Jan 8, 2019 WSBC Monthly Meeting

You are invited to our first meeting for 2019. Tuesday, January 8

6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

Neighborhood House in High Point. Use north entry.

6400 SW Sylvan Way

Come join in planning for new year! We’ll discuss projects, activities, rides, and ways to make our streets safe and comfortable for everyone.

Bike parking.  Metro routes 21, 21X and 128.

Jan 5, 2019: SurviveRealign99 Ride

The Alaska Way Viaduct is coming down! Traffic is entering the period of maximum gridlock. How will we get out of West Seattle to go downtown?   Ride our bikes!

This ride is a chance to try out bike commute routes in a friendly group, on a Saturday morning with more daylight and less traffic than on weekdays.

Meet in front of Starbucks in the West Seattle Junction on California SW at SW Alaska. Arrive by 9:15 for check in, safety briefing. Rolling at 9:30 am.

For more information and (free) pre-registration, see https://cascade.org/node/46115

Peninsula Puddle Pedalers Peer Pressure Promotes Riding in the Rain

If you’ve never tried it, we encourage you to ride in the wet months. We hardly ever have ice or snow, and it doesn’t rain hard here all that often. This November, it didn’t even rain at all on a lot of days. You don’t need a shower at work if you get one on the way.  We’ve got some tips for riding in the rain on our Resources page to get you started.

West Seattle Bike Connections competed in Washington Bike’s Ride in Rain Challenge. Our Peninsula Puddle Pedalers team came in 7th of 400 teams in Washington!

We were right behind the Ice Cold Quad Squad from UW, and ahead of the NOAA AFSC Marine Mammal Laboratory Tour de Flipper team.

In the Club/Organization category, counting all 13 WSBC members who signed up, we were 5th for number of commute rides, and 10th for commute miles, coming in ahead of some big agencies and clubs.

Kathy Dunn was our team Captain, riding every day.  John Graham logged 1,208 miles in November on 59 rides! You can sign up to join them and Bill, David, Don, Paul, Tan, Jodi, Al, Tamara, Valerie, Bryan and Joe, if you’d like to log rides through the winter and join the next challenge in May for Bike Month.

 

Major Taylor Tribute Ride

On December 1, Bike Works hosted a Major Taylor Tribute Ride, and screened a new short film honoring the first African-American world cycling champion. That was in 1899, when bike racing was  a really big deal. This was a fun, social ride around south Seattle at quite a bit slower pace than the Black Cyclone’s.

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Rich Brown, Jay Taylor and Phyllis Porter

Organizers included Seattle African-American bike community leaders pictured here: Rich Brown, Jay O’Connor and Phyllis Porter. They are leaders in Bike Works, Rainier Riders, Rainier Valley Greenways, Black Girls Do Bike-Seattle, Cascade Bicycle Club, Cascade’s Major Taylor Project, and Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board. Other leaders included Ed Ewing and Dr. Rayburn Lewis, two of the founders of the Major Taylor Project in Seattle. Don and Rachel (a Major Taylor Club volunteer) rode, representing West Seattle Bike Connections.

119 years after Major Taylor broke speed records and color barriers, a lot of people still think bike riding is something that only white people do. Not true. And that bike advocacy is dominated by white people and perspectives. That part is true. What can we do to change this? We are working on it, and invite you to join the effort. We welcome and embrace the diversity of experiences and knowledge of everyone in our city, particularly with regard to race, ethnicity, culture, socio-economic background, gender, sexual orientation, age, and physical ability.

You can learn about Major Taylor and the new film at the National Brotherhood of Cyclists, which Rainier Riders club is part of.

Todd Balf’s 2009 book is really worth reading, too. Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era, and the Fight to Be the World’s Fastest Human Being.

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Concerned About Congestion?

This is how to create more space on the streets:

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Source: Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan , Transportation Appendix

Compared to driving alone:

  • Walking is least expensive, and great for personal and public health. But it is slow.
  • Car-pooling costs extra miles, a bit of extra time. It can be inconvenient.
  • Transit uses road space efficiently, but is expensive to build and operate, It can be time consuming and inflexible, depending upon when and where you want to go.
  • Biking is great for personal and public health, and is often the fastest way to go  places in the city. No waiting, no worries about traffic jams.

