2323 East Cherry Street
Seattle,WA 98122
USA
The first open house about the upcoming 23rd Ave complete streets repaving and redesign will be held at Garfield Community Center March 2 from 2–4 p.m.
As we reported previously, the city has over $14 million from federal, state, regional and local transportation dollars to repave and redesign the street from Rainier Ave to E John St. The street not only connects the neighborhood’s major commercial centers at Union, Cherry and Jackson, but it will also be the neighborhood’s main connection to the Judkins Park East Link light rail station at I-90.
The street is also the most dangerous in the Central District, and creates a barrier to easy and safe travel on foot and bike. For more information, see the project webpage. The informational poster is below:
23rd is a barrier to bicycling? But…Is it the street or is it the behavior?
Four lane streets with no parking are likely the safest and most efficient streets for bicycling that we have – for those behaving like a driver. Drivers get in-line with traffic going their direction. That way conflicts are minimized and at a single glance other drivers can see them and understand their intentions. Just ride out in the lane away from the curb – Its easier for following traffic to see the lane is occupied so faster traffic changes lanes earlier-and-safer to pass on the inside lane.
When I ride 23rd I see most bicyclists on the sidewalk, and far too many of those on the street riding far right and even pulling up to the stoplight and planting their foot on the curb. That makes them far less visible to other drivers while opening up a wide space thats irresistible for other traffic to pull into – even for drivers turning right. The curb is just a horrible position from which the bicyclist negotiates their safe travel and straight through direction.
So, which bicyclists are at risk for crashes and injury? Those behaving like a driver or those looking to behave like a pedestrian squeezing over to the curb or sidewalk riding?
The city is spending incredible summs of money to build special bike facilities that treat bicyclists like pedestrians channeling them to the far right like pedestrians so they are prejudicial against bicyclists using driving behavior for their safety and mobility. A behavior study is the simplest and most necessary first step for planning — yet the city has been unable to cite even ONE behavior study (comparing bicyclists behaving more like pedestrians to bicyclists looking to behave like drivers) for their outcomes to guide and justify their plans for bicycling.
I believe nothing is more fun than discussing and learning through conversation the options bicyclists have and evaluating them.
Here’s a study: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/10/22/study-protected-bike-lanes-reduce-injury-risk-up-to-90-percent/
Hi, David, thanks for all the work you do for cycling in the neighborhood.
We’ve had this conversation many times. And when you’re only talking about fit and brave adults, I agree with you on many points. But what about a family with kids trying to bike to school? Or a Garfield Freshman trying to bike to school or the community center? Or what about anybody on foot and bike trying to cross 23rd one of many points along the street without a traffic signal? The road does not serve them currently, and the death and injury rate shows this.
23rd does not need four lanes. It’s busy, but it’s not a highway. A redesign that keeps traffic moving and increases safety and access for everyone is very much possible (and well studied).
Tom
That’s not a BEHAVIOR study, it’s a TREATMENT study.
“Fit and brave” is a prejudicial statement opposite of what I recognize. I use the opposite to encourage people, invite them to learn and then compare. I think that is a much healthier way to work with the ideas and see what we can learn.
I’m not holding my breath. And not looking to 23rd to be the be all and end all for all uses.
I doubt that 23rd between Jackson and John will get a grade separated or walled off specified bike lane, given the width, the traffic, the need to keep the busses moving and the ADA requirements for sidewalks.
North into Montlake and south of Jackson are whole ‘nother stories…
If one wants to ride recreationally or not with car traffic speeds and behavior, then no matter what they do with 23rd, it’s not gonna be fun. And who would WANT the experience of even being in a special lane, with cars whizzing by? The horrible horrible ped experience will likely only be mitigated and ‘might’ end up pleasant right near the major intersections — and that’s if ground level setbacks start providing some really big sidewalks.
Every day on Denny, there are a lot of cyclists at speed and in lane, and while the traffic might need to slow a bit at times, they are treated like any other vehicle. Heck we need to understand that a large semi is likely not able to stop on a dime on downhills nor speed up fast on uphills. Simarlarly, a bicycle has some limitations. Today, I saw a timid soul hugging the right side coming down Denny over the freeway and just making it totally dangerous for themselves and all the auto drivers. They would have been safer just holding the middle of the lane even if not fully to the speed limit.
