As viaduct users plug up city streets and turn I-5 into a parking lot, consider these alternatives.

• Biking to work
  • Probably the most hard core of the three options. Biking to work does more than simply save the planet and keep you fit.  Biking will reduces traffic for yourself and others. So you can be a nice person and feel good about it.
  • Smug points: 8
  • Fitness points: 10
  • Convenience points: 5
  • Using public transportation
    • Busses are affected by traffic just as much as anything else on the roads. So where is the benefit, you may ask.  If we get enough people to ride the bus, we can remove enough cars from the road so that traffic is not nearly as bad. It’s a nice thought
    • Smug points: 5
    • Fitness points: 4
    • Convenience points: 4
    • Giving up
      • Why not work from home next week? In fact, why not pick one day every week to work virtually? Not only do you save money by not driving, and save stress by not getting stuck in traffic, you get to have a relaxing morning at home.
      • Smug points: 10
      • Fitness points: 0
      • Convenience points: 10

The results show that even slower, inexperienced riders can make 90 percent of their car trips under five kilometers with ten minutes of their driving time and 60 percent of trips within 5 minutes. Such short trips make up 58 percent of overall trips. Comparing the trips with transit schedule data (not always a reliable indicator of real public transit travel times) the authors also found that inexperienced riders could make 90 percent of these same trips faster by bicycle than by transit.

For me, the study findings have two important implications. First, bicycling can be a very competitive mode for shorts trips. Since travel time is probably not the primary deterrent to bicycle travel, planners should focus more on other strategies like safety improvement and secure parking at destinations. Second, denser, more mixed used neighborhoods can reduce the need for longer trips and make bicycling a more viable travel option. Finally, chained trips remain a significant component of overall motor vehicle travel and can be a barrier to bicycle travel. Planners should continue to investigate how to better support bicyclists on these trips and to organize neighborhoods that minimize the need for long chained trips.

The paper: Travel time competitiveness of cycling in Sydney by Richard B Ellison and Stephen Greaves, March 2011.

Mode Love

A somber mood as the 12th bike fatality is reported in Washington State so far this year. Statistically this is higher than normal with average annual rates of 10 statewide bike fatalities.   While these accidents are tragic they have not been enough to curtail bicycle ridership which is at an all time high. There is so much pressure for integrating all modes in limited public right-of-way.  A proposed car tab revenue source in the City of Seattle would reserve 22 percent for bike and ped improvements but what can we do to make the system safer.  Big infrastructure to separate all modes is not feasible.  While some would want to eliminate motorized transport, it is not practical.  Making right-of-way more flexible to be able to change over the day and throughout the year to address needs, would be great.  But for the times we mix the modes together — we need more Mode Love!  Mode Love includes the 4E s  - Education, Engineering Enforcement,  and Emergency Access.  The Seattle Times article provided an illustrative graphic showing the collisoin pattern of what is a very common bicycle/vehicle accident. Where the vehicle is making a permissive (not protected) left turn and the bicycle was traveling straight in the opposing direction.  This is the same accident my neighbors child was involved in last spring (he sustained a concussion).   Three co-workers have recently been involved in bike accidents and if you are like me, realize this is a pretty big problem.

In education alone we can do better.  Education of bike riders is improtant but education of drivers and riders together would help provide the greater perspective. More can be done to increase driver educaiton of bicycles. Videos like this awareness test - show us there is real vulnerability in our own awareness. Go ahead and try it and think what can happen as we drive distracted.

There is room for more Mode Love.

Sperm Bike delivers the goods

When is a bike more than a bike? When it is the impetus for inventive and creative transport.  Bike Month (May) spotlights that enduring and reliable mode for commuting.  Starting near and dear to my heart 85 CH2M HILL employees from 16 offices rode 1,120 miles during bike to work week.  Intra-office competition resulted in the Seattle office team (Spokes for Brains) biking 110 total miles, and the So Cal office with the best name (Engineers without motors). 

If that doesn’t put a smile on your face, check out the “Sperm Bike”.  This bike from a sperm bank in Copenhagen <Nordisk European Sperm Bank> not only transports “the goods” in a cryogenically cooled tank, but serves to advertise their services.  Thanks Copenhagenize. PS How do you steer that thing?

