Help pass a Vulnerable User law in Washington!

Cascade Bicycle Club Traffic Justice Summit – Wednesday, October 14 2009, Seattle City Hall

In 2007, the Oregon State Legislature passed the “Vulnerable User” law. In a nutshell, what this law does is to strengthen the penalties against motor vehicle operators found to be at fault in accidents involving “vulnerable users” (pedestrians and cyclists). As we all know, in accidents involving these parties, physics dictates that the motor vehicle will win, and the penalty is high to the loser. Legal codes in Oregon were, as they currently are in many other states, similarly slanted to the favor of the motor vehicle operator. The Vulnerable User law changed that in Oregon by assessing criminal penalties to the at-fault driver when an accident results in severe injury or the death of a vulnerable roadway user (pedestrian or cyclist).

Last legislative session, Cascade Bicycle Club, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington and others tried to bring similar change, legal parity and justice to Washington with Senate Bill 5838. The bill never made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In legislative lingo, it “died in committee.” Fortunately, since our legislature is a biennial legislature, any bill that dies in the first year of the legislature, isn’t really dead. When the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate convene the 2010 legislative session, the bill will be revived.

Now is the time to begin planning and working to get Senate Bill 5838 passed and into law.

What you can do:
· Attend the Traffic Justice Summit on Wednesday, October 14 at Seattle City Hall. If you are unable to attend, I’m told that the summit will be aired on the Seattle Channel and available online.
· Know your legislative delegation
· Know who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee
· Call and write your legislative delegation as well as members of the Judiciary committees and encourage them to support this bill. The Legislative hotline can be reached at: 1-800-562-6000.

New digs and up-coming commute change

I've grumped a bit about my current commute. Well, it's not going to get much better as far as timing. However, there will the possibility for more variety. Come November, Maurie and I will bid farewell to downtown living and move to West Seattle. We'll be very close to Alki beach, with it's wonderful activity and bike path. I'll still need to get into downtown to catch the shuttle to the office, but I can bike to downtown, take the bus, or get to the water taxi and take that across the bay!

Another nice thing, we'll have the kayaks at home again, and with a set of wheels for the boats, we can just roll them down to the beach and shove off! How nice is that?!

Well, that's all for now!

Bicycle-Friendly Lopez Island

On Sunday of the long weekend, Maurie and I took a trip up to Lopez Island in the San Juans for the day. I'll admit, we took the car and drove around. Call it scouting for future visits (and there will be future visits). We did take our bikes, but with the wind and our wanting to see more of the island and hike around some, we ended up leaving them on the roof rack.

The roof rack brings me to an important piece of advice. If you're travelling by Washington State Ferry, bring your bikes inside your car, lay them down and lash them to the roof, or use a rear-mounted bike rack. The maximum height for vehicles without additional fee is 7 feet, 6 inches. If you go over that, you pay double. That's right, a $33 fare becomes $66. And yes, bikes will put most cars over that limit. Fortunately for us, the woman at the toll booth informed us and asked if we could get the bikes in the car or do something to lower the height to under the limit.

The ferry issue aside, Lopez was wonderful. The island is definitely a bike-friendly place. First, the roads are nice rolling roads with low speed limits. I think the maximum speed limit on the island is 35, but most drove 25-30. So much to see, and no need to rush around. Drivers all give cyclists room when they pass and there are bike racks everywhere! The racks are not all your run of the mill four or five bike rack, but some ar build to hold 30+ bicycles! Lopez Kayak and Bicycle (I think I got that correct) has build several wooden racks and placed them at parks and throughout the island at places one would be inclined to stop for a bit. We also discovered a map of the island put out by the Bicycle Alliance of Lopez. The front side is a map with some popular stops, the back has the parks and stops listed with a short write-up on them. It was very helpful to us in deciding where to visit.

We'll be back to Lopez sometime soon. There were lots of bays and coves in which to paddle our kayaks, and lovely terrain for cycling. Maybe come April, I'll ride the Tour de Lopez!

My new job...an adventure in transit

I started a new job yesterday. I'm now working the help desk for a health care organization. When I was called to come in for an interview, I was excited. I mean, the organization has the naming rights to a velodrome, they sponsor a women's cycling team for women on staff, and they have been sponsors of Bike to Work day here in Seattle. What better place for a cycling nut?

For all that, cycling access to the administrative campus is pretty lacking. Sure, there's the Green River Trail, which lets out onto Interurban Ave about a mile away. But that mile from the trail to the office, is along a narrow, winding road, that just happens to lose any sidewalks for about half a mile, and all shoulder for about 200-300 yards...around a curve. I watched several tractor-trailer combos rubmle down this road yesterday. So, that's out...

So, if I don't want to drive myself, that leaves transit or carpool/vanpool. Metro has an agreement with my employer to allow use of buses bound for South Base as a shuttle. These run quite frequently, until just before 8 am. My shift starts at 9, so taking a shuttle puts me there 30-45 minutes early! That's the most reasonable transit option, timing wise. Since my shift ends at 6, coming home looks to be worse. The last shuttle to Seattle leaves at 5:30. I can walk 1.3 miles to a Park & Ride and catch the 150 to downtown. I did that yesterday and got home at 7:15 (after leaving the office at 6:02). Or, I could wait 25+ minutes for a bus to the Rainier Beach Link station, and take the train. This will get me home, oh, about 7:15.

What's aggrivating to me, is when the Link was put in, it was routed along the south end of Boeing Field, and then south to Tukwila International Blvd., along an industrial corridor with scattered office complexes. From Rainier Beach to Tukwilia International, there are no stops. None to service Boeing (I mean come on, one of the region's major employers, and Sound Transit couldn't have put a station in for them?); not further down East Marginal Way for other businesses!

