9 Comments

This would definitely be a neat idea. When I lived in Seattle, I rode the Burke-Gilman trail frequently, though almost always for leisure rather than for getting around. I don't feel safe riding a bike in a roadway, and this is my biggest deterrent to bicycle use. My biggest concern would be around cost, and I don't have a good sense of what a structure would cost. My guess is that Seattle would probably be around the edge of financial viability. Maybe start with a few high-value endpoints, such as UW, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, the Seattle Center, and the Mariners and Seahawks stadiums, and build a network from there if it is financially viable.

With the high cost of living afflicting so many cities, create new space or more efficiently utilizing existing space near the city center should be a high priority for a society that builds.

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Good to hear from you, Michael. I miss the old days when we chatted in the Progress Studies slack channel. Fortunately, Substack is far better and has far less proprietary control (if you know what I mean).

Personally, I don’t think it even needs to be that comprehensive to get started. Queens Anne hill could be the northern terminus. Then if it is successful, it can be extended to UW.

I am big believer in trying things at small scale before expanding. You never really know what is going to work.

Take care.

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Jan 9Liked by Michael Magoon

Live in Seattle and like the idea - we can see how much use the Burke-Gilman trail gets, so we know this would get a lot of riders.

Agree with your point about homeless occupancy, but I don’t envision those being deal-breakers. The e-bike differential also sounds fine given 2+ lanes in each direction.

Entrance and exits would have to be seamless and avoid merging/clogging issues, but again, this seems like a short learning curve before it’s figured out.

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Thanks for the comment.

I think one elevated bike path running North-South on 2nd Avenue (or another road like it) from Lumen Field to Queen Anne hill would get a huge amount of use. It would likely be the fastest way to move within the central city.

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What an interesting idea! There's nothing I hate more than trying to ride a bike along the edge of an existing roadway. I don't ride bikes much these days, but when I did, I would often ride on the sidewalk because it felt safer. I was always jumping off curbs, or bumping over them to get back on the sidewalk. When there were so sidewalks, I would listen to the cars approaching me rapidly from behind and wonder if I were going to get hit. My pastor and his wife were hit that way (riding a tandem bike - not seriously injured). I guess ultimately it would come down to cost... maybe that's right. There might be other intrinsic values that justified some sort of subsidized infrastructure investment. I don't know, but this could be tried somewhere on a small scale first. Maybe some little down could set it up and become a bikers tourist destination?

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As somebody who actually bike-commuted to work in a downtown for several years, I'm apparently the lone voice against this idea.

1. It will literally immediately fill up with homeless people - cities in the Western USA *already* do zero policing and let homeless encampments spring up everywhere with zero enforcement. Why would this be any different, given it's covered from the weather, convenient to downtown, and conveniently away from most prying eyes?

2. No politician is going to pick it up because of 1. If you already know you can't / won't enforce keeping them clear and clean, it will only be a gigantic boondoggle that the 99% of car-driving public will hold against them politically as a huge waste of tax money that could have gone to roads / cars or policing, or whatever. The optics guarantee negative political blowback and negative impact on re-election.

3. Like 1% of people bike. I know this, I was one of them. You're going to be spending a lot of money on something that 99% of the public are against *by default,* because car drivers already hate people who bike, bike lanes, lane separators, bollards, and other bike safety measures with a passion, while they're on the ground - make it an expensive thing in the air that everyone sees from many streets around, and the construction of which will interfere with the 99%'s car traffic, and the median voter is going to hate it even more. You can never do something politically visible to everyone that only benefits 1% of people.

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Thanks for the comment.

I am not optimistic about my idea suddenly becoming a trend, but I think that you are underestimating the benefits. I agree with homelessness issue, but that is a matter of political will that is not really related to the idea. Homelessness will either be a problem or not.

Unless someone can give me a realistic cost estimate that shows otherwise, I am skeptical that it will be expensive compared to other urban transportation infrastructure projects.

I think much of the opposition from drivers is due to the bike infrastructure impinging on roads for cars. My idea has the opposite effect. It reduces conflicts.

Most importantly, I think you are underestimating the importance of bicycling suddenly becoming the fastest, safest and cheapest method to get through the downtown. I think that it will greatly increase biking, which will reduce car and pedestrian traffic.

Of course, all of this is dependent on geography. Seattle is ideal because it is tall and thin. Most city centers are more circular, so it will require more pathways.

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Thanks for the response.

I actually think all 3 of the things I brought up can be condensed to being "a matter of political will."

And since it goes against empirical political will / practice in basically every city in the Western US, I have no reason to think it's viable, even if the numbers sketch out great. If we don't have the will to do anything about homeless tent cities today, why will we have it after building convenient sky complexes for them? Similarly political optics, 99% dynamics, etc.

Actually, this idea probably has more merit as a "get the homeless out of sight" measure, but even that isn't really a priority politically - visible homeless problems and tent cities don't really affect re-election now, so why bother with a solution that costs more money?

I mean, I'd personally love it if US cities were more bike friendly, because everyone knows you risk your life on a weekly basis as a bike commuter, I just think this idea in particular has way too many "political will" hurdles to clear.

Sure, if you get it on a ballot, I'd vote for it - but good luck with getting it there, or the 99% of the car-driving-bike-hating public's take on it at the ballot.

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Translation: It is such a good idea, that it will never get implemented!

That is American politics in a nutshell.

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