There are TONS of side streets in the Central Area with virtually no cars moving on them for hours and hours each day. Actually, cars can’t move on those streets fast and drivers need to stop before entering a block if the see another car coming from the other direction.
Take a ride from the Arboretum down 27th one day and you will see what I mean. If the right connections can be made for kids and people who don’t want to be in the middle of a ton of car traffic, the alternate routes could be fairly pleasant.
I’ll admit I am not a cyclist now. I was one at one point in my life and I commuted by a combination of side streets and park trails. Only had to hit a main street for a two block ‘jog’ between a park and my own neighborhood whilst all the auto commuters sat on the main road sucking exhaust :)
Behavior study, risk, own the lane, what ever cup of tea you want – I think we can all say that currently, none of the routes through the CD are great for cycling. If there is a great North South Route, please let me know. I’ve been here for 8 years and I’ve ridden almost every street. I haven’t seen any that I truly want to ride. I’ll do it, but, I don’t really want to.
Let’s be sure to get something really nice for all the money we are going to spend. Painting little sharrows on the roadway spends a lot of money and looks good on the map, but, does nothing to make bicycling safe and enjoyable.
Improved pavement is the primary ingredient for safe cycling. Some safe areas for left turning would probably rank number two.
Hello wave,
I understand your concern. The once universal skill of riding with traffic was lost due to the shift of practically all adults to motorized transport where only children of any significant number rode bikes — with no one left to help them learn to ride with traffic.
At this point we need early adaptors to look at the opportunity and see what they can learn. And they’ll do that far better if we could discipline ourselves to stop pissing on their interest and abilities. When a good example is set — backed up by the science of behavior studies– not just more facilities studies that ignore the opportunity of behavior, then we can get an unbiased and real world look at it.
Once bicyclists adopt driving behavior — motorists really change their behavior. I often see motorists adjust their behavior towards my bicycling as I ride, learning to cooperate with me as they see and understand my behavior.
What would happen, I’ve often wondered, if there were other bicyclists setting a driving behavior for motorists to learn from? It’s just impossible to imagine that it couldn’t make all the difference in the world.
I think its worth a try. After all why would we throw away the opportunity to have a mass transit bicycling system starting tomorrow — at no cost? Without even giving it a simple test?
And there’s never been a better time to try: we’ve learned so much about behavior and learning we could have bicycling be a demonstration of the benefits of advanced learning and behavior for the benefit of everyone.
After all, people likely won’t be driving cars much longer with the robotic cars developing so rapidly. Remember when the digital revolution hit the typewriter? It’s hitting transportation now and its projected to the the biggest change since the development of cars. I’m wondering, does it make sense to spend hundreds of millions (perhaps billions with the reach of the new plan) to separate bicycles from cars because of people driving them when by the time bicycle facilities get built out, people won’t be driving cars anymore: only non-crashing robotic cars will be left.
As a cyclist, I’d agree, that it’s best to own your lane. But I think biking down 23rd in the current configuration is borderline insane. Bicyclists are at the mercy of drivers and if the driver thinks you shouldn’t be there, you’re gonna be in trouble, regardless of whether you’re in the right. Bicyclists do stupid things sometimes, but I think the equation is really 90% about the motorist.
Hi Ryan,
Ive been riding 23rd regularly as my preferred route for over 15 years. I rode it when I was two weeks out from a major trauma injury 6 broken bones (a fall in Frink Park) and by my parking lot skills test unable to hang onto the bike if I braked over 10mph. I rode 6-8 mph several times with not a hint of a problem from any motorist.
I’ve taken this road and many similar ones so often, I see that I have similar or less trouble than side streets, and that is the same experience others with similar techniques we share are having.
That’s why I believe that a behavior study is NECESSARY. But…. is it precisely because the outcome of such a study might interfere with the bike (segregation) facilities projects the reason they simply REFUSE to do a single behavior study? Hey, they even refuse to discuss it and when I ask for it they simply throw up yet another facilities study. Its just amazing how stuck we are on this and how easy it would be to shed real light on the subject with a simple behavior study. But… that’s how learning bicycling can show you how people think and behave in the world, regardless of the subject. And I find this even more interesting than bicycling, and has lead to many fascinating discussions at The Bicycling Store.
