Bicycles may be the most energy efficient, healthful, and affordable form of personal transportation. But they are only practical to the extent that our communities are bikable—that is, that they provide safe routes that connect the places we need to go.
And the most important thing to remember about bike routes is that they are only as useful as their least-passable portion. A big hill can nullify an otherwise excellent route. For my kids, for example, soccer practice, drama, and scouts all lie on the other side of a big hill, so their biking is limited. They’re jealous of the residents of Trondheim, Norway, who climb a similar incline on an innovative bike lift shown in this video.
For me, the weakest link in an otherwise superb ride from home to office (a subject I’ll write about another day) is the Ballard Bridge, a historic, four-lane structure that forms the westernmost crossing of Seattle’s ship canal. This bridge (pictured in this 360 pan) just about perfectly illustrates the current condition of bicycle infrastructure in most of Cascadia. In short, it encapsulates Bicycle Neglect. The bridge, or plans for it, also illustrates our nascent intention to take bicycles more seriously—call this aspiration Bicycle Respect.
The Ballard Bridge—like the Northwest more generally—isn’t hopeless for cycling. It’s passable, just not very friendly. The bridge has sidewalks on each side, so that’s good. But they’re narrow, obstructed, and shared with pedestrians. At both ends of the bridge, furthermore, they dump out into motorized traffic at odd and worrisome angles.
Here I am, on the sidewalk.
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And here I am approaching the small cut-away in the wall through which I must pass to leave the bridge without following a long detour.
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Here I am waiting for a break in traffic.
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And waiting . . .
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And waiting . . .
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And finally threading myself into 40-mph traffic to continue on my path to work.
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(Photos thanks to Elisa Murray, who rose early to bike with me.)
Again, it’s not impossible to bike this bridge. I do it on occasion. More often, though, I take a longer, hillier route to avoid these few hundred yards of anxiety. More often still, I don’t bike at all, opting for a bus over this fearsome chokepoint.
The Portland-based Bicycle Transportation Allowance found in a survey of Oregonians that 1 percent are “fearless cyclists,” who are undeterred by crossings like the Ballard Bridge. I’m not one in that category!
Another 7 percent are confident bikers: they’ll take a route like the Ballard Bridge once in a while. I guess that’s me. Another 60 percent of people—the overwhelming majority—are “interested but concerned” riders. They would never brave the Ballard Bridge, though they enjoy cycling on safe, quiet, bike-only lanes and bicycle boulevards. Because such bikeways are so rare in North America, though, these people are more often potential riders than actual riders.
These potential riders are the people we need to invite onto two wheels, if we’re going to stabilize the climate, reduce our oil addiction, and reverse the obesity epidemic. Portland (along with Vancouver, BC, and a few smaller cities that I’ll write about another day) has been systematically retrofitting its streetscape—to the tune of more than $1 million a year—to make it inviting for such riders. The city has more than tripled the length of its bikeways since the early nineties. Interestingly, the lion’s share of Portland’s funds have gone into making its downtown bridges pleasant to get to and cross on a bike. That’s because the bridges were the weakest link.
In this paper, Roger Geller and Mia Birk, the current and past bicycle coordinators, respectively, of Portland’s transportation agency, show before-and-after photos of four downtown bridges, along with counts of cyclists crossing each at different points in time.
This 1992 photo of the Broadway Bridge shows a cycling infrastructure much like the Ballard Bridge today: a narrow, obstructed sidewalk shared with pedestrians, and no good way to veer left toward the city center at the end of the bridge. Still, some 755 cyclists (no doubt of the “fearless” and “confident” varieties) ventured across the Broadway Bridge on a typical day in 1992. (It was, after all, signed as a Bike Route.) Study this photograph: it’s an image of Bicycle Neglect, the norm in Cascadia today.
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In this 2002 photo from roughly the same location, you can see the end of Bicycle Neglect: a segregated bike lane, separate from both car traffic and foot traffic; turn lanes for bikes; and a turn signal specifically for cyclists, to give them a chance to move left into the city center. (The pedestrian infrastructure is also improved: there’s now a crosswalk and a sidewalk to cross to.) These improvements paid off: by 2005, almost 2,100 cyclists crossed the Broadway Bridge on a typical day, likely including many “interested but concerned” riders.
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(Both photos courtesy of City of Portland, Office of Transportation.)
Citywide since the early nineties, Portland has seen a tripling of bicycling to accompany its tripled bikeway network, and bicycle traffic on the bridges has grown ten times faster than has car and truck traffic. It wasn’t just the bridges, of course. Portland wove a network of bike routes that connects to the bridges. But the bridges were the
limiting factor on bike growth, just as the Ballard Bridge is for me and my neighbors.
Fortunately, Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan specifies a way to solve the Ballard Bridge problem, as we noted here. It calls for a bicycle bridge to parallel the existing span. Expensive? Not if it removes the constraint on bicycle transportation for a section of the city.
