hugeasscity

I’ve ridden my bike under this thing more than 800 times and somehow have remained lethargically ambivalent about it. Sure is big and fancy all glistening in light and shadow.

When it was completed back in 2001, some folks — most notably Peter Steinbrueck — were not so equivocal. The main gripe was that it blocked the view corridor from Capitol Hill down to Elliott Bay — true enough. And the fallout has made it far more difficult to get new street overpass structures approved in Seattle.

The other major flaw in this “galleria” is that it doesn’t do much other than look interesting. Ideally, the goal of putting up such a structure would to form a comfortable urban room below, where people would gather, out of the weather, to window shop or sit at cafe tables spilling out on to the sidewalk. But this one has an inherent defect — it’s out of human scale — too high and wide to create a cozy sense of enclosure. And besides, there aren’t enough street-oriented businesses along that block of Pike to sufficiently activate the street. The Convention Center is an internally focused use.

It does block the rain. A nice perk for conventioneers walking to a cab, but when it’s raining in Seattle it’s also usually too cold to hang out at a sidewalk table. And when it isn’t raining we crave the sun, but get robbed by overhead structures.

Huh, maybe I don’t like this thing after all.

When Obama chose Republican Ray LaHood to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation last December, transit advocates were nonplussed. But they must be serving up the hard stuff in the White House, cause here’s what LaHood had to say last week:

“In the past, population and economic growth have always led to large increases in highway travel. This is because most communities’ have built transportation systems that only allow people and goods to move by road. This Administration believes that people should have options to get to work, school, the grocery or the doctor that do not rely solely on driving. We want to transform our transportation system into a truly multimodal system with strong alternatives to driving in order to maximize highway capacity, combat traffic congestion, reduce our reliance on oil and decrease greenhouse gas emissions…

“Linking transportation and land-use planning to promote improved access to transit and creating walkable, bikeable communities will increase overall mobility and benefit all Americans.”

Read the rest here (pdf). It’s all so right on. What the hell is going on in America?

If not strong Kool-Aid, then perhaps someone has been channeling Lewis Mumford, who in 1958* wrote:

“The fatal mistake we have been making is to sacrifice every other form of transportation to the private motorcar… That is why we need a better transportation system, not just more highways… If we want to make the most of our national highway program, we must keep most of the proposed expressways in abeyance until we have done two other things. We must replan the inner city for pedestrian circulation, and we must rebuild and extend our public forms of mass transportation.”

Well, as they say, better half a century late than never.

*The Highway and the City, Architectural Record, April 1958.

As a test of how sensitively Google Analytics tracks declining site visits, I offer you a post that’s all about me.

That sweet ride in the picture above is mine. If you look closely you’ll see that the tire is studded. Those studs got me safely back and forth from my house in the Central District to my job downtown for the past three work days. Any of you readers among those who saw me out there and were no doubt thinking “what a fucking idiot!”?

I handmade a pair of studded mountain bike tires about 20 years ago when I lived in Massachusetts and liked to race around on frozen ponds. They work marvelously on roads that are “snow packed by design,” though it’s still plenty dicey in loose snow and slush. When my bus route was suspended last week, I decided to dig those gnarly beasts out of storage — never mind that they hadn’t been on a bike in 20 years.

Thanks to my deranged unwillingness to throw the tires away over those two decades, which included a cross-country move, two cities, and five different residences, I have been able to keep my unbroken stretch of bike commuting going since the snowstorm last winter. No more excuses not to ride, EVER!

For the bike geeks: I got that bike for $25 a couple of years ago at the Lake City Value Village. It’s a 1993 Alpinestars Al-Mega E900. New, the frame alone retailed for $750. Like most outdoor recreational gear, mountain bikes have evolved such a rapid pace that it might as well be planned obsolescence. But that also makes for some sick bargains if you happen to have a hankering for the old stuff.

Want to know more? Google “Daniel C. Bertolet” and “GaAs”.

And the kids over at SLOG get to have so much fun with it that it’s almost too cruel. Almost.

Here, Erica Barnett disembowels James Vesely for his stupendously dumb plea for the taxation of bicycles. And here, Dominic Holden exposes the Seatimes’ curiously passionate fear of proposed incentive zoning, and how their main argument — that if you tax a thing you tend to get less of it — flies smack in the face of Vesely’s call for a bicycle tax. Not to mention that they offer no other ideas about how we might address the lack of affordable housing in Seattle.