Even more fascinating is the new science of brain imaging and behavior studies — and the positive results of thinking differently. Here’s three I’ve read:
Mindset The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Toughf
Wow! What a commentary on learning bicycling they are! Learning bicycling is a simple two-step process: first learn to ride, then learn to drive. How you think determines your outcome.
@David. It’s tough to argue with your 15 years of experience biking 23rd. I guess the conclusion is that biking 23rd is doable… Even if it looks crazy- and it does look crazy. Setting aside our perceptions of the risk, most people are never gonna try it. Bike lanes, protected lanes, these are the facilities that will be necessary to increase bicycle ridership, and increased ridership will increase bicyclist safety. I view it as a political issue. What benefit do you imagine behavior science will bring to this issue?
Ryan,
Thanks for the response, I appreciate your concerns. Perception is the key.
To make it short: Driving behavior is unnatural and counter-intuitive. Talking and walking in contrast are learned naturally by children. But driving behavior is contrived, like reading, we don’t learn it without instruction, even when we are around other people reading – or driving.
I’m sure reading looks mysterious to the untrained, yet it’s transformed through training, bringing a smile of satisfaction, enjoyment, and understanding — when it begins to “click” and we discover the benefits of reading.
The way bicyclists are treated by society and particularly “bike advocates” can be seen as cruel, dangerous, and just plain selfish. Motorists are expected to be trained yet when bicyclists learn to ride a bike usually as children, they’re left on their own to improvise their way into traffic, without any training! Then we harvest their bad experiences and fear: for the millions of dollars (soon to be around a billion) in government projects to build facilities that are designed to appeal to the most crash-prone cyclists — while ignoring and even ridiculing the bicyclists with the best outcomes of confidence and safety in traffic. In short, we’re adopting attitudes and behaviors that just plain kill our incentive and ability to learn and building prejudice against the most successful bicyclists.
The latest science of brain imaging and behavior studies has refuted so many false ideas and replacing them with proven outcomes that its transforming our understanding of how our minds work, how critically important that is and how we can harness this information to improve our learning, growth and change. It seems like this area is really getting going like never before with these advances and it will only increase as our instruments of brain observation improve. Our president recently promoted a brain mapping research program following on our earlier genome mapping.
What really takes my breath away, is how the “bike advocate” programs appear to copy the tested worst outcomes for learning, and that’s why I’m studying all I can on the subject and building healthy conversations and my Ride2Learn program at The Bicycling Store and testing them.
As far as I know I’m the only person doing this, so I invited the bicycling instructors at the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) to a book club starting with the excellent book Mindset who’s author is teaching children and doing research. I’ll see where it goes.
I kind of hate typing and enjoy good conversations, so I invite you to call me and stop by sometime and see what we can learn. That’s why I started my Store, to test the opposite of the typical bike shop where its all about the bike, gear, service. The Bicycling Store is all about the learning and the cyclists experience, from checking their bikes to learning repairs to bike handling and on to that ultimate experience — getting along broadly with other people as drivers. After all, that fits the kind of person I’m trying to be and in my life and my bicycling, I really needed the help.
From Mindset: Positive outcomes follow and are generated by those who love difficulty, even failure, for the opportunity to apply themselves to facing and overcoming life’s challenges so they can learn, grow and change. Thats the Growth Mindset.
The Fixed Mindset avoids difficulty and challenges fearing failure that looks and feels bad, thus sabotaging their learning opportunities.
David, I’m sure you mean well, and I don’t know why I’m bothering typing this because you obviously aren’t going to be convinced otherwise, but I totally agree with Tom. The whole “take the lane” concept works only for those who are confident, experienced, adult bicyclists. And that’s that. For the rest (i.e., kids and less-confident, less-experienced adults), it doesn’t matter what psychology books they read — the fact remains that a four-lane superarterial like 23rd is not safe, or at least will not FEEL safe for those users and therefore they won’t use it.
23rd needs a road diet! With a good design, it will be able to adequately serve the auto and transit traffic while also be much safer and more pleasant for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Many will be attending. This type of discussion can only help.