West Seattle Bike Connections

White Center Bike Corral – Outreach Meeting

We had six members at the outreach meeting with about the same number of merchants from the 9600 block of 16th Ave SW in White Center just south of Roxbury where Proletariat Pizza and Cafe Delia would like to have a bike corral for customers. Parking for a dozen customers arriving by bike instead of two arriving by car, and a welcome sign of a vibrant and friendly business district.

Good discussion. Ambiguous process.

Thank you to Fatima at Luso Food and Wine for being such a gracious and generous host, opening this evening especially for this meeting. Visit soon for some special Portuguese food and wine!

Theresa Beaulieu of WSBC has successfully obtained grant funding for the rack. Costs to be fronted by the grant recipients, then reimbursed by the County. Approval of merchants first, but no clear definition of how much approval, and no real association to speak for them. Concerns of merchants: loss of car parking. Facts revealed: zero enforcement of 2 hr parking time limit by King County Sheriff has led to all-day car parking by park ‘n ride non-customers and by some shop owners and employees. No wonder there is a perceived parking problem! Most shop owners want enforcement but have no hope of that after years of asking. Some do not yet see that people on bikes are parking on this block to spend money at their businesses, not for recreation. Some do not yet realize that use of bikes for transportation leads people to shop locally in places like White Center instead of skipping past them to auto-friendly malls.

Next: door-to-door outreach to merchants who did not respond to the invitation to this meeting. Request to County for clarity on how much process and approval is enough before just two of many dozens of parking spaces can be dedicated to bike parking for customers instead of car parking, saving the narrow sidewalks for walking and wheelchairs and strollers.

Painfully slow and difficult cultural change from car addiction. Vy Nguyen, staff member from White Center Community Development Association who has been the interface with King County and the business community for this, just lost her job at WCCDA, due to funding cuts, but was with us tonight anyway donating her time. She wants to see this through for the community. Thank you so much to Vy and all who have put so much effort into this!

Stuck Bridge – Unstuck

Spokane Street Bridge is fixed now. Was stuck this afternoon not quite closed after a ship traffic opening from ~ 5 pm to ~ 7. Some riders called for bail out rides. Others rode to 1st Ave Bridge. Others rode back downtown (toward work! ) and took the King County Water Taxi. Thank you to the crew for loading so many bikes!!!

I guess we can stop gloating now for escaping last week’s carmaggedon on our bikes, and just be thankful we have the bridge back.

Got any good adventure stories?

Help Support a Bike Corral in White Center!

On Tuesday, June 17th*, 6pm at Luso Food and Wine (9614 16th Ave SW) we are meeting with local residents and business owners along 16th Ave to discuss the need for a bike corral in White Center. We’d like to encourage more families and cyclists to ride into the neighborhood.

The community has been approved money from a grant by King County to have two parking places turned into a bike corral to accommodate bike parking on 16th Avenue. This is our chance to inform the business owners that we really do want to ride our bikes more and would frequent the area by bike if there was a bike corral.

If you are a cyclist, someone who thinks about using your bike for more errands, a family that thinks about riding to White Center with your family, or you are a family that rides please come join us in support. White Center is a great place to visit and is becoming better every year.

Let’s bring better bicycle parking to White Center!

* Luso will be open on Tuesday for this meeting even though they are typically closed that day.

Alki Trail DIY Widening

They’ll be back, but for at least a while you can now wear you favorite wool jersey or cashmere sweater without fear of snags from the blackberry canes. Al, Kathy, Keef, Bob, Steve, Rose, and Don worked, cheered on the Green River Marathon runners, and stopped for lunch at Marination Ma Kai this beautiful Saturday.

Sat June 7 – Alki Trail Widening Project

This Saturday 9 to 11 along Spokane St east of Harbor Ave/Avalon Way – come with work gloves, long sleeves and clippers. We will trim the blackberries back. Refreshments after at Marination Ma Kai.

WSBC Monthly Meeting – Tuesday June 3

6:30 to 8:00 pm
Homestreet Bank at 41st SW and SW Alaska
open meeting – you are invited and welcome.
Agenda includes planning for summer events and advocacy for West Seattle, SODO and South Park bike facilities and routes.

Meeting agenda and notes can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GYAz2E-rN1bpOKq1hPQFoK9Bn8fldqpxNsNvQwQIh3E/edit?usp=sharing

Do you run from a collision?

One that you cause? Report from Al J, who earlier in the day was fitting helmets and leading middle school kids on a ride, helping them learn to ride safely on the streets:

Around 4:30 Saturday (5/31) afternoon while riding to the Mariners game I was traveling eastbound on the bike trail along Spokane, as I approached the turn onto E. Marginal Way (to head north) I looked through the chain-link fencing to see a group of cyclists heading towards me and yelled a heads-up to announce my presence. Which I’m guessing they didn’t hear.

Making the left turn (probably a bit too fast in hind-sight) I see they are riding 4 abreast leaving me very little room to get by. My speed and the lack of room forced me into the (approx.) 6’ x 6’ concrete support column for the overhead bridge traffic.

Hitting the concrete with my right forearm and shoulder I immediately bounced off and fell to the ground onto my left forearm, shoulder and knee and then ended in an up-right sitting position to find the force of one of the collisions had knocked the wind out of me. As I sat there grunting and trying to catch my breath I hear a female voice off to my right asking “Are you alright?” and I look to see one the women from the group (2 men and 2 women) had stopped to check on me. As far as I could tell, the 3 other riders had continued as they were not in my field of vision.