Though the Seatimes editorial board appears to be oblivious to the fact that incentive zoning for heights above 85 feet will have zero impact on housing outside of downtown (or have they suddenly become hyper-density advocates?), they are correct to point out that it will be a tricky business to craft code that works as intended across all city neighborhood contexts.

The topic is worthy of another post one of these days, but perhaps some of y’all out there already have all the answers?

At the corner of 21st and Union in the Central District, this is the kind of small-scale commercial building that forms the heart of an urban neighborhood. They tend to be a little old and rough around the edges, yet have character in both the architecture and tenants that more than makes up for it. Most importantly, they are affordable to the independent businesses that foster meaningful connections between people and place.

The building in the photo above is home to a bike repair shop, a yoga/pilates studio, and a small movie theater that serves food and drinks. On election night the movie theater — Central Cinema — hosted a neighborhood party that perfectly illustrates the unifying role small businesses can play in their community. The video below (via CD News) shows a particularly profound moment from that night, during which a woman spontaneously went up on stage and sang the national anthem. Pretty safe to assume nothing like this happened at the multiplex.

“No disrespect to you bikers! Much respect!”

That graffiti pretty well captures my sentiments for the people who made this place happen: Under the freeway between North Capitol Hill and Eastlake, I-5 Collonade Mountain Bike Park is an absolutely brilliant reclamation of previously useless urban land.

The park occupies 7.5 acres owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation that was identified as potential open space in the 1998 Eastlake Neighborhood Plan. The 2000 Seattle Parks Levy tossed in $1.8 million for construction, and the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club stepped up with thousands of hours of volunteer work to build the mountain bike trails. More details on the history here.

The photo above shows the scene yesterday, at the grand opening celebration of the complete park (parts of the park have been open since 2005). It’s a startlingly vast area under there. The looming I-5 deck, the massive, towering concrete columns, the dusty dry ground, and the slashes of sunlight create a uniquely surreal atmosphere. And there must have been about a billion dollars worth of bicycle in the park yesterday (what recession? — a $2k dual-suspension dirt jumper in every pot!).

It’s inspiring: citizen volunteers, the neighborhoods, the City, and the State all playing nice together to produce something very outside the box that has become a smashing success. And not just for bikers: the new stairway through the park provides a new pedestrian connection across I-5, and it has been well used.

At yesterday’s event a petition was being circulated to request that WSDOT open a gated maintenance road that would allow a trail connection from the park to points south. With Colonnade Park as a precedent, it will be much harder for WSDOT to say no.

[ Nothing photoshopped here, that’s a real unicycle. Should we be surprised, in the land of extreme everything? ]

…for beating this deceased-and-decaying-horse cycling issue a little longer with the following three riffs:

1.) Field Report: Today on my two-mile ride to work downtown, I encountered three cars not using turn signals. Then on my way home, I saw three bikes run a red light at 4th and Pike. Which behavior is more cause for concern?

2.) My “bicycles don’t matter” rant has received more comments than any other hugeasscity post, which is a telling demonstration of the the post’s main premise. But oblivious was I to the rich flamefest that ensued over at SLOG when Erica Barnett posted an excerpt. Oh my, such language! Comment number two is my all time favorite. Thank you esteemed SLOG commenters for doing such a smashing job of proving my original point about how people get absurdly riled up over something so innocuous as bicycles.

3.) Did anyone see the August PI opinion piece on why cyclists should never ever break any traffic law? I may be suffering from delusions of grandeur, but I couldn’t help wondering if the author was responding to something he read on hugeasscity. So I fired off a letter to the editor at the PI, but alack, it didn’t make the cut. At the risk of becoming even more of a pariah among the cycling community, here is the text of the letter:

The most revealing aspect of John Bealaurier’s contention that “running that red light on your bike is not a victimless crime” is his rationalization for it. It’s not that the action itself is directly responsible for any harm. Rather, it is because the action could annoy drivers, provoking them to drive unlawfully and harm cyclists. Got that? It’s sort of like claiming that marching in a pro-choice rally is not victimless because it might provoke some nutcase to go off and assasinate a doctor. And drivers that intentionally endanger the lives of others with their cars are exactly that: nutcases. There is absolutely no excuse for playing irresponsibly with a lethal weapon.

