a denser bunch.

For another commute-time ride, I'd be up for just 34th to 45th and back. My only question is how to safely do the turn-arounds at the north end.

they are just frustrated and imagine a sea of gridlocked cars preventing them from doing business.

the Stone Way Hardware guy had to wait 30 minutes one day to get out of his busines

Did they happen to notice that there was no real impact on stone way traffic even with a mass of bikers *trying* to gridlock things?

just loop around to make the point that complete streets are about more than 4 blocks uphill....

Nope. Did you notice that they left by 5:30? They had to be home for dinner / other family obligations.



For the next one, of whatever we do, I'll try to get in touch with some pedestrian-centric folks. Complete streets are more than bicycles, and even if the Fremont Chamber was able to give us a perfect bike-only, stoplight protected route on Woodlawn and somehow connect it into the BGT, Stone Way as a 4 lane road is still dangerous to pedestrians.

I like that idea. If we had enough people (doing it later or on a weekend might help) it would be nice to go all the way from Gas Works to Greenlake and back to help reinforce the idea of connecting public spaces with safe routes.

For another commute-time ride, I'd be up for just 34th to 45th and back. My only question is how to safely do the turn-arounds at the north end.

Excellent ideas. I also think contacting Feet First (are there other pedestrian advocacy groups in the city?) would be a great idea. Getting them involved would probably limit what times you could ride/walk, so that's probably needs to be done ASAP. Or else schedule a ride, invite them along, and involve them more in the planning for the next one.

for the next round...

I propose a there and back loop but lets make it interesting;

*One group go UP Stone Way, from 34th, over to Bridge way then DOWN Woodlawn
*Another group go DOWN Stone from Bridge Way to 34th and then UP Woodlawn.

If the message from the anti-bike folks is that Woodlawn is a fine alternative, then lets utilize this and show how wrong they are...AND use the lanes that we're supposed to share with traffic up and down Stone. This should effectively display the potential bottleneck in this area and flaw in their logic.


FWIW...i took Stone home yesterday and i'll say from 40th on it was a perfectly wonderful ride with the new dedicated bike lanes. Now if the city would do something with the streach from 50th to the split at Greenlake...

Terrific. you want to map this and post the GIFs and email to me? nova.clawson -AT- gmail -DOT- com.

Thank you all. I <3 each and every one of you for biking the talk (or whine, as some may call it).
-N*

I got a email reply from Jan Drago (Seattle City Council, Chair, Transportation Committee).

What I thought was interesting is this comment:

"the section from N 34th to N 40th the road actually narrows and cannot legally accommodate bicycle lanes."

I sure wish I already had my transportation engineering degree so I could check this out. Could someone contact that guy from Cascade or some other transportation engineer?

email David

he has a handy-dandy book full o' facts, from what I understand, in addition to that skull of his, which is also full of rhetoric and facts :)

ride safe and have fun in PDX!

for the next round...

I propose a there and back loop but lets make it interesting;

*One group go UP Stone Way, from 34th, over to Bridge way then DOWN Woodlawn
*Another group go DOWN Stone from Bridge Way to 34th and then UP Woodlawn.

If the message from the anti-bike folks is that Woodlawn is a fine alternative, then lets utilize this and show how wrong they are...AND use the lanes that we're supposed to share with traffic up and down Stone. This should effectively display the potential bottleneck in this area and flaw in their logic.

Get Feet First on board. Get a crew of walkers, and a crew of bikers. Get bikers set up so they're going up and down Stone Way. Then commence with the Cross-A-Thon.

Enough with the criticism, here's my idea:

Get Feet First on board. Get a crew of walkers, and a crew of bikers. Get bikers set up so they're going up and down Stone Way. Then commence with the Cross-A-Thon.

Every intersection is a legal crosswalk (except where signed otherwise), by State Law. The object of the Cross-A-Thon is for the cyclists to let the pedestrians cross the extremely dangerous Stone Way at every legal crosswalk. Bikers circulate up and down Stone Way. Pedestrians walk up and down Stone Way, and decide they want to cross (let's presume we work out some sort of signal).

We are legally required to stop to let them cross, so that gives them 2 of the 4 lanes clear. But, unfortunately, there are 4 lanes on Stone Way, so there's a big dangerous chunk in the middle. As a gesture of goodwill and for safety's sake, we take the other two and let them cross. Then we continue on with our circling.

Yes, taking all the lanes isn't strictly legal and may be unsafe. But it's the sort of thing that has to be done to make Stone Way safe for pedestrians, as it's currently configured. If the city would follow through on its road diet, there would be a center turn lane as a refuge for the pedestrians, and it would be safer for everyone.

Edit: actually, taking the other 2 lanes would be legal if the cyclists who did so turned left off Stone after the pedestrians had passed.

I got a email reply from Jan Drago (Seattle City Council, Chair, Transportation Committee).

What I thought was interesting is this comment:

"the section from N 34th to N 40th the road actually narrows and cannot legally accommodate bicycle lanes."

I sure wish I already had my transportation engineering degree so I could check this out. Could someone contact that guy from Cascade or some other transportation engineer?

The real reason that they didn't do the road diet/bike lane thing south of
34th is that some businesses complained because they wanted to keep using
the outside lanes as their (illegal) truck loading zones. I attended a
public meeting last year about this project, Suzie Burke was there and was
one of the loudest complainers.

I don't think this idea works.

First, you have to get it straight whether it's Woodlawn or Woodland Park. And to prove the Fremont Chamber wrong, you have to get them to agree which one it is.

Second, Woodland Park Ave is a batshit crazy idea. What do you do at Bridge Way? At 45/46th? It's not worth even entertaining, and we should not dignify it with a response.

Likewise, Woodlawn, while possibly a workable idea if they install signals at 40th, 45th and 50th (although the jogs at 45th and 50th look too large too me), should probably not be responded to, either. The city had a plan, and they're welching on it. We shouldn't spend our time shooting down every half-ass idea from the peanut gallery.

Third, suppose we decide to go up and down Woodlawn or Woodland Park. Who does it inconvenience when we can't cross Bridge Way or 40th? Us. The only point we'd be making is to ourselves, and the only people who will notice will be the condo and homeowners watching a large group of cyclists whiz by their sleepy little side street.

If we really want to go down Woodlawn (or Woodland Park), then I suggest we simulate the changes that would have to be made to make the street into a viable bike lane. Namely, traffic lights. Of course, we can't install traffic lights, so we would have to cork the intersection and direct traffic. That would have an effect, and that would make our point.