The $930 million Move Seattle Levy was the most ambitious city transportation levy in the U.S. in 2015, but it also overpromised on what it could feasibly deliver for those dollars. The result is that Seattle has completed a lot of great work while also failing to meet the goals promised to voters, especially for transit but also for walking and biking. Now, nine years later, Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing a larger eight-year, $1.35 billion transportation levy to replace the Move Seattle Levy when it expires at the end of this year. That is a 45% increase in total, but a 63% (24% when adjust ..read more

Your boss should go to the Employer Bike Summit Wednesday afternoon at the Central Branch Library in downtown Seattle. It’s a free opportunity to learn and share info on how to make a workplace more bike-friendly and to network, which is an activity I hear bosses love doing. Or if your boss is one of those really busy bosses, then they should send folks from HR. Details and registration: Get ready to pedal into a more sustainable commute this Spring at the 2024 Employer Bike Summit! Discover how you can champion bike commuting at your organization with informative sessions covering topics li ..read more

Public comment closes today (April 12) on early concepts for the future of Aurora Avenue N, the most dangerous street in the city. The good news is that the city is considering some very ambitious ideas for the city-managed state highway, including protected bike lanes and center-running rapid bus lanes. The less good news is that the concepts at this point seem to pit bold transit improvements against bike safety. But it’s still early, so this is the time to make it clear that there is a lot of support for a future Aurora Avenue that prioritizes biking, walking and transit to foster a safe an ..read more

From SDOT. The walking and biking trail on the Spokane Street Bridge will be closed April 19–28, and SDOT will not be building a safe bike route through SoDo like they did in January 2023. Instead, the city is offering a free daily round trip ticket on the bus or West Seattle Water Taxi. The closure is part of a larger project to reroute the wiring for the swing bridge controls under the Duwamish River rather than along the high bridge. When the bridge will be inoperable due to scheduled maintenance, maritime travel gets priority so the city must leave it swung open. Because the city decided i ..read more

My child attended the truly amazing Pike Market Child Care and Preschool for three years before graduating in summer 2023. We biked there every day together. Navigating the market is second nature to her. She knows all the shortcuts and how to find every store (well, every store with candy, magic, or toys). Her allowance played a major role in propping up the market’s fortune teller machine industry during those tough early pandemic years. She cried the day that the on-street picnic tables disappeared at the end of summer because that is where we would sit to eat an after school snack every da ..read more

Download larger JPG images of SE Seattle from the 2014 Bike Master Plan and proposed 2024 Seattle Transportation Plan. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed Seattle Transportation Plan (“STP”) is now in the hands of the City Council, who can make some final changes before adopting it as official city policy. The STP will supersede the 2014 Bicycle Master Plan, so it’s important to take a close look at its vision for the next 10–20 years of bike improvements across the city. To do so, Seattle Bike Blog will post a series of six stories focusing on different areas of the city. You find other areas ..read more

Tickets to the April 16 premiere at SIFF Cinema Uptown are on sale now. Philip Thangsombat has been an editor on other people’s documentaries for 14 years, but “I have always found excuses to not make my own film,” he said during a recent conversation with Seattle Bike Blog. That is until he met Hanoch Yeung. You may know Yeung better as the person behind Best Side Cycling on YouTube. “I have a lot of admiration for [Yeung] because he is somebody who doesn’t have any video production experience, and yet he started a YouTube channel,” said Thangsombat. Yeung just had a passion for showcasing cy ..read more

Whether you’re headed across the river or continuing on the trail, you can do better than the official detour. A 700-foot section of the Green River Trail is getting repaved and upgraded in Tukwila and will be closed April 8 until summer. The official detour is a bit confusing, routing people onto very busy roads that have no bike lanes and are significantly out of the way. However, there are also parking lots that provide an almost-direct connection around the closure. People will likely be better off not following these detour signs and improvising a route instead. I don’t know the whole bac ..read more

The news out of the Bellevue City Council this week was extremely disappointing. The council decided to backtrack on their Vision Zero commitment and all but toss out most of the Bike Bellevue network that was developed over a period of years following significant public outreach and study. In the process, they also left their city’s staff exposed to further personal and professional attacks (see section 2). The ambitious Bike Bellevue plan may be doomed The Bellevue City Council has decided that most of these streets should remain dangerous. Bellevue’s City Council voted to only consider real ..read more

Did you know that Cascade Bicycle Club not only hosts bike rides on streets but also advocates for investing in infrastructure to make streets safer for biking? What a scandal! Or at least the Editorial Board of the Seattle Times decided all of a sudden that this behavior is somehow scandalous. What’s not to like about a refreshing bike ride on a Sunday morning? Turns out, it’s not so simple. I’m picturing a colorful video of a happy family riding bikes that turns black-and-white while their eyes all start glowing red. What horrible truth have they uncovered? Well, Cascade is paying for eve ..read more