Tag: Bikes

housing, Opinion, Transit, Urbanism

Greater Seattle: Bikes, Cars, and Housing

By Josh Feit

First, a quick follow-up to last week’s item about former state house candidate Ron Davis. ICYMI: Despite the fact that the Stranger endorsed a long list of progressives, Davis contended—in a 3,000-word email to his supporters—that because the paper didn’t endorse him, there’s reason to believe a cabal of centrist oligarchs have taken over the paper and are calling the shots on endorsements.

Surprise: It turns out Davis isn’t actually Neo in the Matrix. According to members of the Stranger’s endorsement board, there’s a banal reason he didn’t get the nod from them. I’ll put this as gently as I can: Davis is not a great listener. The SECB wasn’t thrilled with the mansplaining.

Okay. On to this week in X>Y.

No Cars in Pike Place Market > Cars in Pike Place Market

Despite increased business at Pike Place Market and broad public support for the no-cars pilot project that coincides with the bullish numbers, SDOT is looking at opening the Market back up to cars starting this October. Ryan Packer at the Urbanist has been all over the story.

The naive thing about undoing the new pedestrian-only version of  Pike Place Market, which went into effect in April 2025 and tracks to a notable 8.8 percent increase in local visitors who live between 3 and 5 miles away, is that it’s not the only pro-pedestrian upgrade in the area. Have you noticed the new multi-billion-dollar Waterfront Park, including the $70 million Overlook Walk that melds directly into the Market? It’s a whole feng shui down there now. And it started, emphatically enough, when we tore down the car-choked Viaduct.

Pike Place Market is now just one element in a comprehensive waterfront makeover that has embraced pedestrians and de-emphasized cars. It’s one thing Seattle has gotten right.

7 > 69

The Seattle Metro Chamber is trolling me.

Their most recent polling had a stat that made my heart leap: 69 percent of people agreed with the concept that “Building more housing will help slow down Seattle’s increasing housing costs.” This might seem like easy-peasy Econ 101 to you, but as someone who’s been pushing this once-radical urbanist idea since 2004, I was pleasantly surprised to see it’s now conventional wisdom; 58 percent even agreed with the once-anathema notion that “All things considered, growth and development has been a positive for my area.”

Ah, but then, in the same poll, this: Only 7 percent of people think “more density” is among the top one or two things the city should be doing to improve quality of life.

So, nearly everyone supports the idea of growth and building more, but only a smidgen actually think it’s something we should prioritize? Isn’t there a term for that dysfunctional way of thinking. Oh, right. NIMBY.

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2026 > 2019

According to SDOT’s Fremont Bridge tracker, Seattle bike and scooter commuting hit its highest count in Seattle history last month. The previous high was set pre-pandemic in August 2019.

Tom Fucoloro at Seattle Bike Blog, who reported on the data last week with a headline that used the word “obliterated,” writes: “The 153,238 trips was near 11,000 trips more than the previous high-water mark set in August 2019, and total counts for 2026 through July are up more than 18% year-over-year.”

This is excellent news for anyone who supports investing more in multimodal transportation.

And I’ll add another stat: As of July, combined bike and scooter trips are nearly two million higher than last year at this time: 7.2 million versus 5.4 million.

I’m comparing 2026 to 2025 rather than the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline that city planners seem obsessed with these days because all these record-setting bike and scooter numbers exist in a post-pandemic reality that looks nothing like the pre-pandemic world. Fucoloro hints at this in his own analysis by pointing out that return-to-office requirements have generally only gotten downtown office workers back three days a week.

I’d contend the reason we’re lapping pre-pandemic ridership, and doing so when just three days a week is the new RTO norm, has to do with a disproportionate increase in commuting in the so-called off-hours.

For example, another telling 2025 to 2026 comparison: Off-traditional-peak bike and scooter ridership is growing at a faster rate than traditional peak-hour bike and scooter commuting. Ridership at 9 am has grown 21.4 percent while 11 am ridership has grown 23.3 percent. And after work? Ridership at 5 pm has grown 23.7 percent while ridership at 7 pm has grown 27.8 percent. At 8 pm it’s even more pronounced. Ridership has grown 29.8 percent..

