Unless SDOT has a change of heart in the coming months (as they’ve recently been known to do), cyclists will have a safer way to travel between lower Wallingford and the heart of Fremont, beginning in 2020.
With funding from the 2015 Levy to Move Seattle, three potential design alternatives for protected bike lanes on North 34th Street between Stone Way and Fremont Avenue were pitched to the public via in-person forums and online surveys in early 2018. Design alternative #1 removed existing on-street parking, widened vehicle travel lanes, and installed a protected bike lane on each side of the street; alternative #2 preserved existing on-street parking and installed a protected bike lane on each side of the street; and alternative #3 preserved existing on-street parking and installed a two-way protected bike lane on the south side of North 34th Street.
Although alternative #3 was the preferred choice for a plurality of the 516 survey respondents, design alternative #2 was selected by SDOT. According to an SDOT evaluation, the department believed that a two-way bike lane along this corridor would create a more negative impact on cyclists and motorists than two one-way bike lanes would.
For cyclists, this is good news.
I ride North 34th Street often to get to destinations south of the ship canal, since the Burke/Gilman Trail does not connect to the Fremont Bridge. I have encountered some bad behavior by motorists that the installation of these bike lanes should help mitigate. Oftentimes motorists will use the eastbound bike lane as a bypass to squeeze past cars waiting to make a left turn into a driveway or roadway on the north side of 34th. Motorists (I’m looking at you, Uber and Lyft drivers) will frequently use the westbound bike lane as a loading zone to pick-up and drop-off passengers or goods. By moving the parking lane away from cyclists and adding protected, paint-and-post bike lanes, these bad behaviors should be a thing of the past.
The North 34th Street project is currently in the “10% Design Concept” phase (whatever that means), and SDOT is still accepting comments on the chosen design. Hopefully feedback will be overwhelmingly positive since this new lane configuration seems to be a win for both cyclists who like safety and motorists who like (legal) parking.
What is the estimated use of the bike lanes?
Obviously, uncle matt. But how about bike ridership overall in statistics and maybe by time of day. As some mentioned below, bike traffic is going down and some bicyclists find the current situation reasonable.
The number of users doesn’t matter one iota to these people. You could have one user per day and they would still find a way to justify it.
I don’t know what SDOT’s numbers are for N 34th. But I can tell you, for example, their figures for the proposed bike lane for N 40th. The number of cute daily car trips were 11,500. The number of bicycle trips?
THIRTY. In other words, one quarter of 1% of users.
I happen to know our neighborhood very well, thank you. I’ve lived and worked here for 25 years.
In fact, I used to bike commute on many of these same streets that have proposed bike lanes are proposed or have already been built. And somehow I managed to get around just fine without them.
Nope I live in Wallingford. But just like the Cascade Bike Club and the YIMBYs like to push their agenda on neighborhoods where they dont live and where it’s not wanted, I think it’s important to educate people all over our city. Otherwise the tiny minority at the CBC will continue to enjoy undue influence in controlling the agenda at City Hall.
I don’t need to pretend anything. I’m simply stating the facts. You might say I’m pretending to live up by 125th when I tell you that that bike lane is useless. I don’t, I live in Wallingford. But I have a friend who lives by 125th, and you bike activists were all gung ho for that bike lane being built. He has told me that he has NEVER seen a bicyclist use it.
But that’s OK. Because it’s about ideology, not reality.
Are you suggesting that you check all these blogs and you never comment on them yourself?
Happy to help. Be sure to keep an eye on your friends in CBC and the YIMBY movement and tell them not to educate people on blogs in neighborhoods they don’t belong to either.
It’s not raining right now. You should bike.
Except bike traffic is going up, not down. Bike *mode share* went down as population increased, but bike *counts* have been hitting record highs around Seattle.
https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2019/01/03/2018-bike-counts-up-32-percent-on-2nd-ave-downtown-after-bike-lane-bike-share-expansion/
Lorna, the reduction in the number of bike trips was *work commutes* not overall. Those numbers don’t account for changes in work hours, more trips to the grocery store, park, gym, etc.
I have the answer to my question and am no longer following or commenting on this issue. Thanks.
Recent reports indicate that bike traffic is going down –
Thank you for responding. Do you have a source for your comment?
