Wednesday, 10/3 UPDATE:
Bike counter unveiling delayed
It’s here, it’s finally here! The bike counter we announced on Bike to Work Day in May is being installed on the Fremont Bridge this week.
Come one, bike all! You are officially invited to the unveiling on Thursday at 11 and be among the first counted with the new counter.
Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation is donating the bike counter to the City of Seattle with funding from the Mark & Susan Torrance Foundation for the project. We are grateful for the Torrance Foundation’s interest in supporting our mission of creating a better community through bicycling and to helping increase the visibility of bicycling in our city.
Cascade will cover the cost of the counter installation, and cover some initial administrative overhead and maintenance during the first year of operation.
Initially, we expected the counter to be the first one installed in the United States, however damage done during shipping delayed the project from its initial July date. In the meantime, Portland got the jump and installed its counter on the Hawthorne Bridge in August.
The Fremont Bridge is an appropriate location as it carries the most bicycle traffic of any bridge Seattle and Washington. Manual statewide bike counts take place annually in Washington and citywide in Seattle during morning and evening commute times, thanks to dedicated, clipboard-wielding volunteers. With the use of bike counters, we may get a more comprehensive picture of how many trips are being taken by bicycle throughout the day and the year.
Sensors installed on the bikeway will detect people riding bikes across the Fremont Bridge.
The bike counter as it looks today. It will be unveiled on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 11 a.m.
So the opening ceremony will close the bridge that “carries the most bicycle traffic of any bridge Seattle” to bicycle traffic. I love irony.
SDOT will just have the west side closed during the ceremony. That seems understandable since there will be workers activating the counter, media onsite, people talking and people with bikes queuing up to ride across when the ribbon is cut. Riding through a crowd wouldn’t be good for anyone involved.
The east side will be freely open for travel, and the bridge is not closed to bicycle traffic. If stopping by to celebrate isn’t your thing, feel free to use the east side of the bridge.
[...] More details from Cascade: Come one, bike all! You are officially invited to the unveiling on Thursday at 11 and be among the first counted with the new counter. [...]
That’ll teach’em to mess with MJ! Some people just can’t seem to get out of their own way. This is the problem with the world today. It’s all about “me”. I suspect Jason is under 30. Go figure.
Jim, you are quite wrong about age, and you completely missed the point (and the irony). It has nothing to do with “me”, and it won’t affect me at all. Seems like the folks disrupting regular travel to hold their somewhat-pretentious ceremony to pat themselves on the back are in fact the “all about me” crowd. I could make some guesses about your age and disposition as well, but I’ll keep them to myself.