There’s a new buzz in the community about cheap, easy and successful ways of getting a whole new group of people on bikes: the Neighborhood Greenway. It’s not a new concept: our neighbor to the south (yes, mighty Portland) has had tremendous success over the past few years—completing about 15 miles a year! To some extent, Seattle has experimented some with Bike Boulevards (five to six miles over the past few years), their close but younger cousins.
But now the momentum is rolling our way. Children’s Hospital, the city of Seattle and others are actively talking about how best to make Neighborhood Greenways work best in Seattle. Councilmember Sally Bagshaw has taken the lead on this, too, and has a great post on her blog worth reading.
I’m sure I don’t have to explain why Neighborhood Greenways make sense for bikes: they slow down traffic and reduce cars on already low-volume streets and help develop a network of facilities in and between neighborhoods—and their added green features make them an even greater pleasure to ride on.
But, it’s not just about bikes. Our leaders are already starting to hear other things resonate. Things like:
- Family friendly
- Safe for kids
- Cheap for taxpayers
- Great, vibrant streetscapes
- Traffic calming and noise reducing
- Less cut-through traffic and dangerous close-calls (but allows plenty of car access for homeowners)
- Easy to walk short trips (no need for my car and for parking!)
- New kinds of bike riders who wear normal clothes!
I’m sure there’s more. Any of the above points can be greatly expanded on—like the point about being cheap for taxpayers: We get amazing triple benefits by doing stormwater “greener” and more cheaply than installing larger pipes and treating stormwater by traditional means, doing mobility management more cheaply than adding lanes and piles of new signals… and then packaging them together at the same time to economize on the construction.
One caveat: these facilities are great additions to our network, but really can’t replace urgently needed infrastructure on arterials that serve to get the vast range of those who ride to where they are going directly, efficiently and safely. They sure are, however, great complements to other needed bike infrastructure.
But you get the point—it’s an upcoming and impressive set of tools for us to use much more often. And we should use them immediately. Talk up Neighborhood Greenways to your neighbors and let’s gin up some excitement to bring more people into cycling, keep neighborhoods safe and make our urban landscapes more livable!
John, this is an excellent article and I completely agree with your approach here. My goal is to get a few of these Neighborhood Greenways in place and well used this year so we can begin to make the links between neighborhoods, parks, schools, and generally places where we want to go.
If you and your members have ideas for Neighborhood Greenways in addition to what Children’s, Wallingford, and Beacon Bikes are proposing, please let me know at sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov.
Thanks for getting the word out!
–Sally Bagshaw
Seattle City Council
I believe Bicycles should be taxed and licensed like every other vehicle on the street. Why NOT?
They should also have training for safety and law requirements – they too should have a license (like scooters and motorcycles).
We need appropriate guidelines and accountability. I see bike riders everyday who run red lights, run stops signs and basically endanger other vehicles all over the streets.
If they want to have all this money sent their way – then let THEM contribute to the costs.
License bikes, and create a safer more fundble economy. It’s not fair to place this burden on all of us – I have to pay to have a pet…why are bikes cost free??
Our city and all levels of government are facing tremendous fiscal challenges due to the Great Recession. Especially during these challenging economic times, we have a responsibility to implement policies that are practical, fair and make our communities better and safer places to live. We simply can’t afford policies that waste valuable taxpayer dollars failing to solve the problems they’re intended to remedy.
Such is the case with bicycle licensing. Many smart and well-intentioned people believe that a bicycle licensing program would keep our roads safer and generate revenue for bicycle projects. Unfortunately, this is not true.
In fact, bicycle licensing programs don’t work and waste valuable taxpayer dollars. Bicycle licensing programs don’t raise enough revenue to pay for their own costs, taking money away from other more important needs. The State of Minnesota recently cancelled their bicycle licensing program because, “the administrative costs were more than the revenue generated,” and the cities of Los Angeles, CA, San Jose, CA, and Detroit, MI, all recently cancelled their programs for the same reason. Washington’s Department of Transportation has studied other state programs and determined that implementing a bicycle licensing program would not be practical.
Furthermore, bicycle licensing programs are unfair because bicyclists already pay more than their fair share to use our roads through sales, property and gas taxes and motor vehicle license fees (many bicyclists also own and drive cars). They do very little to encourage bicyclists to obey the law and serve to discourage an activity (bicycling) that we should be working to encourage since it helps relieve congestion, benefits our health, our environment and our wallets.
We (Cascade) strongly support enforcement, fines and penalties for all road users, including bicyclists, who do not obey the rules and break the law. Enforcement is a proven life-saving strategy that keeps bicyclists, pedestrians and drivers safer. Licensing car drivers does not prevent people from speeding or running red lights – its education and enforcement (and good design) that keeps streets safe.
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[...] Bagshaw, Seattle City Councilmember, spoke passionately at the rally about neighborhood greenways. We can’t say enough good things about neighborhood greenways — provided they do not [...]
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[...] Portland has an amazing bike network with an incredible array of bold implementations – bike signals, bike boxes, cycletracks, bike bridges, protected crossings – that have lead to dramatic increases in ridership. What stands out most to me, is Portland’s network of Neighborhood Greenways. [...]
[...] “Greenway,” like “bike boulevard” is one of those terms that may hinder conversations as much as it helps–you always have to be on guard against tribalistic jargon. What’s wrong with just calling them family-friendly streets? [...]
[...] you’re inspired by the idea of Neighborhood Greenways (which would be great routes for bike buses and walking school buses), get involved. Your movement [...]