Mar

19

Survey: How does Seattle stack up for bicycling?

Filed Under Bicycling 

Last week at the National Bike Summit, Rep. James Oberstar (head of the House Transportation Committee and a bicycle commuter) pledged to bring us nationally to “Copenhagen levels of bicycling.”  In case your only Danish points of reference are pastries and large blue cookie tins, half of Copenhageners commute by bike.  While this may be an unrealistic goal in the US, there’s low-hanging fruit in our large cities.

Localities often have the ingenuity and flexibility to drive change, and more metropolitan areas are recognizing positive impacts of bicyling on the road and for public health.  The majority of trips we make nationwide are less than three miles, so encouraging bicycle transportation for commuting and short trips through the day is a no-brainer.

Summit attendees agreed that much can be learned from each city’s strengths, though all have at least one blind spot.  New York is striping lanes at a breakneck pace and even closing part of Broadway to cars!  But they don’t have enough bike racks to accommodate hordes of new bicyclists, while Chicago is a leader in providing bike parking.  Coordinated data will soon reveal where better facilities, and innovative safety and eduction programs, are getting more cyclists on the road.

What’s keeping more people from riding more often in Seattle?  Is it safety concerns, the weather or simply the distances needed to be travelled? Add your feedback to the 2009 Report Card on Bicyling by taking Cascade Bicycle Club’s survey here.

Comments

6 Responses to “Survey: How does Seattle stack up for bicycling?”

  1. Michaela Gehn on March 19th, 2009 9:28 am

    Bike security is one of my concerns. Sometimes there are no bike racks or the bike racks aren’t in a highly-visible location. I don’t like parking my bike around a corner where it isn’t visible. Also, I think better, safer bike routes would encourage more people. When I commute to work, it’s 13 miles one way along the Burke Gilman. The visibility is very poor at so many of the intersections where the trail crosses streets due to high hedges, shrubs and trees. If I can’t see the cars, they can’t see me.

  2. Chris Rule on March 19th, 2009 11:43 am

    Good feedback, and I hope you take the survey. Some of the few remaining hurdles may be removed in Lake Forest Park, and the Burke-Gilman will be reconstructed with much better sight lines for trail users.

  3. Chris on March 24th, 2009 10:11 am

    I would have liked to see a ranking option for reasons I don’t ride much in Seattle. Various safety concerns are the most important: People drive too fast, pavement quality in Seattle is generally horrible, there are few bike lanes, “sharrows” don’t feel safe, the flattest routes (aka Westlake from ballard) aren’t really set up for cyclists… etc. Oh, and the weather (although in fairness it’s been an unusually cold winter/early spring).

    Seattle has a long way to go before bicycle commuting is more than a niche activity. But then Copenhagen wasn’t always the bicycling mecca that it is now.

  4. Chris on March 24th, 2009 10:12 am

    (on the weather note, it’s been about 10 degrees below average for most of the last couple months).

  5. Chris on March 24th, 2009 10:17 am

    (okay, maybe 5 degrees)

  6. BIKE BLOC » Blog Archive » How does Seattle stack up for cycling? on April 1st, 2009 10:57 am

    [...] You can access the survey and read a blog post about it here: http://www.greatcity.org/2009/03/19/survey-how-does-seattle-stack-up-for-bicycling/ [...]

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