This is how to create more space on the streets:
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.