Streetsblog New York City

Under the headline, “Okay, Fine, It’s War,” Seattle’s The Stranger blog this week published a manifesto “of and by the nondrivers themselves.” They’re sick of being called “militants” for caring about pedestrian safety, and they’re tired of the specter of a “war on cars.”

We heartily recommend that you read the whole thing, but here are some of our favorite parts. Like this, from the first plank of the manifesto: “The car-driving class must pay its own way!”

For cars we have paved our forests, spanned our lakes, and burrowed under our cities. Yet drivers throw tantrums at the painting of a mere bicycle lane on the street. They balk at the mere suggestion of hiking a car-tab fee, raising the gas tax, or tolling to help pay for their insatiable demands, even as downtrodden transit riders have seen fares rise 80 percent over four years.

No more! We demand that car drivers pay their own way, bearing the full cost of the automobile-petroleum-industrial complex that has depleted our environment, strangled our cities, and drawn our nation into foreign wars. Reinstate the progressive motor vehicle excise tax, hike the gas tax, and toll every freeway, bridge, and neighborhood street until the true cost of driving lies as heavy and noxious as our smog-laden air. Our present system of hidden subsidies is the opiate of the car-driving masses; only when it is totally withdrawn will our road-building addiction finally be broken.

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Right now, Seattle is making as serious a commitment to transit as any city in the nation. Recently, Streetfilms got to take a tour of the newest addition to the city's network -- the 13-station Link Light Rail, which opened in mid-2009.

The route is beautiful, swift, and has great multi-modal connections. Service is frequent, with headways as short as 7 minutes during rush hour, and never longer than 15 minutes. And like many of the newest American light rail systems, the stations feature copious art.

Seattle has a lot of car commuters, but in a sign that many are looking for more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of getting to work, the new light rail line will be followed by several more additions to the city's transit network. As Seattle's Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl told us:

[Voters] in November 2008, by 57 percent -- which was a thrill in a recession economy -- voted to expand our light rail system, and our commuter rail system, and our buses... to add another 36 miles of light rail in the region. And to add 65 percent more capacity to our commuter rail system.

We'd like to thank everyone who talked to us for this shoot, especially Bruce Gray from Sound Transit, and Andrew Schmid for arranging it all. And of course a big shout out to the intrepid scribes over at Seattle Transit Blog, who cover the local transportation scene with zeal and gusto.

When Seattleites elected a new mayor at the end of 2009, they really went for a breath of fresh air. In the general election, Mayor Mike McGinn, who rides a bike to work daily, was outspent nearly four to one. The race was very close, but with an energetic volunteer base -- and a campaign that emphasized many livable streets issues -- he pulled out the victory.

Only a few weeks into the new administration, I got the chance to commute with Mayor McGinn from his home in Greenwood to City Hall. It wasn't hard to convince him, seeing as he's a longtime Streetfilms fan, going back to his days as the founder of an organization called Great City.

As you'll see, McGinn has a lot of great things to say. Particularly exciting is a new website called Ideas for Seattle, which asks residents what they would like to see the mayor focus on. Take a look: A good dozen of the current Top 20 could be classified as livable streets issues. (Note: I think other cities should replicate this.) So we wish Mayor McGinn the best and can't wait to check back in a few years to see what kind of changes have taken place.

It's something even the most experienced cyclists do: wipe out while crossing a set of train tracks. When you ride across rails, you need to maneuver your bike's angle of approach so that you hit the tracks as perpendicularly as possible. But even knowing that, some riders don't slow down enough to sashay properly, and newbies have no idea how the angles work until it's too late!

In Seattle, they're trying something I've never seen before that goes beyond the usual warning signs. The DOT is using "sharrows" and markings to visually guide cyclists through these crossings. Anecdotally, it seems to work well. I found it reassuring that my path was predetermined as I approached, instead of having to guesstimate. Stay within the lines, and all will be good.

But as John Mauro from the Cascade Bicycle Club points out, this is only an interim solution to filling in the missing link in the famous Burke-Gilman Trail. Families out cycling for the day shouldn't have to contend with dangerous sets of tracks in the first place. Still, it's nice to see that DOTs all across the country are getting creative and using cost effective solutions (just a few marks with paint) to keep us a little safer.

The rider went down -- Boom! -- just as she turned to see if the streetcar was getting close to her. Turning to look was her undoing, because her wheel got caught in the big gap between rail and street, toppling her hard. The big blue streetcar was only ten feet or so behind her, but luckily was slowing down and did not run her over. Scary though.

Shaken but apparently not badly hurt, the rider, a young woman in a light blouse and wearing a helmet, stood up to be greeted by the streetcar conductor, who offered not sympathy but angry hectoring. Didn’t she know that cyclists were not supposed to cycle in the streetcar lane?

Standing by and watching all this while preparing to board the streetcar in Seattle, I could only shake my head in sadness. We have such a hard time doing mass transit right in this country, particularly outside New York City. Seattle's shiny new streetcar “system” was essentially brand new, but its flaws were already readily apparent.

