TBD Approves list of bike/ped. Projects

As reported by The Herald's Traffic Blog, the number one item on the list of approved projects is bike lanes for Northwest/Elm/Dupont.

TBD Meeting Mon. 3/28 on Bike/Ped Projects

1pm, City Council Chambers.
Public comment is listed on the Agenda (there's a link on this page), if you have something to say to them.

Article from the Herald.

Seasons

I have to admit that while I'm no stranger to bikes or bicycling, I'm a fairly new bicycle commuter.  I've certainly ridden my bike to work and school before, but only when the weather was nice or because it was too hard to find a place to park my car at my destination.  It's only in the last nine months that I have embraced my bicycle as a viable mode of transportation.  [I'll explain in another post.]

As a new commuter, I seem to have become acutely aware of the change of seasons, even in the mostly gray Bellingham winter.  On the ride to work, as the weather got colder, I would find myself thinking, "I'll have to wear my thicker jacket tomorrow" or "time to transition to rain gear."  Riding to work the other day,  I found myself thinking, "whoops...a bit too cool yet to be wearing my windbreaker."  I seem to be marking the passage of time or season by how many layers to put on before I leave the house.

And the length of the day!  Every morning before going to work and every evening before returning home, I found myself looking outside to determine how to set my front and rear lights.  "Is it so dark that I need the headlight on to see where I'm going, or does it just need to be set to flashing so that others can see me?"

Honestly, I feel more in tune with nature than I ever have before.

My Shuksan Open House Comments

I wasn't able to attend the Open House at Shuksan School regarding the proposed bike lanes on Northwest/Elm/Dupont (had to work), but my spouse picked up info. for me. Below is my "Comment Form" as emailed to Kim Brown [kimbrown@cob.org], Transportation Options Coordinator, City of Bellingham Public Works.
If you weren't able to attend either, they welcome comments for the next few days. Just email them to Kim.
FYI, here's a link to Resolution No. 2010-32, which passed the City Council, and was the impetus for the open house.

The Culprit

The spoke that ruined my biking week. The wheel is in the shop for what seems to me to be rather too long, although I realize this is the season for spring tune-ups.

So it has been the bus for me. I did walk the 4 miles to work today, and it was such a nice day!

Blooming flowers & trees made for lots to see and nice scents along the way.

Despite One's Best Efforts...

Sometime you just don't get to bike, no matter how much you want to.

I had to run to the grocery store tonight. Kinda late, 8:30, but it's a nice night and biking shouldn't be a problem. Everything's ready and I head out of the garage -- but what's that scraping with every turn of the back tire? Not again! That's THREE broken spokes on this same wheel, and the 2nd one in two months.

So it was the car that got me to the store. Grrrr....

Farmers Market Bike Repair needs Volunteers

Sustainable Bellingham is looking for volunteers to staff a free bike repair booth at the downtown farmer's market on Saturdays starting in April. Looks like a morning's commitment is all that's needed, and they don't even require much expertise. It probably requires more technical ability than I've got, but maybe you know your way around a tool box. Contact info. is at their blog entry.

Reminder: Northwest/Elm/Dupont bike lane open house tomorrow

Shuksan Middle School, Wednesday, March 23, 7-9pm

Garden Tour by Bike

Sustainable Bellingham is holding a bicycling tour of urban gardens in the Columbia neighborhood this coming Saturday, March 26. Meet at Lettered Streets Coffee House (F St. & Dupont) for an 11am departure. The tour's an hour long, and will end with a potluck in Birchwood. See the Sustainable Bellingham Event Calendar entry for full details.

Trans. Cmsn's Recommendations for TBD Bike/Ped. $$

Jared Paben has a post today on the Herald's Traffic Blog about a report by the Bellingham Transportation Commission in which they recommend to the newly-formed Transportation Benefit District the pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure projects that should have priority for funding this year.

Recall that the sales tax increase we approved to buy back bus service also dedicates some money to infrastructure projects for improving bike & ped. transportation. The BTC is recommending that the TBC should prioritize 11 projects for this year. There's a link to a copy of the report as well.

