Round-up: Bicycle Master Plan Meetinghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Biking from downtown over to the University of Washington's Gould Hall, there was little doubt that tonight's first bicycle master plan meeting would be well attended. The scene at Gould did not disappoint with well over 400 people in attendance. Bicycles were literally hanging from the rails and everyone was excited and eager to vent/share/point/write and tell the folks from Toole Design Group exactly what they wanted to know about bicycling in the city.

After about an hour of milling, sign-ins, etc. the official presentation began. The Mayor has set an agenda of being the number one bicycle city in the country. A headline grabbing goal, to be sure, but a few questions:

First, is that it? If we are to achieve all of the goals of the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, we need to do a lot more than increase Seattle's bicycling population a few tenths of a percent. Right now, only 1.8% of commuters bicycle to work. We need to change that number by tens, not tenths, if cycling is to actually add up to an impact on Seattle's contribution to carbon emissions and thus global warming/killing the Puget Sound/stopping the obesity epidemic/etc. Why aren't we trying to be the best in the world? What about Copenhagen? Or traditional Asian cities?

Second, will restriping really accomplish the Mayor's goals? Yes, it is important to educate, advocate and make physical improvements to our streets to make Seattle a more bike friendly city, but there seem to be MUCH larger policy decisions that need to be made. Tough decisions, but ones that really point us toward a new urban vision of bicycle commuting in Seattle. Part of this, is, we believe, what the long-range green infrastructure plan will get us.

Other things to note:

• Pete Lagerway from SDOT, noted that they have a bike rack program (hear that Dan Savage?) If you call SDOT and request a bike rack, and there is space available to make that happen, they will install one.
  
• The Seattle Bicycle Gude Map can be obtained for free, and is distributed at the rate of 15,000 maps per year.
• The goals of the current planning effort is not about trails (Burke-Gilman, Chief Sealth, etc) but rather is about creating a better street system for cyclist and also to get cyclist to those existing dedicated trails.
• No Mayor, no Councilmembers attended the meeting that I saw. Please correct me if I am wrong on this . . . but if it is true, what does it say about real support for moving people out of cars?
• The next meeting will be in December or January and will have Toole Design Group presenting their preliminary recs.
• Seattle's audience was the largest that the consultants (who do work nationally) had ever seen.
• When Tammy from Toole asked who had crashed on their bike, a full 70% of the room raised their hands. Shocking. (though the PI says 1/3rd of the room)
  

Other impressions from the meeting?

Local bike advocacy groups include:
Cascade Bicycle Club
Bicycle Alliance of Washington
Critical Mass Seattle

Seattle P-I article here
Seattle Times article here