There’s a new shape to city life that’s not only about punching the clock. Our infrastructure and planning should adjust to this 21st-century lifestyle rather than looking backward to the old one.

Josh@PubliCola.com

Courts, Mayor Wilson, Parks

King County Assessor Says He Can’t Wear Ankle Monitor In Stalking Case Due to Medical Condition, Burien Puts City Manager on Leave, and More

1. King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson failed to appear at his court hearing in Seattle Municipal Court on Tuesday, where he was scheduled to explain why “medical issues” prevent him from wearing an ankle monitor while he awaits trial on charges of stalking his ex-fiancée, Lee Keller. Wilson’s attorney said his client was confused about the date. The court will hold another hearing tomorrow so that Wilson can attend.

According to a court filing, Wilson told a staffer for the company that provides GPS monitors, Sentinel, that he can’t wear a monitor because he “must regularly soak both legs in water to help reduce swelling” from a medical condition. “Sentinel policy states that the GPS device must not be submerged in water,” the “failure to enroll” filing says. Wilson also said he has to wear compression socks and “reported the device felt tight and indicated that additional space would be necessary to allow him to properly remove and put on his compression socks. Due to these factors Sentinel did not enroll Mr. Wilson on the GPS with exclusion zones obligation.”

Wilson was arrested earlier this year after showing up repeatedly outside Keller’s home in violation of an existing no-contact order. In court filings last year, Keller detailed Wilson’s history of stalking and harassing her over a period of several years. Seattle Municipal Court magistrate Noah Weil issued a five-year no-contact order against Wilson last week  and ordered him to wear a GPS monitor that would alert Keller if Wilson comes within 1,000 feet of her. During that hearing, Wilson said he would have “no problem” complying; the ankle monitor was meant as an assurance that he would not violate this protection order as he has with previous orders to stay away from Keller.

2. The Burien City Council decided, in a closed-door executive session, to place city manager Adolfo Bailon on administrative leave last night, voting 4-3 to remove him and direct the city’s contract interim city attorney, Ann Marie Soto, to find an interim replacement.

The reason the city has a contract city attorney is that Bailon summarily fired former City Attorney Garmon Newsom III earlier this month, PubliCola has learned. (Newsom would have been the person providing legal advice to the council as they discussed whether and how to remove Bailon). This could be among the reasons the council’s four progressive members voted to place Bailon on leave after a lengthy executive session with Soto Tuesday night.

Officially, the council has not given a reason for removing Bailon from his position, and PubliCola was unable to get any councilmember to comment on the record about what led them to consider removing him in the first place. (Executive sessions are closed to the public and considered attorney-client privileged.) Administrative leave is paid and is not considered punitive in itself.

However, it’s not hard to imagine any number of possible reasons beyond Bailon’s decision to fire the city attorney. Back in 2023, the city council (then dominated by more conservative members) stood by Bailon as he shot down efforts to stand up a homeless shelter on land owned by the city, threatened legal action against a church that hosted an encampment, turned away $1 million in shelter funding from King County, and more.

Bailon also berated council members who disagreed with his political views on homelessness, filed a complaint against Councilmember Hugo Garcia over  tweets, demanded the removal of the King County sheriff’s deputy who served as Burien’s police chief, and apparently spent much of his time calling 911 on unsheltered people in the park outside his office, among many other actions that arguably stretched the limits of his authority as a city employee.

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Under Burien’s city manager-council form of governance, every city employee technically works for the city manager, and he works for the seven-member city council. Three years ago, an outside firm resigned over what they described as the council’s refusal to take critical evaluation of Bailon’s performance seriously. With a council less sympathetic to Bailon’s actions and political opinions, he could be on his way out after four years in the role, for which he is paid around $240,000.

3. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced the dates for Seattle’s annual “Bicycle Weekends” event, in which the city opens up Lake Washington Boulevard in Seward Park to cyclists and pedestrians during summer weekends. And unlike her predecessor, who killed longstanding plans to install stop signs and speed humps on the dangerous lakefront boulevard, Wilson is expanding the safe-street program to include nearly every summer weekend, except during Seafair, and three holidays.

That means that cyclists and pedestrians, including wheelchair users, will have access to the roadway more summer Sundays than any year in the past. Under Harrell, who lives nearby, the car-free celebration happened only on alternate weekends, for a total of 20 days. Wilson is expanding that to 15 summer weekends and a total of 33 days, including three holidays. Details (including where drivers can park outside the car-free zone) on the city’s website.

Transportation

Pioneer Square Bike and Scooter Parking Plan Runs Into Road Bumps
The offending potential bike racks (rendering via SDOT)

By Erica C. Barnett

The Pioneer Square Preservation Board and local businesses have raised objections to a Seattle Department of Transportation proposal to install bike and scooter parking spaces in 21 curbside locations in Pioneer Square, calling the proposal too much, too fast and claiming white lines and flex posts are out of keeping with the historic character of Pioneer Square. The Urbanist wrote about an initial briefing on the plan, which raise “a litany of objections” from the board, last month.

The proposed “bike corrals” would serve a dual safety purpose, according to bike and micromobility advocates. First, they would provide more places for people using shared bikes and scooters (primarily from Lime) to park the vehicles on the street instead of on sidewalks, making sidewalks more passable for pedestrians and people with sight and mobility limitations. Second, by blocking off illegal parking spaces, such as those directly in front of stop signs, the “corrals” will improve sightlines for drivers and other road and sidewalk users, “daylighting” intersections and reducing collisions.

“We are supportive of bike corrals at street interections in general, full stop, because they daylight intersections so it makes ti safer for all cyclists,” said Lee Lambert, executive director of the Cascade Bicycle Club. “We also recognize that poorly parked micromobilty devices are a hazard for sidewalk users, and corrals are a solution to that problem. … I would put corrals on every corner if I could.”

But opponents of the SDOT proposal, including the Alliance for Pioneer Square, say the markings and flex posts will be visually disruptive and may be unnecessary, at least in the numbers SDOT is proposing. Alliance director Lisa Howard says her organization prefers a “pilot” of three or four corrals initially to see if people are using them.

“We have been fully supportive of the daylighting and the safety measures. Our feedback has been that the corrals themselves are not a one-size-fits-all response,” Howard said. “Even though it’s white lines and flex posts, if you put 40 of those up and down First Avenue, it’s going to have a major impact.”

Howard said it’s unclear if Pioneer Square proper is even the right location for a large number of new scooter and bike parking areas. “If you’re using a scooter to go to a Sounders game” at the stadiums south of downtown, “you’re not necessarily going to park at First and Yesler and walk the whole remaining quarter mile.”

Lambert said a pilot that small wouldn’t produce good data on how much people use the new corrals, since “the more places you have people to place scooters and bikes, the more likely people are to use them.”

Gordon Padelford, head of Seattle Streets Alliance (formerly Seattle Neighborhood Greenways), said the objections the preservation board and neighborhood advocates have raised so far have largely amounted to a “classic” case of “parking loss weaponized as neighborhood preservation.” (Pioneer Square already has its own neighborhood-specific iron bike racks, a costly if attractive addition won by preservationists in a previous battle over sidewalk space.)

The objections to the loss of these illegal parking spaces are ironic, Padelford pointed out, since the law that created the Pioneer Square Preservation District specifically cites “avoid[ing a proliferation of vehicular parking and vehicular-oriented uses” among the reasons for creating the district in the first place.

Local transportation advocacy groups, including Cascade, Seattle Streets Alliance, Transportation Choice Coalition and Futurewise, plus Lime, sent a letter to the preservation board this week urging them to approve the new corrals. The board is expected to take up the proposal again at its meeting on April 1.