Seattle Bicycle Facilities Collaborative

The big push on the bike front lately has been the Seattle Bicycle Facilities Collaborative. The effort is led by Councilman Richard Conlin and the Bicycle Alliance of Washington (Dave Janis has the point person but Barbara Culp is also heavily involved). The purpose of the Collaborative is to produce a document that details proposed improvements to bicycle facilities in Seattle. Council Member Conlin will use the document to guide future bicycling oriented decisions made by the City. By bringing the bicycling community together, it is thought that we will all be able to focus on a collective set of priorities.

My compulsive volunteer gene was triggered by Councilman Conlin's "Making it Work" email and I signed on to serve as the northwest team leader. There are six teams covering the entire city, and our study area runs from the Ship Canal on the south north to the City limits and from I-5 on the east to Puget Sound on the west. It's a large area, but we were fortunate enough to have Chuck Ayers (the E.D. of Cascade Bicycle Club) on our team and he sent out an email to all of the CBC members living in the NW sector. We received nearly 100 responses, many of which we fed directly into our recommendations. Other recommendations came from a lengthy weekend ride and other day-to-day observations we've all made during our daily commutes.

Our preliminary presentation to Councilmembers Conlin, Rasmussen, and Godden and City Attorney Tom Carr (an avid--almost hardcore--bike commuter) was made on October 12. All of the teams' recommendations were well received. One of our team members, Ron Lindsay, came up with a great proposal called the "Seattle Gem Trails" which is a concept to name the premiere bicycle routes throughout the City and promote the hell out of them to encourage cycling and show people that it is really easy to get anywhere you need to go on a bicycle. It's a great idea, and it was well received. I made a big map showing the location of the different trails, and I think it really helped the Councilmembers visualize the concept.

We are now wrapping up our recommendations and will be submitting our final report to Dave Janis after the holidays. He will be compiling and formatting the final comprehensive six-team report and submitting it to Councilmember Conlin.

I have to admit that it's pretty awesome having a City Council that is so interested in cycling. It makes me feel good about my City and the people who live here.