Let’s start with the tracks. Isn’t there some system possible that does not leave what looked like a three or four inch gap between the track and the street it is imbedded in? I’m sure loyal Streetblog readers will supply me with the make and model of something. I remember seeing that old footage from Barcelona that showed all those cyclists swerving this way and that in front of the streetcar, with apparently no fear of getting caught in the track gap. Can’t we do that today? It certainly doesn’t make sense to exclude cyclists from a whole lane of a street, one that could actually double as a bike lane if built correctly.

Then there are the other problems.

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Along Seattle's historic waterfront I happened upon a unique pedestrian-activated crosswalk that blinks as people cross. Yes, I have seen over a dozen lighted ped signals before in myriad cities, but all required the user to press a button to manually begin the cycle. So, you ask, how is this one different?

Well check this out: As you enter the crosswalk, make sure to step on the yellow rectangle on the sidewalk. This activates the lights that line the crosswalk. Drivers stop and it should be safe to begin your adventure. You'll feel a bit like an airplane coming in for a landing. Frankly, it's very empowering and a lot of fun!

Reason dictates that A) there must be a sensor contained within the yellow pad, or B) there's a helpful gremlin who lives underneath and throws a switch for pedestrians. Regardless, anyone else seen one like it?

Seattle's South Lake Union Streetcar is a 1.3-mile line that opened in December 2007, the first leg in the city's commitment to new transit and light rail. It passed the half million passenger milestone in its first year, surpassing ridership projections.

The streetcar features many top-of-the-line tech amenities, including real time arrival message boards, solar-powered ticket vending machines, and human-activated doors to save energy while the train is in layover mode. If you go to the Seattle Streetcar web site, you can find out the next arrival time and actually watch the streetcars moving via GPS trackers.

As you'll see in the film, development is booming along the South Lake Union corridor. "If you build it, they will come" certainly seems to apply here.

Carla Saulter pens a very eclectic blog called Bus Chick, Transit Authority, which you can find on the Seattle Post Intelligencer's web site.

Carla, who lives car-free with her husband and young daughter, is all about riding transit and inspiring others to do the same. The bus has indeed figured prominently in her life: she met her husband on the bus; riding has provided her with a creative outlet for stories and interesting anecdotes; and she named her first child for the most renowned bus rider in history.

I was bowled over when I heard that Carla actually went by bus to give birth at the hospital (not to mention to come home afterward). I knew then and there that I needed to profile her. I just wish I lived closer to the Bus Chick family so I could ride the bus with them more often.

One of our favorite recent discoveries on the national transpo blogging scene is Carla Saulter, a third-generation Seattleite who documents her transit-going life in a blog called Bus Chick for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A lot of people who do without cars before they become parents think that once they do have a kid, life without a vehicle is no longer possible. Not Carla, who recently wrote a post about what she's learned in her first year as a "bus parent." Here's some of what she has to say:

Planning is essential. The single biggest difference between being a bus parent and being a car parent is the amount of mental energy that's required to make it through the day efficiently, productively, and free of stress.

Comfort is key. As a childless bus chick, I advocated shoes that were comfortable and cute. Today, I say: Cute, schmute! When I'm traveling with Chicklet, it's all about comfort.

Crying is not an option. If you take a cranky baby on a car trip, you're the only one who has to endure the howling. Cranky babies on buses, on the other hand, share their howling with dozens of innocent bystanders. Because of this, I consider it my responsibility to keep Chicklet content and well-behaved for the duration of every ride.

On the plus side: Car free is gear free. (or, Who needs a baby travel system?)

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The Congress for New Urbanism released a highly entertaining top ten list today: the North American highways most in need of demolition. At the top is Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct, a structurally damaged elevated highway that, if removed, would free up 335 acres of public land by Elliott Bay.

New York's Sheridan Expressway, which traverses 1.25 miles of Bronx River waterfront (right), comes in at number two. Thanks to the advocacy of the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, the state DOT is considering a proposal to replace the lightly-traveled, Moses-era Sheridan with housing and parks. As the Tri-State Transportation Campaign reported last month, preserving it is becoming harder and harder to justify.

Here's the full "Freeways Without Futures" list, issued as part of a joint venture between CNU and the Center for Neighborhood Technology called the Highways to Boulevards Initiative:

1. Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle, WA
2. Sheridan Expressway, New York, NY
   
3. The Skyway and Route 5, Buffalo, NY
   
4. Route 34, New Haven, CT
   
5. Claiborne Expressway, New Orleans, LA
6. Interstate 81, Syracuse, NY
7. Interstate 64, Louisville, KY
8. Route 29, Trenton, NJ
9. Gardiner Expressway, Toronto, ON
10. 11th Street Bridges and the Southeast Freeway, Washington D.C.

Previous highway-to-boulevard conversions have succeeded in cities from New York to San Francisco to Seoul, often in the face of opposition from carmaggedon-predicting doomsayers. More from CNU President John Norquist on why freeway removal makes sense, after the jump.

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