When people preach that cyclists must obey every traffic law or else expect to face the wrath of homicidal drivers, I would argue that in the long run, they are actually doing cyclists a disservice. Because through this aquiescence, they are in effect accepting sociopathic drivers as a fact of life, and are thereby perpetuating the norm in which too many drivers are allowed to get away with being lawless in their handling of a deadly machine.

And this isn’t just about cars and bikes. This is about a society in which there is a massive disconnect between the risk imposed by cars, and the lack of seriousness with which we take their operation. I respect the work and goals of the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, but I would encourage them to worry less about cyclists bending traffic laws, and more about how to repair that disconnect. And in the mean time, I’ll follow Bealaurier’s logic and only run red lights while no mentally unstable drivers are looking.

HAC on 8/4/08

HAC on 8/7/08

NYT on 8/8/08

I walk to work everyday and have, for a long time, been perplexed by why so many people don’t know how to use sidewalks.   The generally accepted method is much akin to how cars and bikes use roadways.  Your path of travel should always be to your right (Anyone wager on how many folks are going to comment about path of travel in, oh say, Britain?).  And as much as I adhere to this principle, I constantly encounter people “hugging” the building line of a sidewalk to their left.  Does anyone know why people are drawn to doing this? Especially downtown at peak hours.  For the most part I’ve begun to hold my ground and just plow into people who are refusing to move.  Hell, folks do it to me all the time.  So in case there are some people out there who are unsure of proper sidewalk travel etiquette, decorum, propriety (all imply observance of the formal requirements governing behavior in polite society), I’ve included the below diagram for everyone to understand how to properly use a sidewalk.

 

 

The answer seems rather obvious to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So then why do so many people get their panties in such a bunch about them?

But before going there… talk about Instant Karma: Yesterday I had the closest call I’ve ever had on my bike downtown. A Metro bus blew by me within inches, and when I confronted the driver about it at the next red light, he essentially admitted he was just “playing games” with me because he was annoyed that I had cut to the front of the line of traffic stopped at the previous light. Though some of you dear readers are no doubt brimming with glee over how I got what I deserved, I trust there are a few sane ones out there who recognize just how fucked up that bus driver’s response was. I annoyed him so he seriously threatened my life; sort of like if I called him a poopy head and he put a loaded gun to my head and pulled the trigger halfway. This person should have his driving privileges revoked. Period. (I filed a complaint with Metro — it will be interesting to see how it is handled.)

Back to the point: Bicycles have but the tiniest impact on most urbanites’ lives. But judging by the way some people spew the bile (google “slog” and “bikes”), you’d think bikes were holding the entire city hostage.

The impact that bikes have on traffic flow is negligible. The damage that bicycles do to people and property is negligible. The objective reality is that pretty much the worst bicycles do is that they annoy people.

Perspective all right: As I was writing this late last night I heard a volley of gunshots go off a couple blocks away from my house followed by three or four police cruisers screaming down 23rd Ave. That, and the social conditions that led to it, is something worth being concerned about.

I mean really people, are bicycles riding on sidewalks really that big of a source of anxiety in your lives? Does my riding up to the front of a line of cars stopped at a red light have any significant consequence, other than annoyance?

Meanwhile cars kill something like 40,000 people per year in the U.S. And maim who knows how many times more. And destroy a few bazillion dollars of property.

And while it’s no doubt true that people sometimes have annoying interactions with bicycles, the frequency with which it happens has got to be low in comparison to the onslaught of daily annoyances faced by the typical urbanite. There just aren’t that many bikes out there.

I am baffled by those who express the same level of contempt for cyclists that break the rules of the road as they do for drivers that break the rules of the road. In the latter instance, someone might end up crushed on the pavement, while in the former, perhaps someone might get, well, really annoyed.  It’s awfully curious how these folks (including many cyclists) suddenly become sticklers for the letter of the law when it comes to bikes. But you can be sure that all but the purest saints among them have either jaywalked, or smoked pot, or committed some other trivial victimless crime.

