Bikeways

Action Plan for Bicycle Friendly Communities

Let's get Seattle's Mayor and other electeds to sign onto this Action Plan for Bicycle Friendly Communities, an effort of the League of American Bicyclists. The Action Plan is a resolution-like statement that calls on cities to recognize the health, environmental, and transportation benefits of bicycle-friendly communities and to take specific steps to achieve them. Big U.S. cities that have signed on include: Washington DC, Salt Lake City, Orlando, and New Orleans. Smaller cities include Santa Barbara and Palo Alto CA, York PA, and Columbia MO. European capitals Copenhagen, Berlin, Helsinki, and Dublin, and African cities Capetown, South Africa, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are signed on following an international conference in March in DC, led by Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa -- a true visionary in the bike-friendly cities movement.

Some good news

After the urgings of many bicyclists, the City of Seattle agreed to ask WashDOT to evaulate a Madison Park bike connector in the SR-520 EIS in an October letter to WashDOT. Thank you signers Tim Ceis (Deputy Mayor), Grace Crunican (SDOT Director), and Councilmembers Richard Conlin and Jeanne Godden. Advocates Tom Bertulis, David Levinger, and Dave Hiller were instrumental in making it happen. Awesome!!

On an otherwise gutwrenching Election Day evening, there were some definite bright spots. In the 41st Legislative District, Democrat Brian Weinstein edged out State Senator Jim Horn, who has had an unfortunately narrow, motor-centric world view as transportation as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee in Olympia. Great job on the campaign to all who worked hard to make it so in that largely Republican suburban district. If Democratic Attorney General Chris Gregoire holds her lead to become governor after all the absentee votes are tallied, we can hope to see some modest forward progress on nonmotorized, active transportation in the state in the next two to four years.