Here are two photos from Copenhagen, a city that does not suffer from Bicycle Neglect. (In Copenhagen, people bike more than they drive.) The photos show the installation of a bicycle bridge in Copenhagen’s harbor. Study these photos. They are images of Bicycle Respect.
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(Both photos courtesy of Brian Hansen, City of Copenhagen.)
(A big thanks to intern Deric Gruen, who did research for this post.)
eldan
Personally, I find the Ballard Bridge so intimidating that I’ll go relatively far out of my way to avoid it, to the point of diverting via the Fremont Bridge or Ballard Locks. Of course, the result of this is that for any cyclist who feels the same way as me the effective distance between 15th Ave NW and Belltown or Interbary is increased. …and then there’s a knock-on effect, which is that when bike provisions are based on current useage, bridges like Ballard get ignored, while bridges like Fremont get money spent on them instead, where it is less useful. I was very glad to see the Ballard Bridge being a major focus in the Bike Master Plan, because that suggests the city managed to avoid that trap.
eldan
um… I didn’t intend to invent districts in that comment. “Interbary” is of course Interbay.
Matt the Engineer
Great article. Bike bridges are likely very cheap compared to car bridges – they don’t have endless tons of steel to support. Add a few of these, some bike lifts for the hills, and I can imagine bike travel rivaling car travel on some sunny days.
MichelleV.P.
Eugene, Oregon solved its Ferry Street Bridge bicycle-neglect problem, by building a suspension bridge parallel to it, specifically for bikes and pedestrians. It’s called the Peter DeFazio Bike Bridge, in honor of U.S. Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon, who initiated the project.Here’s a neat picture of it, taken from Alton Baker Park.
Chris
There IS another alternative to combat bicycle neglect. I call it bicycle militancy. In places where there is no bike lane, or the bike lane is dangerous or inadequate, I seize the car lane. The cars can just travel at my speed as the price they pay for not providing me with my piece of the road. So traffic may just back up…tough luck. Can you imagine what might happen if there were enough of you to seize the lanes of the Ballard Bridge during communte time? Maybe it will be the drivers who will be forced to seek alternative routes…I’m tired of sucking their fumes, risking my life and limb, paying for their petro-wars, suffering their global warming. As more and more of us take to the bicycle, the roads will gradually become ours. Sooner or later the few auto drivers will have to beg for their own 1% for auto lanes.
Anna
Alan, I’m in category 2, as well. I will venture out into scary territory on my bike only when absolutely necessary—sometimes to the chagrin of my fearless boyfriend and his band of merry biking friends who bomb around town without an ounce of bike-fright. My commute from Montlake to downtown is perfect except for one or two treacherous spots where I have to climb steep hills at the same time I’m navigating heavy traffic, freeway on-ramps, cab stops in front of hotels and bus stops all at once. The hills I can live with (without a lift), but when I’m huffing it and fighting car traffic, it’s too much. Sometimes I’m not sure my heart is pounding more from the hill or the fear of death.The bike route along I-5 that skirts Capitol Hill, on the other hand, is great. And my ride through Interlaken Park is beautiful and relaxing—it’s the sweet part of the ride that not only motivates me to get on the saddle in the AM but effectively washes away all my traffic angst at the end of my ride home.
Anna
The history of Interlaken, by the way, points to Seattle’s roots (and routes) as a bicycle city. This is from the Sherwood History Files:The improvement in the design of bicycles, replacing the high wheel with the small one, caused a “bike boom” in Seattle from 1889 to 1895 comparable to the 10-speed boom of 1971 when the adult market pushed US sales from 5.6 million in 1965 to 8.5 million in 1971. Traffic was a minimal hazard in 1896 but the cracks between the planks with which the streets were paved presented a real problem. So the Assistant City Engineer, George F. Cotterill, walked around the city and developed a 25-mile system of bike paths for the 55,000 residents who owned 10,000 bicycles. His route went through the ravines and along the bluff that has since become Interlaken Park.They even understood Bicycle Respect to the extent that they built in a “halfway house” for bikers heading up the hill, with a lunch / rest station. What’s more, bikes lead the way for cars: Engineer Cotterill’s bicycle paths were well chosen routes, for many became the basis for Seattle’s boulevard system.The cars took over the bike paths! I guess that was the beginning of the end of the bike path golden era in Seattle. Let’s hope for a renaissance!
angoleralua
To respond to Chris’s comment: Your zeal is well understood. I too find myself getting SO angry at all these people who just dont GET the connection between all these disgusting things happening in the world and our addiction to oil. This frustration often leads me to be a bit aggressive and rude on the road. But then i remind myself that THIS attitude is what is making for really bad relations between the cyclists and the drivers on Portland’s roads. While our infrastructure is getting alot better, our attitudes toward one another are suffering. We, as cyclists and community members, have a responsibility to everyone on the road, and everyone in the city. Good relations will lead to better developments for cyclists. And bad attitudes and childish behavior on the road (trying to “punish” drivers for all the bad things they do) will not only lead to more injuries and more people afraid to even get on a bike, it will show our leaders and policy makers that we cyclists are not grown up enough and not respectful enough to have earned such a level of attention that would warrant a beautiful bike bridge. Remember, no matter how vengeful you may be on two wheels, the fact remains that the multi-ton vehicles behind you are huge, violent machines, and no ammount of righteousness will save you from a potentially deadly collision. Amicable relations among all commuters will prove to the public and to the policy makers that a better bike infrastructure is the most popular and valuable way toward a socially and environmentally sustainable future.