Here you go, Lorna:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-bike-commuting-hits-10-year-low-census-data-show/
Indeed, bike commuting in Seattle fell in 2017, both as a percentage of commuters and (more surprisingly) in the raw number of people riding to work. I think a few factors are to blame/credit:
• The wettest Winter/Spring on record
• Widespread construction downtown (which blocks safe bike routes)
• Newbies from California not accustomed to the rain (have you noticed all the umbrellas?)
• The opening of light rail at Montlake and on Capitol Hill
• Expansion of bike share (which combined with transit makes for a new commute option)
We still ranked 5th highest out of the 50th largest US cities for bike commuting, so we’re not exactly Oklahoma City here.
“Expansion of bike share (which combined with transit makes for a new commute option)”
So bike share use is not factored into actual biking stats?
In most cases, no.
The data is based on the single question, “How did this person usually get to work LAST WEEK? If this person usually used more than one method of transportation during the trip, mark (X) the box of the one used for most of the distance.”
Since bike share is used primarily for the “last mile” of a commute, it’s not likely to be the longest distance of a trip.
No, those reports are about bike commuting and rely on a notoriously problematic survey for this particular topic. Actual numbers are up.
What are the numbers and criteria if they are up?
All the buzz in the news is based on the American Commuter Survey, but reports from actual counters show an increase in riders. The reason for the divergence is for a couple reasons. First, the ACS asks only about travel to work and asks people to identify the longest single mode. That automatically discounts people who might be biking to/from transit or a carpool if the biking isn’t longer than the train/bus/carpool ride. Additionally, the ACS looks solely at people going to work while in reality, the potential there is somewhat limited by all sorts of concerns.
http://westseattlebikeconnections.org/2019/01/03/actual-bike-counts-up-in-2018/
If you take light rail from Federal Way to downtown, you could bike all the way to Northgate and ACS methodology would say you took the train to Northgate.
If you take the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle, then take the bus to Bellevue, ACS says the ferry took you to Bellevue.
And, since I’m part of last year’s ACS, when I took Sounder from Auburn to King Street, and biked to Mercer Island, ACS said Sounder took me to Mercer Island.
It’s a reasonable survey for suburbs with mono-modal commutes, but terribly unreliable for urban areas with mixed commutes.
Yep, exactly. Plus, it only focuses on travel to/from work when in reality, those trips make up less than 20% of all trips.
Thanks Norman. I read the article and appreciate the detail in it. I have had my question answered so am signing off in this discussion.
And that means the environment is getting worse for bikes, therefore we should improve bike infrastructure? Obviously we advocate for more housing to be built for poorer people, when the number of poorer people living in Seattle is going down. Or do we?
I think you misunderstood the argument. I am citing an example of when we observe something to decrease, the reaction isn’t necessarily that we’d then do less for that something. It may be the opposite.
You might be interested in a fairly big 2014 volume under the name “Lessons from the Green Lanes: Evaluating Protected Bike Lanes in the U.S.”, available online from Portland State. One of the facilities studied is Milwaukee Ave in Chicago, with a similar one-way bike lane separated by parking. Charts on pages 112 and 125 for example, show how that stacks up – pretty poorly. Intuitively obvious screening hazards? Check. Complications at intersecting streets? Check. (At “Troll Ave” for example, where does the car wait to turn right onto 34th — back behind the pedestrian crossing where parking completely obscures the view of oncoming 34th traffic? or in the bike lane?)
2014 was in 2014. It is 2019 now. ( c re c)
Listed under “design features” for this project is, “Enhancing safety at the intersections of Fremont Ave N, Troll Ave N, and Stone Way N.” I don’t know what these specific design features will be, but it seems that making Troll Ave one-way southbound would make sense. That would eliminate the left turn from 34th.
Sure, turns off 34th are a hazard to bicycles when there’s a visual screen lane. I count 3 intersections between Fremont and Stone, think they should all be made one way southbound? But then you still have the southbound traffic entering 34th – as in my example. I believe this design is worse for foot and bicycle traffic than the existing conditions.
Currently there is no parking on 34th east of Albion, and I doubt the city will add any because there’s no space for it. The configuration in front of the Fremont Dock and Fremont Brewery will basically remain the same, but with the addition of paint-and-post bike lanes, so the turns onto Woodland Park and Albion from 34th won’t really be impacted.