Which brings us to the “we’ll only earn their respect if we set a good example” argument. Yes, there is some truth in that, but here again I find it remarkable how so many cyclists seem to believe it’s so important for all cyclists to strictly adhere to this saintly standard. Did cyclists in Europe have to prove they were all perfectly behaved at all times before their governments invested in serious cycling infrastructure? No, I think not. That’s because the Europeans are smart enough to focus on what matters: the support of cycling for the overall health of their cities — not trivialities such as a bike rolling through a stop sign.

And what also repels me from the “respect” argument is that it is based on — and therefore helps to propagate — the twisted attitude that drivers are doing cyclists a huge favor by merely putting up with their presence on the roads.  In other words, you cyclists best be kissing our asses, and maybe we’ll be good enough not to mow you down.  First of all, as I already pointed out, bikes have a miniscule impact on cars and people in the city.  But more importantly, the truth is that every person who opts to travel by bike instead of by car is doing a favor for everyone in the city, including drivers.  Cue up the indignant cries that I am claiming cyclists are superior moral beings.  Whatever.  The fact that travel by bike is good for the planet is objective, verifiable, quantifiable truth. 

I would like to propose a new strategy:  Cyclists ought to break the rules of the road at every opportunity that doesn’t comprimise their, or others’ safety.  Then, over time, drivers would begin to get used to it, and ultimately they would realize that, hey, you know what, it really isn’t such a big deal when, for example, a bike runs a red light after stopping to verify there is no cross traffic.  And then we can all move on, agreeing that in terms of the multidude of problems facing the modern city, bikes are like flies buzzing around the head of Godzilla.  That is, they don’t matter.

Nobody out there has anything to say about all this, do they?

(warning: echo-chamber post forthcoming)

Erica Barnett nailed it: “Cyclists are angry for a reason.” As I wrote back when hugeasscity was still an innocent babe, I appreciate the frustration that feeds the Critical Mass gestalt. And this is an appreciation that you cannot gain until you’ve spent a lot of time biking around the city. I’ve been bike commuting downtown every day for many years, and rare is the day that I don’t see at least one car do something careless. Too many drivers are not taking responsibility for the deadly machines they are controlling, and my risk goes up because of it. Any normal person faced with this situation day after day would become angry.

Cycling advocates worry too much about Critical Mass straining the relationship between cars and cyclists. Does anyone actually believe that a backlash against Critical Mass could cause the City of Seattle’s leadership to reverse position on the need for policy changes that promote cycling? No, of course not, because the City’s leaders understand the importance of planning to create a more sustainable city, and from that perspective, Critical Mass is an insignificant blip.

But what Critical Mass does do that matters is build solidarity in the cycling community and empower people to demand better conditions for cycling. And I’m down with that. Maybe I’ll even go on a Critical Mass ride one of these years…

True Story: The City of Seattle has taken space away from cars and given it to cyclists. And not just any space, but the most sacred kind of space there is in car culture: parking. A new bike lane will soon open on the west side of 4th Ave between Yesler and Spring, as part of Seattle’s new bike master plan. And 38 parallel parking spaces will be sacrificed. This is a minor miracle.

As for whether or not the majority of Seattlites share my view of progress, this King5 news story is highly revealing. It begins with a set up, describing this dreadful thing that has happened: downtown parking is becoming more scarce, and when you’re late for an appointment you’re going to have to drive around and around the block looking for a space and you may not even find one! Then comes the punchline: “The culprit – a new bicycle lane on 4th Avenue.”

From the 24th and Marion mailing list regarding a proposed small bar at 25th and union that Erin Nestor and Rebecca Denk of the Bottleneck Lounge want to open:

“There are a handful of neighbors that are very opposed to this project.  They do not want a bar as their neighbor…..no matter what type.”

I’m truly at a loss for words here. Bars are the types of establishments that give neighborhoods character. They become meeting places and centers of community. Perhaps those that object would prefer to move to the anti-social suburbs?

“They are concerned about drunk driving, noise from people coming and leaving the venue, and parking issues.”

