Talking points at Council meeting

[BikeIntelligencer]

A couple of thoughts on talking points. Hopefully someone can emphasize street safety as that is an issue for everyone, from children and parents to the elderly. You don't have to ride a bike to be concerned about fast and wreckless driving on Nickerson. And while it's important for cyclists to talk about cycling issues, we need to be seen as part of a larger constituency as well, not just out for selfish interest.

The other point I've run into has to do with: Why don't cyclists just use the walk/bike path? Michael Snyder has addressed this eloquently and it would be fine to simply repeat his points, but it's something everyone without much knowledge of Nickerson asks about so that info point has not made it to general background.

Finally, the argument will be made that Nickerson is a commercial district where trucks should be free to roam. While it's true you don't find say, an Apple store or Nordstrom on Nickerson, the presence of SPU and multiple interfaces with residential foot traffic (as well as bikes) renders Nickerson a "people street" as well as commercial. This multiple use happens all over the city and opponents shouldn't be allowed to "zone" a street.

Cheers,

Paul

Cycling: http://bikeintelligencer.com

Personal: http://paulandrews.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/bikeintel

[Joshua Daniel Franklin]

I'd also make the argument that safer speeds are good
for all users (especially if some of them are illegally texting
or using cell phones!). Here's part of an email I sent:


As Tom Vanderbilt wrote recently in the New York Times,
the US has fallen behind Europe and Canada in road safety
engineering, leading to "nothing short of a public
health crisis."
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/do-we-tolerate-too-many-traffic-deaths/
Unfortunately thousands of drivers routinely exceed the
posted speed limit on Nickerson St by more than 10 mph, and
Seattle Police Department shows many incidents. These
cause delays for all users of the street, including
industrial traffic. The reconfiguration will help traffic
flow more smoothly at safer speeds, and will not reduce
capacity.

[snichol]

Complete-street case studies, quotes from municipalities who have
implemented complete streets, and other useful resources are available
from Complete Streets:
http://www.completestreets.org/complete-streets-fundamentals/resources/
It is helpful to discuss this project in terms of its "complete" and
additive outcome type rather than the "diet" or "reduction" action
taken to reach that outcome.
The complete streets notion is now a mainstream one that is about
adding missing safety and mobility systems into those streets that are
dangerously missing them.
Best,
Shannon

[Mike K]

Let's try to get people focused on the data. All of the opposition
seems to be people who expect traffic to get worse. But none of the
data shows that this is the case. SDOT has posted four different
studies that show that after road diets, the capacity of the street
doesn't decrease.

I haven't seen any data showing that road diets cause congestion. I
encourage the opposition to support their arguments with facts, not
opinions.