Northwest/Elm/Dupoint Bike Lane: Letter from BellinghamBikes@gmail.com

The letter below was sent today to the email list BellinghamBikes@gmail.com. I'm reprinting it with permission from the author. You can join the list by sending an email to that address.
----------
Good day,  here's a little update on what's happening around getting bike lanes on Northwest Ave., Elm St. and Dupont St. and three simple things you can do to help make it happen. 

The short version of how you can help: 

1. Send an email to the four addresses below.  Let them know you support cycling in Bellingham and want to see the Northwest/Elm/Dupont corridor improved  THIS YEAR. 
2. Spread this email far and wide.  Get as many people as possible to do item 1 at least, and hopefully item 3 as well.
3. If you can make it, come to the open house that Public Works will host at Shuksan Middle School, Wednesday, March 23, 7-9pm.   Tell someone from PW why you're there.
   

That's it.  So simple.  Please, send one short email to these four addresses.  Let your desires be known to our local policy makers.  We need to impress upon them that there is a large constituency of citizens who want this.  They need to hear the message in big numbers. 

Send your message to:     mayorsoffice@cob.org; ccmail@cob.org; tcarlson@cob.org; bbaldwin@cob.org
And use the subject line:    Northwest/Elm/Dupont Bike Lanes
The above addresses are for, respectively, Mayor Dan Pike, all seven members of Bellingham City Council, Director of Public Works Ted Carlson, and PW Development Manager Brent Baldwin.


The long version ('cause I just love to type):

Bellingham City Council has proposed installing bike lanes on Dupont St., Elm St. and Northwest Ave from downtown to I-5.  This could be one of the biggest bike projects ever in Bellingham.  But it is not a done deal.  You can help make it happen.  Mayor Pike and Public Works would prefer to put the project off until 2012 and expand the scope and cost of it significantly beyond bike lanes.  Details of what else they want to include are not yet available, except that Public Works is seeking $20,000 for the design work alone.  I can only speculate that additions might include bus pull-outs, cross-walks, and bulb-outs at intersections.   Those would be good additions in the long run, but striping bike lanes this summer does not preclude building these other elements next summer.  And, most importantly, I think, is that there is no guarantee that following this fall's election we will still have the relatively bike-friendly mayor and council that we do now.  I hope we do, but as they say: elections have consequences.  Putting this off for another year may mean it doesn't happen at all, especially as the price grows to a politically unpalatable scale in tight times.  A different mayor and council next year may say "Too big, too expensive" and cancel the whole thing.  The bike lanes alone are very inexpensive and easily engineered.  This much can be done this year without limiting what can be added next year. 


A few other random talking points:

1. $4/Gallon.
2. The only viable cycling route from downtown to Whatcom Community College, Bellis Fair, and Cordata.  Give Northside residents an alternative means to come into town finally.
3. Some say the climate is changing.
4. Six schools along this route and childhood obesity.
5. Good for the local economy (gas money leaves the community immediately, money NOT spent on gas is more likely to stay local).
6. Good for NW Ave businesses (cyclists are statistically more likely to stop at the businesses they pass than to go out of their way).
7. It is in the city's Comprehensive Plan.
8. Approved by the Birchwood and Columbia Neighborhood Associations
   

They need to hear the message.  In big numbers.  Send the emails.  Please.  And have a great ride today.   -Please contact me with questions: Dan, BellinghamBikes@gmail.com

Urban Bikeway Design Guide

Last week at the National Bike Summit the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) released the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide. It's a web-based compilation of ideas that city planners and transportation officials can use to design and build safe cycling infrastructure. NACTO is a big-city organization, but I'm certain that their cycling problems, and the solutions they've discovered, are not entirely out-of-scope for situations here in Bellingham.

It's great to see collaboration like NACTO, and it's even better to see knowledge shared. I bet there are ideas in the UBDG that could help bicyclists here. If you find any good ones, please do share!

KEXP, live from a bike shop

KEXP, Seattle radio station, is at the moment broadcasting live from Lance Armstrong's bike shop in Austin, TX, Mellow Johnny's, as part of their SXSW coverage.

