Does urban cycling in Seattle have enough momentum to go anywhere? Or is recent planning yet another exercise in spinning our wheels?
Those are the questions of a feature in The Seattle Times Sunday magazine about Seattle's new plan to connect bike trails and make sure that road projects include provisions for bicycles. The city currently compares poorly to Portland, which has 156 miles of bike lanes, 68 miles of off-street paths and 30 miles of bike boulevards, according to the story. (Seattle has 25 miles of bike lanes and 37 miles of paths.)
In Portland, the amount of bike commuting has tripled in the last 15 years, even as the rate of accidents has decreased. That's partly because 1 percent of statewide transportation revenue has been dedicated to bike and pedestrian facilities since the mid-1990s, according to the story.
It's interesting that the story comes just two weeks ahead of a nine-year $365 million tax levy that would earmark about $38 million for bike-friendly projects. Specifics on what exactly would be done with the money are maddeningly few. The question remains: is it enough?
Every road with a speed limit of at least 35 should have a physically separated bike/ped lane.
Posted by: Brian | October 23, 2006 at 10:49
Totally agree with Brian.
People around Cascadia really take to this bike commuting if you give them bike lanes. I would love to see how many cars would be taken off the road if there was a bike lane on the 520 bridge.
Posted by: vincent | October 23, 2006 at 16:28