Grandpa and Great Uncle

Having had no father to speak of growing up, Father’s Day was something I never worried about as a kid. No ugly ties for me to buy. Instead I watched as my mom and her sisters and brothers came to honor my grandpa with small gifts and gestures - hard to find candy, favorite pipe tobacco. I lived in a multi-generational household, which in the 1960s was falling victim of urban sprawl.  Waxing nostalgic?  Likely! Don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid living with your grandparents was NOT cool. The quintessential generation gap was amplified  in every cultural aspect from music (Lawrence Welk vs Rolling Stones) to hair style (crew cut versus ‘fro).  Our desires for privacy and autonomy fueled the mass migration from cities that resulted in cookie cutter housing developments with nuclear families.  Since the 1960s, living space per person has expanded dramatically. Kids sharing a bedroom – are you joking?

Maybe this personal space has lead to greater peace and harmony and less conflict but perhaps we have lost someting as well like our ability to get along with diverse populations – something that is identified as a huge challenge as the workforce expands when people work longer and retire later <multi-generational workforce>. While we have been forced (kicking and screaming) to adjust to a “new (recession) normal”, with lots of competition and scarce resources, could we have benefitted from lessons that skip a generation?

My grandparents were forever impacted by the Great Depression that left them saving twine, using every scrap of fabric, and every ounce of food. We did not live on credit. We composted, recycled cans, re-used glass jars, even nails and handed down “perfectly good” clothes.  We only had one car and rode our bikes everywhere as transportation.  While this perspective was born of necessity and the mantra that waste was a sin, it was also fundamentally very sustainable.  

On Father’s Day I always think about my grandpa. My grandpa taught us all to swim and urged us to ride our bikes to get places.  What I think about to day is how he connected us with the food on our table.  He farmed our back lot and we picked beetles off his roses, rocks out of the fields, and weeds out of the orchard in addition to harvesting food.  We saw tomatoes, bittermelon, bok choy, peanuts!, peppers and peas go from the garden to our table. 

A conference I attended this week talked about the resurgence of multi-generational households, for a variety of reasons.  The value of that extended history edcuation is priceless.  I didn’t at the time, but I now treasure having have had the influence of my grandparents.

Portland’s Bike Boulevards Become Neighborhood Greenways from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

However, this switch to a more wholistic approach to the street, hasn’t been met with a groundswell of support. Mainly the controversy has surrounded the “greenway” naming convention, specifically as it relates to the State bill that has been proposed to allow city’s to change the speed of these neighborhood streets from 25 mph to 20 mph (without approval from the Department of Transportation). It will be interesting to see how citizens and politicians react as more “boulevards” are converted into “greenways.”

Read more at Neighborhood Notes.

Sound Transit's Safety Campaign at Stations highlighting bikes

Puget Sound’s Sound Transit promotes construction safety during National work zone awareness week with a photo of the week at the Univeristy of Washington (ULink) station construction site.   In gloomy Puget Sound winters, bike commuting through extensive construction zones where light rail is blooming can be a challenge.  Sound Transit has literally “put a face” on these bikers through their large, colorful construction zone fence photos calling not only cyclists but drivers, peds and even trucks to be aware in these temporary construction zones.

Secretary LaHood talks with Rob Sadowsky, BTA and David Knowles, CH2M HILL

CH2M HILL partnered with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) and Women’s Transportation Seminar to host a reception in the Secretary’s honor. Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio, and Portland Mayor Sam Adams welcomed the Secretary and talked about the City’s leadership in livability, bikability and transit investment. Secretary LaHood talked about the President’s Big Bold Vision of combining livability with the US DOT, HUD, and EPA in the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. There were a number of transit and Department of Transportation leaders in the room, and I was feeling the Portland love.

Karen Schilling, Multnomah County, Susie Wright, Kittelson and Associates, KC Cooper, DEA, Secretary Ray LaHood, Julia Kuhn, Kittelson and Associates, Theresa Carr, CH2M HILL

The Secretary also blogged about his visit - check out the picture with yours truly on the US DOT site!

Newly opened McGraw Square

McGraw Square Before Hub Construction (SDOT)

I was in Seattle last weekend and happened past the recently reopened McGraw square. After working across the street for over a year, and passing through McGraw Square nearly everyday, I can attest to the major improvement in pedestrian connectivity this provides. The previous square functioned as a slightly oversize pedestrian refuge in a sea of vehicles, rather than a public space as the new McGraw Square undoubtedly will. This initial phase is part of a larger hub strategy. Design features include a second streetcar platform (boarding from both sides), bicycle parking for up to 10 bikes, landscaped rain garden, energy efficient (LED) light tiles, trees to replace those removed during construction and oversized curb ramp with utility connection to facilitate mobile food vending and plaza programming. This first phase of the transportation hub strategy is a definite improvement and hopefully will build momentum for the remaining phases of the Westlake transportation hub strategy.

Redesigned McGraw Square (SDOT)

Seattle Streetcar at McGraw Square