OK, naturally the use of a parking lane for separation buffer is a real problem only where it’s actually implemented. I don’t think all of the problems with this design occur at intersections – on Roosevelt I’ve seen some pretty careless use of bike lanes by people exiting cars, for example. I wish we could hold off and continue the misguided experiments on roads that I don’t personally bike on very often, like Roosevelt and Dexter.
Prohibit parking near intersections and rights on red, problem solved.
This is cool with me.
> Motorists (I’m looking at you, Uber and Lyft drivers) will frequently use the westbound bike lane as a loading zone to pick-up and drop-off passengers or goods. By moving the parking lane away from cyclists and adding protected, paint-and-post bike lanes, these bad behaviors should be a thing of the past.
Lol nope. They still do this all the time on Roosevelt, and it’s even more dangerous because the bikes are stuck in the “protected” lane with no good route to bail out. Protected bike lanes in Seattle have been a stupid failure.
Yeah, I see this behavior on Roosevelt (and Dexter too). I usually stop and tell the motorist to move. If it’s an Uber or Lyft, you can take the license plate number and lodge a complaint with the parent company.
I think a rule can be made that drivers can be fined if somebody send a picture to the cops. Let them appeal if somehow they can create evidence of emergency, like somebody being driven to an ER or what not. Make the fine high enough and people will stop doing it.
The appeal isn’t about if they are innocent. They are guilty when the car is in the bike lane. The appeal is for waiving the crime when the situation asks for it. It’s like a cop tearing up a ticket when people run stop signs due to emergency.
Of course I have an ongoing problem with the US Constitution. It’s one of the oldest and most out-of-day set of rules that’s used to govern advanced countries. Most countries have their Constitutions completely re-wrote and re-established after WWII or later, therefore they are typically better and more consistent. If you read the US Constitution, it should be obvious to you that it’s poorly written and not very good, and is holding in place most by patch-work.
I don’t even believe in Uber to begin with. It’s one of the forces that’s making people’s life even more miserable with the tech company skimming the profit of everybody. I’d rather have higher tax and guaranteed income so people don’t ever get desperate.
Yes, thanks. ( c re c)
Lol, you actually see bicyclists on the Roosevelt bike lane? I’ve been on it countless times in heavy traffic, and the most I might see any given moment is two, and that’s rare.
Editor or an interested reader might wish to go to Green Lake Ave N halfway from 50th to 61st where cars are stopping for Canadian geese to cross the street for their dining pleasure on a small grass strip across the street! I’ve lived here a long time and not seen this before! I wonder- do they need a right of way or protected lane? ( c re c)
Dont give them any more bright ideas.
has anyone driven down Greenlake Way N from 62nd to 50th and seen the Canadian geese crossing the street and cars stopping for them? Interesting sight! ( c re c)
I frequently ride both directions on North 34th and find the current bike lanes pretty adequate. The recently added signal at Troll Avenue helped a lot to mitigate traffic from the office buildings on the south side of 34th. One problem area is westbound where 34th meets Fremont Avenue where westbound cars on 34th turn right on Fremont and don’t know how to cross the bike lane. I also encounter westbound cars in the left hand turn lane go straight through the intersection crossing the path of left turning bikes.
With the design concept configuration I worry about westbound riders being seen by westbound vehicles turning right since the bikes are hidden by the parked cars. I’d rather ride closer to the vehicles so I will be seen.
Exactly my concern, and as a driver–I hate having to cut across the bike lane there.
Me too, as I mentioned above it seems like step back from the current configuration in terms of safety – but the self reported collision figures from the study I mentioned above don’t feature that particular collision as much – only about 1 in 4 respondents as I read it, which is not good but not so exceptionally bad. The notable problems are more from the parking buffer itself, involving taxis, delivery vehicles, passenger loading etc.
While I’d go a bit further myself, SDOT has learned from their mistakes on Broadway and 2nd Ave, and now pulls back more parking before intersection conflicts so that there’s a longer sight distance for drivers preparing to turn across the bike lanes. (This was one of the incremental fixes they made on 2nd Ave after it had so many car/bike conflicts when it first opened.)