So, now I'm left with adventures in transit to get home

Slow posting

Once again, I've fallen behind in my updates. I'm back into job hunt mode after my contract ended at the end of July. Lots to write about, and I'll try to get back to updating more frequently.

Bikeshare demo in Seattle

Last week, we walked down to the South Lake Union Discovery Center to check out the Bikeshare demo being put on by Metro.

I'm really very excited about the prospect of a bikeshare in Seattle. I've seen a lot about the City Bike program in Copenhagen and Vélib in Paris. In the past couple of years, we've started to see these programs start up in the US.

At today's demo were three systems (I guess that's what you'd call them): B-Cycle, Bixi, and the Bikeshare Program. Each of the systems has an "open cockpit design" bike which can be checked out for point-to-point, or round-trip travel. Fare structure would be set by the "owner" of the program. In the case of Seattle by Metro and the city.

Looking at the bikes, I was most impressed with the B-Cycle bikes, followed closely by the Bixi bikes (I preferred B-Cycle's closed basket, and liked the handlebars better than Bixi's). The Bike Share Group's system has a more protected storage mechanism than the others. It shows that they are the local guys, knowing how bikes need a little more protection from the elements in our damp Northwest weather. This means that their bikes have more points of adjustment to get the bike ready to ride. This is both a benefit and a drawback. It's a benefit in that you can adjust the bike to better suit your size (by adjusting both seat and handlebar height), whereas the others only allow for the seat adjustment. The drawback lies in that there's more to do to get the bike ready to ride. All bikes are equipped with fenders and lights that are powered by a dynamo hub. Bixi and B-Cycle have spoke guards that allow riders to wear long coats or skirts without worrying about them getting caught up in spokes.

I can see a bike share being a wonderful addition to our growing list of transportation options. It would be great to see bikes stationed near transit stations as well as downtown. Even though I will often bike places, I can see using such a system when I've started out by foot or transit, but decide I'd like to ride somewhere a bit out of the way of the transit line I'm using.

With the hills in Seattle, a key to making this really work will be to ensure that bikes don't end up all at the bottom of the hills. Paris has a crew that is constantly redistributing bikes to ensure that there's sufficient availability. Seattle will have to mimic this sort of arrangement. Another thing that will need to happen is a repeal of the mandatory helmet law in Seattle. The target market for bike shares (tourists, casual riders, and those who wouldn't ordinarily ride) are not likely to have a bike helmet with them, and the idea of sharing a helmet from a communal pool is not too sanitary. Mandatory helmet laws are said to be a barrier to people cycling, and it certainly would be a barrier in the community embracing a bike share in Seattle.

First ride on the Link

**No pictures yet. I'll add some once I've uploaded them from the camera**

Saturday brought a surprise for Maurie and me. Our first ride on the new Central Link light rail line. We'd gone down to Pike Place to look for something, but after being in the crowds for a bit, we didn't really want to go back into a hot apartment with all the noise from the Seafair Torchlight Parade going on that evening.

We ended up going down into the transit tunnel (feels weird not calling the bus tunnel any more!) I was hoping to get a look at a Link train. But none were at the platform. Maurie says I was a bit crestfallen at that. While we were on the mezzanine, one did pull in. We looked down on it, and Maurie suggested taking the train for a ride. So, off to figure out how to do the payment and ride.

One of the Sount Transit folks told us I could just tap my ORCA card to the reader, and Maurie just needed to show her Puget Pass if asked. So, we boarded and headed south to Tukwila station.

The ride was very nice. Quite quick to get down through Seattle. We left Westlake station at about 6, I think, and the southbound train was full. No vacant seats, and a lot of people standing. As we went south, nuturally, it thinned out some. But by the time we reached Tukwila station, there were still plenty of riders.

We de-boarded at Tukwila, thinking we'd have to move over to the other track for the northbound train. There was no indication that the train we just arrived on would just reverse direction from its place in the station. So, after looking for a bathroom (and finding one open porta-potty that badly needed service), we got on what we thought was the next northbound train.

We rode back north to Columbia City where we got off the train to see a movie. The first thing we noticed when we got off the train was that in the small park next to the station was a sign listing what was nearby...restaurants, cinema, shops, a market, etc. Maurie had been commenting on the ride north that something like this would be very helpful for riders.

As we walked through Columbia City, we noticed that the business district was still fairly lively. Several folks walking the street, a few businesses still open, lots of restaurants and bars open. In nearly every window was a poster welcoming Link riders. Most every business had a special for people who show their ride ticket or ORCA card. For example, the Columbia City Cinema offers $2 off adult tickets in the evening (I can't remember what they were for matinee showings).

We dropped into the Columbia City Alehouse for an appetizer and beer and then walked the neighborhood until our 9:40 movie.

After the movie, we caught a 12:30 train back to Westlake. This train had a handful of other riders. The south-bound trains out of Seattle were more full with people leaving the city.

We really enjoyed the ride. It will make it so much easier to get to points south of downtown. A couple of observations:

1. Bathrooms at the stations need to be better maintained (only porta-potties at one? what's with that?)
2. Fare/payment system is confusing. Require every rider to obtain a ticket from the ticket vending machine. And fit them to read Puget Passes!
3. The art work at the stops is awesome! It really makes the stops more inviting.

All in all, I'm glad we had the unplanned evening out on the train, especially since I turn in my ORCA pass on Friday at the end of my current contract.