Building and maintaining safe bike routes is a tiny fraction of the costs of building and maintaining streets, bridges, tunnels and rail lines for transit and cars.  But lots of people do not use bikes for transportation because they don’t feel safe on the streets they need to use. If you want to increase street capacity for driving cars, trucks and buses, it makes sense to support building a safe bike network, to get more people using bikes.

WSBC December 4 get together

Instead of our usual monthly meeting at Neighborhood House, we will have a casual get together at Great American Diner, to celebrate our sixth year with food, drink and conversation.  Come join us, even if you’ve never been to one of our meetings!

Tuesday,   December 4   at 6:30 pm,  4752 California Ave SW

At the NE corner of SW Edmunds and California SW, near the south end of the Junction. Look for the group with bike helmets and drippy rain jackets.

Scary Stories at the Longhouse

At the Duwamish Longhouse on Saturday, people were crossing West Marginal Way SW to go to the Halloween party hosted by the Duwamish Tribe.  Nick was acting as a crossing guard. Pretty scary. The traffic, not Nick.

People are crossing 5 lanes with a 40 mph posted speed limit on a major truck route, to get to the Longhouse from Herring House Park’s parking and the Duwamish Trail. There is just a rough dirt path on the west side of the road. We are working with the Duwamish Tribe and Duwamish Valley Safe Streets to apply to SDOT’s Neighborhood Street Fund for a sidewalk and signalized crosswalk to keep people safe and make it ADA accessible.

“The Duwamish Longhouse is the cultural center for indigenous People in the Coast-Salish region – a home to our spiritual practices and lifeways, as well as ceremonies and community gatherings. We invite you in with open and raised arms. Come and learn about our culture and living history.”

The Duwamish Tribe has been offering hospitality to all comers, ever since the days of their Chief Seattle and long before. We are asking the city that the American colonizers named after the Duwamish chief to reciprocate. To honor the ongoing life and contribution of the Duwamish people, upon whose lands and waters we live.

_DSC6338The Duwamish Tribe welcomes everyone. Even space aliens.

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Herring House Park on left. Duwamish Longhouse beyond, across West Marginal Way SW.

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Please join us in voting for this project when the time comes!

 

Alaskan Way now and during Viaduct demo

Alaskan Way lanes have changed to a “long-term temporary configuration”.

Jasmine Beverly at Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program says,

We posted a bike-specific map on our website for showing route options coming to and from the Elliott Bay Trail. These routes will not change during the SR 99 closure. There are more bike options northbound than southbound, as there is now a local-access lane northbound under the viaduct that people can ride heading north. The main southbound options between Yesler Way and South King Street are the sidewalk on the edge of the water, or riding in the general traffic lanes.

The new Alaskan Way alignment that we instituted earlier this month is a long-term temporary configuration that allows Alaskan Way to remain open while we remove the viaduct nearby. There will not be any bike lane as part of this temporary configuration. After we remove the viaduct, the City of Seattle will rebuild the waterfront with a new Alaskan Way that includes a protected bike lane.

Ride in the Rain!

Join our Peninsula Pedal Pushers team for the WA Bikes “Ride in the Rain Challenge”!

Our team did great last year at motivating each other to keep riding into fall and winter. Just sign up and ride at least 10 days in November, logging your trips at LoveToRide.net. New riders encouraged!

If this team fills up, we can recruit another team captain and start another team.

We didn’t pay the fat fee to be listed as an “organization”, so just look for team name Peninsula Pedal Pushers.

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Language lesson…

Pat Thompson, inspirational director of the YES Foundation of White Center, talks about what it means for children and parents who speak a language other than English at home, and what God’s first language is. 

What’s that got to do with bikes???

The Major Taylor Bike Club helps us to be fluent in the language of Love. Somehow, and I’m not exactly sure how, pedaling miles and miles and miles together, especially when many of those miles are uphill, translates into commitment and trust. Conversations about hydration and flat tires turn to sharing about struggles at school, relationship issues at home and dreams about the future.”

Thank you Whitney for volunteering to be a ride leader for Highline Major Taylor BC!  Tamara and Theresa, too!

 

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