Why I Like Commuting by Bike

2:40 pm -- Misted by sunshowers. A nice tail-wind up the hill.
10:15 pm -- A chorus of spring peepers in the creek. Blowing through the I-5/Northwest roundabout with no cars in sight. Two ambulances pacing the streets without emergency lights. The moon playing hide & seek with the wrack. Wood smoke. Christmas lights in March?

Cycle safe.

Seat Covers

Copenhagenize has been highlighting bike seat covers lately [1][2][3]. I must admit I'm of the plastic-bag-stuffed-under-the-seat persuasion. I don't think I've ever been accused of having 'style'.... My situation looks a lot like that one over to the left.

What's your strategy for keeping your seat dry, here in the dampness of the 'ham?

What Rocks? Smart Trips Rocks!

One of the best things about being a bike commuter in Bellingham is Whatcom Smart Trips*. Sign up, track your trips online, and you get nice little gifts for hitting milestones. As you log your trips you can keep track of how many you've logged, total mileage, gas saved, and some other things. It's a great incentive to keep making trips by bike. I'm up to 562 Smart Trips since I joined in June, 2008, having avoided driving 3,641 miles. Some of that was bus trips and walking, but mostly I log bike trips.

Gifts come every 100 trips, and I recall receiving an ice cream cone from Mallard Ice Cream; a Smart Trips tee-shirt; a pastry from La Vie en Rose Bakery & Deli; a video rental from Film Is Truth; and I know I'm forgetting one other. Alas.
And in addition to progress-based incentives, they also have participation incentives: monthly and quarterly cash drawings.
AND certain local businesses offer discounts to holders of the Smart Trips card, which you get after your first ten trips of the year.
AND SOMEtimes they join with other organizations for even bigger incentives. Right now (as in, March 13-26) there's a tie-in with Wheel Options from the Washington State Ridesharing Organization for a whole bunch of prizes, including a trip to New York City.
Whew. That's a lot of incentives!

Smart Trips is staffed through the Whatcom Council of Governments, which also runs EverybodyBike for biking-related classes & events, and the local Safe Routes to School effort. The money comes from a variety of places:

Whatcom Smart Trips is sponsored by the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, WTA, Whatcom Council of Governments, the State of Washington, and grants from Northwest Clean Air Agency, Puget Sound Energy and ConocoPhillips Ferndale Refinery.{source}

SmartTrips is an amazing program, and I highly recommend participating. Check them out on Facebook, too.

* I know, Whatcom Smart Trips isn't just about biking -- it covers walking, bussing, and carpooling too. But this IS a bike blog...

UPDATE: The prize I forgot is 6 bagels from The Bagelry. And when I passed another '00 I got a free smoothie from either Robeks or Juice It.

A Great Idea: Parking Buffer Zone

If you go to that bike lane open house at Shuksan Middle School this next Wednesday, maybe you could advocate for not just bike lanes, but floating parking (away from the curb) with a buffer zone (the anti-dooring zone). It's safer for everybody, at the cost of some driving space.


"Floating Parking" & Bike Buffer Zone in Separated Bike Lanes from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

I tend to think the trade-off would be worth it.
Updated -- I had the week wrong.
Cycle Safe!

Bike Lane Open House Wed. 3/23/2011

This week the City of Bellingham is having an open house to gather public input on a proposal to add bike lanes to Northwest Ave/Elm/Dupont between downtown and I-5.

Where: Shuksan Middle School
When: 7-9pm, Wed. Mar. 23

If you have thoughts on the matter, please do attend. I, unfortunately, have to work and will miss it. So I'll submit comments to Kim Brown, transportation options coordinator at Bellingham Public Works

via http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/traffic/?p=6989

The First Post

Welcome to the Bellingham Bike Blog!

With much surprise, I'm the first to grab the name. This town, Bellingham, WA, is well-known for its bike friendliness, and bicycling infrastructure has institutional support in several guises.

The goals of this blog are to:

• Share info. about biking in Bellingham
• Advocate for additional bicycle infrastructure
• Talk about bike commuting here in the NW corner of Washington state.

So stick around, and let's see how this goes.
And if you have information you'd like to see shared here, send it along to bellinghambikeblog@gmail.com.

Happy Biking!