City’s pet project only helps a handful of people

This is another obscene example of how the Seattle Department of Transportation doesn’t really care how badly they hurt traffic in Downtown Seattle, so long as a handful of bicyclists get bike lanes.

The Seattle Department of Transportation plans to build a network of bike lanes in downtown.

The department is doing this because they think “if you build it, they will come.” They think by building this thing, you’ll want to bike to work &#8212 because if you live in Renton or Northgate or Puyallup, it’s an easy bike ride.

Because if you live even in Queen Anne, you’ll want to bike to work in the rain, arrive sweaty, take a shower in the office shower room that you don’t have, pull your wrinkled suit or uniform from your bag, and go about your merry day.

This a pet project that impacts only a handful of people.

In fact, only 3.1 percent of commuters use bikes to get to Downtown Seattle according to an SDOT survey. And that’s down from the year previous &#8212 so with so few people commuting, why not bring in more bike lanes?

Because Seattle Department of Transportation Director Scott Kubly is a bike activist. So he kowtows to the 3.1 percent (catering to the 1 percent is wrong when you’re talking about rich people, but the 3.1 percent is alright because they’re on bikes).

Now, I’m actually not against bike lanes. I’m fine with bike lanes where they make sense and where there is demand. But I’m someone who doesn’t want to make traffic worse as a result of a bike bias. If city officials want to put bike lanes up without impacting driving and busing, then go for it; I like the idea. But that’s not what the city is doing. They’re doing this even though it directly hurts traffic because they don’t care about drivers.

The city really doesn’t care about the driver experience. They want to cater to the 3.1 percent at the expense of the 96.9 percent.

The city is completely ignorant to the fact that people drive to Seattle from outside of Capitol Hill, a neighborhood that gets most of the attention from these activists in power. If you don’t live in Capitol Hill, the city doesn’t care about you.

Commuting from Bellevue or Shoreline or Milton? The city doesn’t care. This is important because this will cause traffic congestion even if you don’t go anywhere near Downtown Seattle. There’s a huge domino affect. Backups stretch blocks and blocks and blocks and it will push further away from Seattle, including to the I-5 on-ramps, which creates back ups on the freeway. So if you’re going from Tacoma to Northgate &#8212 not even stopping in Downtown Seattle &#8212 you’re going to experience more traffic on I-5.

Now, SDOT is asking people to weigh in on this &#8212 whether you’re a cyclist or a driver. But it’s disingenuous, because the department is moving forward with its plans. So you don’t get to stop it. The department doesn’t let the public stop their awful plans.

West Seattle residents found out SDOT is getting rid of parking on Admiral Way and installing bike lanes. The neighborhood went bonkers, tried to stop it. The residents understood this will be awful for their community, but SDOT is moving forward anyway. Rather than listen to the people, the department told them that they know better.

But I want you to fill out the survey anyway &#8212 because all of this is reserved and put on the record. Let’s go on the record and let history know we told them not to move forward with this plan and they ignored us.