Almost immediately I heard a male voice yell “Come on Rachael, G** damn-it, lets go!”, which prompted her to ride off leaving me there alone.

After catching my breath and doing a self and bike assessment I decided that the uber-sore shoulder is probably all muscular pain and continued on to the game. (Die-hard baseball fan here!)

While at the game I did stiffen up considerable however was able to score 4 ibuprofen from a woman sitting behind me which, in combination with the M’s exciting 3-2 win over Detroit I had enough grit to ride back to west Seattle and even climb California Way and make it home.

Rachael, if you’re or anybody in your party is reading this, other than being pretty damn sore and slightly scraped-up, I think I’m okay however tomorrow morning will give a better assessment of that. And I will be contacting the SPD tomorrow and letting them know of this so they have it on record.

Fortunately my injuries are not worse, or even anywhere near those sustained by John Macy, but if they were who knows how long I would have sat there until someone came along to help.

In closing all I have to say is…Come on people, make smart(er) decisions and do the right thing!!!!!

Joe, Marlo and Isabel ride to work and daycare

Joe and his family are what we are all about. Here’s Joe’s introduction to our group:
commute2
My family lives in Highpoint. I got back into riding about a year ago when I discovered how much fun it is to ride with my daughter on the back of my bike. We’ve done a lot of family rides and we just started bike commuting this month. I work for a transportation company on Harbor Island and my wife works on East Marginal so it works out quite well. Our daughter is in daycare also on East Marginal so it’s been a family bike commute for the past couple weeks!

I actually do the commute to her office each day because I’m carrying the kiddo. So we ride from West Seattle to her office on East Marginal, drop off the child, and then I turn around and go back to Harbor Island.

The bike commute along East Marginal south from Harbor Island is rough. [ed. note: this is the “other” East Marginal Way S, south of S Spokane St.] Bikes have to be very careful. The first danger area is the concrete plant. Trucks are constantly coming and going in the morning. Then there are exposed railroad tracks all over the place. If you don’t take them at close to 90 degrees you’re going down for sure. The next hazard is watching for trucks at each cross-street. You practically have to come to a stop and look behind you to make sure no trucks are getting off East Marginal and turning right into you. The only good news is you don’t have to actually ride on the street (which would be suicide.) There is either a sidewalk or gravel path or frontage road all the way from Harbor Island to my wife’s office (Federal Center South) on East Marginal. I suspect those gravel/dirt paths get pretty muddy in the rain. Even several days after rain the puddles in the “path” still have water. The frontage roads are in terrible condition – beat to heck by trucks.

If any area is begging for improved biking infrastructure it is East Marginal Way south of Harbor Island. That would be money well spent. There are lots of employees in Federal Center South coming from West Seattle. In the meantime, it is bikable. But you have to be very careful and I’d only recommend it for a moderately experienced cyclist.

I’ve gotten to know Jeff and Stu through DIY Bikes and I’m really enjoying learning some great bike repair and maintenance skills at the DIY workshops.

School Road Safety

West Seattle Blog reported on the School Road Safety Meeting last night at the Southwest Library. Besides their reporter, only four citizens attended. Three are members of West Seattle Bike Connections: Jay Guettler, Theresa Beaulieu, and Craig Rankin. Theresa and Craig are parents actively involved with safe routes to Denny MS and the K-5 STEM program at Boren.

from Theresa’s notes:

I would like to see more parents, teachers and community members/groups involved. These improvements around schools are going to be great opportunity for change around our culture and how kids get to school. If schools are safe to get to via walking or biking and it is challenging to drive close to schools, then more parents will feel it is safe to allow their kids to ride a bike, scooter, skateboard or walk to school.

One thing that resonated with me that the West Seattle Blog did not cover is that the posted signs and cameras that are going up around schools are for 20 mph, and actually have a leeway before a ticket is issued, even though studies show that at 20 miles per hour, 9 out of 10 pedestrians who are hit by a car will survive, but the death rate increases dramatically at greater speed. That study only counts deaths, not major injuries. 1 fatality for every 10 collisions is too high. All of us at the meeting agreed the cameras should be set to 15, NOT 20 mph, Note was taken.

Two more opportunities to learn and give input:

Tuesday, May 27 at 6 PM to 7:30 PM Northeast Branch Seattle Public Library, 6801 35th Ave NE
Thursday, May 29 at 6 PM to 7:30 PM Garfield Community Center, 2323 E Cherry St

Bike Rodeo – in the Sunshine!

We had a fun bike rodeo today at Alki Summer Streets – the rain held off and the kids kept coming! Along with some SPD officers on bikes and Segways, and adult on a crutch scooter. Lots of West Seattleites out playing in the street using all kinds of locomotion without gas motors. Everything from dogs pulling skateboards to big long cargo bike to tall bikes and bare feet.

Thanks to Jay, Theresa, Bob Wi., Madi, Al J, Kathy, Don for a successful car-free event, including hauling to/from, and to all the parents and kids!

Super hero rider makes it through the course with flying colors!

SPD Parking Officer doing tight tight turns with extreme focus and concentration, showing how it’s done

and, getting his Certificate of Achievement!

Al J adjusted every one’s helmet to really fit before riding this challenging and dangerous course, and gave the parents tips

Visitors from afar! Davey Oil and family riding from Capitol Hill on the way to Vashon Island, getting some well deserved attention for that new electric assist cargo bike from Davey’s own G & O Family Cyclery in Greenwood.