By Erica C. Barnett
Last week, the Seattle Times ran an editorial denouncing the city for giving the Cascade Bicycle Club a street use permit for its annual fundraising ride, which will shut down the westbound lanes of the West Seattle Bridge for two hours on the first Sunday in May. After emailing someone at the city, the board reports, they discovered that there isn’t even any other maintenance going on during the bike ride; “In other words, traffic will be shut out purely to host the fundraising ride.”
This, of course, is how street permits work: A group gets a permit for an event, and cars aren’t allowed to drive through the event while it’s happening—think: Capitol Hill Block Party, West Seattle Summer Fest, or any number of weekly farmers’ markets.
So why is the Times so bothered that the city granted a standard street permit for this event? Because, according to the editorial board, this isn’t just any ride: It’s a ride by group that lobbies the city—and even met with someone from the mayor’s office to discuss the upcoming Move Seattle Levy at some point last fall. This level of access, according to the Times, should be more than enough enough to land Cascade on a no-fly list for permits.
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“City Hall should have thought twice about renting out a vital piece of public infrastructure to a special interest at a time when residents will be asked to debate transportation priorities and vote on a massive property tax proposal,” the paper wrote.
Asked about the Times’ characterization of the group’s agenda, Cascade executive director Lee Lambert said, “I reject that biking safety is a controversial topic,” and noted that Cascade isn’t just an advocacy group. “We do education, we provide low-cost helmets for folks, and we provide bike safety classes. We do rides every day of the year.”
The Times’ outrage that the city would allow an advocacy group to rent a city-owned bridge is baffling, but seems to boil down to a kind of faux concern about misuse of city resources. So it’s notable that they’ve never expressed concern that political consultant Tim Ceis received nearly half a million dollars from the city’s transportation department last year (much of that spent lobbying Sound Transit in favor of controversial changes to its light-rail route), or that political consultant Christian Sinderman works inside City Hall as a paid political advisor to the mayor. Given their silence, it seems safe to assume that the Times editorial board considers these contracts a prudent use of public funds.
Unlike taxpayer-funded contracts with political consultants, Cascade’s annual ride actually brings money in to the city. According to Cascade, the group spent around $15,000 paying police to do traffic control for this event, plus about $2,000 for street-use permits.
Someone should tell the ST about Portland’s annual Bridge Pedal, which closes a half-dozen city bridges for the better part of a day. This is nothing by comparison.
The Cascade Bike Club is elitist. Poor people don’t participate in this. I live on Bainbridge Island and we have narrow roads and limited arterials. The Chilly Hilly has always baffled me. It’s a major inconvenience, the bikers act like they rented the whole island, and they haven’t rented any. Also- it’s not a community event. It’s a Seattle event they hold here for some reason. It’s a certain type of bike rider that gives the group a bad reputation. They are aggressive and members of this bike club.
Nearly one out of five Seattle residents lives on the West Seattle peninsula. There are also people in White Center, Vashon, and on the other side of Vashon (via Southworth ferry) that rely on the West Seattle Bridge.
The West Seattle Bridge, BTW, was shut down for 2 1/2 very long, very painful years. The last thing this City needs is to, once again, kick West Seattle and the other communities in the teeth (or wherever) so some privileged people can ride the top bridge. Are you really that fucking tone deaf? Do you really want to risk the next transportation levy by reminding people about how much money is spent on bicycle-related decisions, rather than bridge maintenance?
For this reason alone, I will vote NO.
You make it sound like the city closed the bridge and gave it exclusively to cyclists in perpetuity vs what actually happened…a couple of hours on a weekend for a charity ride that, as noted, paid permit fees and public safety workers.
Please make public how much money the city spends on zero-carbon, low volume cycling infrastructure vs throwing good money after bad on car sewers that have destroyed Seattle, just like cities across the country. Maybe if there was good cycling infrastructure in place, no one would need to close the West Seattle Bridge to publicize the need for it.
Not to mention the assumption that everyone in West Seattle was against it the bike ride. Also not to mention as if there is something for them to vote “NO”! about. But I guess reactionary knee jerkers are gonna knee jerk.
You are very upset.about not much. If you had a bike and rode it a bit, it might reduce your tension. One other matter: please don’t use vulgar language in your public comments.
Check out this headline: Publicola Shocked To Learn What “Editorial” Means.
LOL, April fools back atcha!
The fee for closing this bridge is WAY TOO FUCKING LOW – and that goes for the whole “Rock and Roll Marathon” crap, too.
This is a good piece in response to the misplaced Times editorial. It should be noted that this appears to be part of a backlash against bike resources in general. Examples:
1. The West Seattle bridge closure mentioned in this article.
2. The pending rescind of road closure for the ~40-year old, one-day RAMROD ride at Mt. Rainier.
3. City of Bellevue’s cancelling Bike Bellevue in their Vision Zero plan to build out their bike network.
4. An editorial in The Guardian recognizes how politicized these resources have become (Why is the right at war with cyclists?, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/25/why-is-the-right-at-war-with-cyclists-were-not-wokerati-were-just-trying-to-get-around)
While many municipalities are indeed strapped for tax income, these valued bike resources are important for recreation, commuting, and tourism. In many cases, it takes *years* to get these established in the first place.
I live on Bainbridge which has been attracting unwanted bike tourists for years. It just isn’t a place with the infrastructure for bike tourism. I don’t think they add anything other than aggressive biking that is best left in the city.
Quick, someone get the ASPCA a permit to protest in front of the window of Frank Blethen’s office at the Seattle Times, lol.