Neighborhood bars like the one proposed at 25th and Union probably do more to discourage drunk driving by *gasp* encouraging people to walk to their neighborhood bar. Look at capitol hill, nearly no one who lives on the hill actually drives to the bar. People take cabs, ride bikes and walk. I don’t necessarily think Union and 23rd to 25th needs to have the same level of activity as pike/pine in capitol hill, but it would be really nice to have some sort of life on that street after dark, as oppose to drug pushing. Oh and good neighbors please get used to the fact that non of us are entitled to free street parking.

Anyway we can all help:

“Erin and Rebecca have invited us to send letters of support to the WA State Liquor Board.

Here is the address:

Washington State Liquor Control Board
Licensing and Regulation
PO Box 43098
Olympia, WA  98504-3098
Attention: Dean Lau

Liquor license #: 403447
Tryst
1137 25th Ave. Unit E”

 

 

Velib – Paris’ “Bicycle Transit System”

San Francisco is finally getting around to updating its 1997 bike plan. It plans to add 34 miles of bike lanes, almost doubling what it currently has. And to do it, they are looking at removing curbside parking and traffic lanes in some cases. That’s what it takes to make a system that the masses are willing and able to use. Squeezing drivers and bicyclists onto streets that are already narrow compared to other cities, using sharrows, and narrow bike lanes are half measures only. But that’s old news. Meanwhile world class cities such as London and Paris not only see biking as a critical measure for reducing GHG emissions, but they see it as an economic engine. London unveiled its plan to encourage more bicycling last month and last year Paris launched Velib, a self-service “bicycle transit system.” The system includes over 20,000 bikes, at 1,451 stations that are no more than 900 feet apart. What’s it going to take in Seattle? Ideas abound, but leadership doesn’t.

[ Interbay; North is to the right ]

As reported in the Seattle PI today, and in the Seattle Times back in January, pretty much everyone* agrees that upzoning the Interbay district is a good idea. Interbay, which is not an official neighborhood, is a chunk of neglected land just south of the Ballard Bridge, centered around W. Dravis St. to the west of 15th Ave. W.

The Interbay Neighborhood Association has been advocating for an upzone since 2005, and the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) began conducting zoning studies in 2006. And here we are in 2008, still waiting for a decision.

Currently, progress is being held up by DPD, which must produce the environmental impact statement before any further steps can be taken. In other words, red tape. If DPD needs to hire more people to preclude delays such as this, they should be given the budget immediately. Seattle is growing up fast and we can’t afford to miss out on opportunities for dense redevelopment in areas that are perfect for it.

*Everyone except the Magnolia Neighborhood Planning Council, which, echoing the rallying cry of suburbanites across the nation, is objecting to density and building heights. Pardon my rant, but this attitude just gets more appallingly pathetic by the day. Is it possible, living in a city like Seattle, that these people still do not understand the connection between density and sustainability? Would it be unfair to insinuate that in truth, the primary concern of most of these folks is traffic congestion on Dravus?

Well here’s the deal Magnolia Neighborhood Planning Council people: Seattle is densifying as a strategy to help mitigate environmental crisis (perhaps you’ve heard about this on NPR?). Magnolia is not exempt. Yes, it will be harder to get around by car, you can count on that, everywhere in the City. Slowly but surely transit will be improved. Maybe you’ll find yourself taking the bus, or riding a bike, or perhaps even walking to the thriving new neighborhood center in Interbay. You’ll be OK. Better off, even. And so will the City, the region, and the planet.

Looks like a pleasant place for a promenade, no? What fun to push a stroller around that streetlight pole as oncoming traffic rushes past an arms-reach away.

Oh, how exhilarating to feel the wind in your face as a bus roars by so close you could reach out and touch it.

Or for an exciting variation, try walking with your back to the traffic, and see if you can keep yourself from flinching each time a car screams up from behind you.

This is 23rd Ave in the Central District, between Spring and Marion, about the suckiest pedestrian street you could imagine.

The root problem is simple: the 23rd Ave right of way (ROW) is too narrow, and it should never have been made into a four lane arterial. The ROW on this section of 23rd Ave is only 60 feet, which, with four 12-foot travel lanes, leaves only six feet for sidewalk on each side. There’s no room for a planting strip, and if a tree is put in, it ends up blocking half the sidewalk.

For comparison, even the side streets such as Marion have a wider ROW at 65 feet, with eight feet of planting strip between the sidewalk and the curb. Martin Luther King Way is 85 feet wide, and has only two travel lanes.

