October 5

Maple Leaf, Metro buses and Pronto rental bikes

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7  comments

Two things about transportation:

1) Metro is considering a plan that could dramatically increase mid-day bus service in northeast Seattle. Specifically, from about 8,700  to 28,000 households served by a bus every 15 minutes.

There’s a meeting Tuesday night, 6 p.m., at The Mountaineers Club at Magnuson Park, hosted by Rod Dembowski of the King County Council, which oversees Metro.

The address is 7700 Sand Point Way N.E. More details are here.

2) Meanwhile, the city of Seattle,in a bid to rescue the apparently faltering Pronto bike ride-share program, is proposing spending millions of dollars to, among other things, put a Pronto bicycle-renting station at North Seattle College.

From our news partners The Seattle Times:

The proposal to boost the bicycle network is laid out in Mayor Ed Murray’s budget proposal, announced this week. Murray called fora $5 million city contribution to purchase 2,000 new bicycles, to go with a potential $10 million in matching federal grants for stations and other needs….

The idea surfaced earlier this year, as a section of a $25 million federal grant request, primarily to seek $15 million toward the Northgate Station walk-bike bridge over Interstate 5, plus $10 million for the citywide bicycle network.

The grant request touts bike stations around North Seattle College and South Seattle College, which serve higher proportions of low-income and minority students than the city population in general.

The full Times story, and several hundred mostly not-supportive comments, is here.

For more supportive comments, try the Seattle Bike Blog, here.

About the author 

Sara W

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  1. “Murray called for a $5 million city contribution to purchase 2,000 new bicycles, to go with a potential $10 million in matching federal grants for stations and other needs…”

    $5 million for 2,000 new bikes works out to $2500 per bike…are we buying a stable of carbon fiber racing bikes or something? Maybe the wording of the original article is vague and some of that $5 million is going toward other expenses associated with the bikes. But if we’re seriously spending this much money on rental bikes then we’re grossly overpaying for what we’re getting.

    I’m a bike commuter myself and I support bike infrastructure, but I also support responsible spending. And based on what’s cited in the article, this does not sound like a responsible use of city funds.

  2. Pronto Bikes are kind of a joke. They are great for tourists that don’t care. But for “Locals”, nobody wants to ride those beasts up any hill. Guess what? Seattle has hills, lots of them.

  3. “There’s a meeting Tuesday night, 6 p.m., at The Mountaineers Club at Magnuson Park,”

    Is the actual date a secret?

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