suzannenott
My daughter used to bicycle to work in Portland all the time, until she had an accident. There was an oil spill on a road, right where the road curved. As cyclist after cyclist turned the corner down they went – some suffering severe lacerations. The amazing thing is that people gathered by the roadside watching this spectacle – and no one had called for a cleanup, nor were there people standing before the spill warning bicyclists deflecting traffice from the danger. Even in the touted “bicycle city” ignorance about bicycle safety and “share the road” persists. The lift is SUCH a wonderful idea. Let’s get some for Seattle and Tacoma!
Ted
Your example of the changes that occurred at the west end of the Broadway Bridge in Portland only tells part of the story. The changes to the bike facilities there were part of a much larger reconstruction project that took out the Lovejoy viaduct in order to allow for greater development in the Pearl District. The project was a huge investment in improving access to an area the City wished to ahve redeveloped and was primarily focused on improving access for auto traffic and amking way for the construction of the street car through that area. In other words, those changes were made as part of a much larger multi-modal improvement project. By combining them with a larger project I am sure it was very cost effective to make the relatively small changes for bikers. I sincerely doubt that the changes we see on the Broadway Bridge would have occurred on their own. Partnership with the transportation agengies that build and maintain our roads and looking for opportunities to improve bike infrastructure, I feel, is the key to making the progress you wish to see.
Dara
There are so many problems with getting around on bike. We live specifically near transit and walking-distance shopping and such – and the Burke-Gilman trail! – and I’d say I’m somewhere in category two of bikers. I bike regularly when weather permits and enjoy it. When I’m at UW, I bike there all the time. But getting across things like I-5, particularly on the north end, is such a hellish misadventure. NE 195th Street is the only ped-only crossing, which sounds lovely until you notice the giant hillclimb to get up to it.
Alan Durning
On a later post in this series, one reader pointed to the amazing pedestrian and bike bridges of Australia, especially Brisbane.They’re written up and photographed in Price Tags. Well worth a look!
dsamson79
In response to Dara, I would like to point out that there are many manageable ways to cross I-5 between the Burke and 195th without resorting to 45th or 50th sts., which are deathtraps for cyclists. There is Ravenna Blvd, NE 70th st., 5th Ave. NE and NE 92nd. St. that come to mind as safe alternative routes. However, I really do get the point: between 92nd St. and 195th there are really no safe crossing points without going onto the sidewalk. Also, I used to ride the Ballard bridge every day and the only way I was able to deal with it was to ride against traffic going south on the east sidewalk which has a bit easier spot to get thru the traffic with the overpass.Still, I am yearning to move back to Seattle for the easy bicycle commuting and docile traffic after battling Oakland, CA ghetto/chinatown traffic where there are bike lanes but the drivers are so hellbent on sending you to the afterlife that you really have to ride like a gladiator.
MichelleV.P.
Update: sigh… I’m in love, too. And, it’s a gloriously green triangle with former Eugene Mayor, Ruth Bascom, and present-day Oregon Congressman, Peter DeFazio.I’ve just returned from their respective 12-mile Riverbank Trail System and Bike Bridge (PDF). And, since I was walking rather than biking (I’m currently bike-less, which is maybe a story for another day), I only made it along two miles of that glorious trail—one mile there, one mile back—and which also included a rendez-vous over the Peter DeFazio Bike Bridge. Hence the reason for this update:In my previous comment, above, I described the DeFazio Bike Bridge as being “parallel” to the Ferry Street Bridge, which, from a passenger’s standpoint on a public bus whizzing over the Ferry Street Bridge, it appears to be.However, when one is experiencing the DeFazio Bike Bridge up-close-and-personal like an actual pedestrian, as I was today, one realizes as one gazes at the river and over to the Ferry Street Bridge, that the two bridges are actually semi-parallel, like a peace sign.Therefore, since I’m trying to follow Sightline’s good example of scientific accuracy, I felt the urgent need to update my description with this newfound knowledge….Though, in a city that proudly refers to itself as “Northwest of normal,” parallel and semi-parallel are, basically, one and the same 🙂
Ted King
Re: Michelle V.P. (16 July 07)Your Eugene, OR PDF link has died. Here are replacements :Master List of Trails in Eugene, ORRuth Bascom Riverbank Path SystemThe Fazio Bridge is in the lower center near Milepost 2 of the “North/South Bank Path”s.