Because walking along 23rd is a such a totally miserable experience, very few people do it, street life is dead, and 23rd is like a black hole cutting across the neighborhood. Pedestrian-oriented businesses fail. And street environments that repel pedestrians have a tendency to become havens for street crime — it is no coincidence that 23rd and Union, as well as 23rd and Cherry and other areas further south on 23rd Ave have had troubled histories.

Given that 23rd Ave is one of Seattle’s most important north-south arterials, and because at most transportation agencies reducing car capacity is sacrilege, I was astounded to learn that Seattle’s new Bike Master Plan proposes bike lanes on 23rd Ave, south of Madison. The only way bike lanes will fit on 23rd is if two motor vehicle travel lanes are removed, a so-called “road diet.”

Bikes lanes on 23rd are justifiable purely from the perspective of sustainable and balanced transportation. But a road diet would also be great medicine for the community around 23rd Ave by vastly improving the pedestrian realm and thereby catalyzing neighborhood revitalization. The power of streetscape improvements to spawn revitalization should not be underestimated, and a great example is just 11 blocks west of 23rd on 12th Ave between Madison and Cherry.

Dropping 23rd Ave to two travel lanes will reduce its maximum car capacity. But there are many other two-lane arterials in Seattle that handle the same traffic load as 23rd, Broadway being one example (see traffic counts here).

Still, I am highly skeptical that the City will follow through with the recommendation for bike lanes on 23rd, even though this recommendation was published by the City’s own department of transportation. And even though the City is trying to become more balanced in its transportation priorities. And even though we live in one of the most progressive cities in the country, the truth is most Seattlites are still inclined to give car capacity highest priority.

I have been in touch with the City regarding how and when the final decision will be made on bike lanes on 23rd Ave bike lanes, and will post when new info becomes available.

This is the open space on the roof of the the City’s Medgar Evers swimming pool, on 23rd Ave between Jefferson and Cherry, in the Central District. I have yet to see a more pathetic open space, anywhere.

It was designed by firm of the late Seattle architect John M. Morse, who had previously worked with Fred Bassetti. In 1970 the Seattle AIA recognized the Medgar Evers pool with an “Exhibition Award.” Embarrassing.

For most of its life, this open space has served as a great place to hang out and drink from bottles in paper bags, and for smashing those bottles on concrete. In recent years, ever-resourceful skateboarders and bikers have discovered it, pulling off insanely impossible maneuvers in the most unlikely places.

I think it would be a perfect place for a City of Seattle green roof demonstration.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, starting with this birdseye aerial, looking east. Yup, that thing that looks like some kind of WWII-era bunker is the space in question.

Here’s how it looked when it opened, looking SE from 23rd Ave:

And here’s how it looks now, on a sunny winter day:

How does more taxes, pro-abortion, pro-partial birth abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-regulation, how does that play…(ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX News senior judicial analyst: The Big Story with John Gibson, 7/7/04)

So I am thinking about that bland phrase “pro-regulation”, and how it’s actually code for “tree hugging mother f*k*r”. And how pointless, really, it is to point out that when the phrase is taken at face value, it is powerfully meaningless. And I am considering what a complete waste of time it is to point out that if one were to claim being pro-regulation, or anti-regulation for that matter, than one might as well be saying, if you live in Chicago, for example, that you are pro-Winter or pro-Summer. You might seriously believe that the warm weather is preferable, or that you, to the contrary, love Winter’s warm hearth, and don’t forget the magic of the Holidays, and that Summer humidity is just unbearable, but wait! how about those July Fourth barbecues, and bike rides along the Lake! Of course, none of this prognosticating matters because Winter will come and then Summer will come, and then Winter will come again and so on.

Regulation is simply the weather. We don’t argue about whether we need it IN GENERAL. The uncomfortable fact that Capitalism would be a flat failure without regulation is one of the most ridiculously OPEN dirty little secrets of American Culture! I can hardly stand it. It’s even true that Adam Smith HIMSELF argued that government must reign in the excesses of private capital (See Schlesinger’s The Age of Jackson; he has a great chapter on this.) This is almost religiously forgotten.

But, like I said, what a waste of breath to even BROACH the subject…