Update: SDOT has published a blog post on the test project. “We’ve selected five ‘sidewalk furniture zone’ locations along NW Market St in Ballard where we’re encouraging bike share users to park their bike share bikes,” explains SDOT’s Norm Mah. The locations are:
– North side of Market just west of Ballard Ave (in front of Shakti Yoga).
– NE corner of Leary and Market (Ballard Beer Company).
– SE corner of Leary and Market (AT&T store).
– SW corner of Tallman and Market (All the Best Pet Care).
– North side of Market just W of Russel (Kangaroo and Kiwi).
SDOT says they’ll monitor the test parking areas and see if they help make the bikes in the area “appear more orderly.”
Earlier: Green, yellow and orange bikes have invaded Seattle over the last year or so, and we’ve all seen them scattered around the neighborhood — some even stacked in piles and occasionally thrown into Green Lake.
These are dockless bikeshare bikes from LimeBike, Ofo and Spin. Unlike cities like NYC — where you’re required to neatly dock your rented bikes — you can park them wherever you please.
A couple days ago, Thatcher Imboden spotted this freshly-painted bike parking area across the street from Matador along Market St. “Not sure if this is official paint, but this looks like a pilot for designated dockless bikeshare parking area in Ballard Seattle. Insight?” he asked on Twitter.
Sure enough, city traffic engineer Dongho Chang responded that it’s indeed a city test.
Will it help clean up the colorful bikeshare mess? Hard to tell, but we’ll keep you updated. Meanwhile, former SDOT chief Scott Kubly — who overaw the launch of dockless bikeshare in Seattle — has taken a job at Limebike.
I saw one of these the other day. Whos bikes are these?
Make these companies pay to park their bikes, just like we have to pay to park cars in more places now. The subsidies for this fiasco are already starting. Wait until the Council throws a couple million dollars at this. These guys sure aren’t making money on rentals, that’s for certain.
After I learned Kubly was hired by LimeBike, I deleted their app from my phone. Ofo and Spin, I’m all yours.
Saw this being painted on Monday afternoon outside Kangaroo and wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to be.
@Uff Da: I believe they do pay a blanket permit fee based on the number of bikes. And subsidies? Do you have any proof that they are getting subsidies? And if you are talking about the $10 in paint in the picture, you are wringing your hands over the wrong subsidies. And they probably aren’t making any money, but that’s the life of a startup funded by extremely rich people who have gobs of money to throw at things…compare to Uber.
What about the subsidies that car owners get. It’s ridiculous.
OK
@Turth
“And if you are talking about the $10 in paint in the picture, you are wringing your hands over the wrong subsidies.”
Hahah. In Seattle we all know an hour’s labor and materials costs several grand. Look at the fencing debacle beneath the Ballard Bridge at Leary underpass to keep out the junkies our “leaders” tacitly invited to this city in the first place. Comedy. Also, in a city now becoming crowded, we’re going to take up the vanishing sidewalk space that is often narrow to begin with? I bike but these rental bikes are cancer: tripped over, stripped by junkies, scattered everywhere.
Durkan HERSELF went on record in today’s paper saying we have “high taxes” and people are “tapped out” regarding her request for voluntary budget cuts in all departments. You guys would be funny if you weren’t spending everyone into oblivion while contradicting yourselves right and left.
@Paint: Da fellow American comrade! All problem is with liberal city government, let us mock and scorn them! Bicycles are cancer on society and car master race is #1, let us mock and scorn bicycles! Let us scorn and mock those who we do not agree with. For greater glory of Mother
RussiaAmerica! Only great Orange Trump can save super country from bicycle and liberals!#MAGA #JESUS4GUNS #LIZARDPEOPLE #OBRIEN4HOMELESS #SIDEWALKS4CARS
@Steve Smith from Magnolia
I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to read your comment. My bike was stolen by junkies, and I have to go downtown fight in unfair parking ticket before heading over to haggle with my landlord about the rent increase from the newest property tax levy.
I had an unfare parking ticket too. Left my car at one of those meters and it shut off before I could get back.
@Sockpuppet: Your mental illness has really progressed! First, you created many accounts to comment/troll with. Then you started creating creating accounts where to reply to your other accounts with. NOW, you’re creating accounts that you are trolling your other accounts with? Yikes…
I hope the city isn’t paying for these paint-jobs. Make the bike companies pay for this.
@ Concerned: automobile owners ARE footing the bills. Funny, I have yet to see any license plates on any bikes. Imagine the $$ rolling into paradise when this happens. I wonder why these things aren’t called litter? So a little white paint will remedy this? LOL. And speed limit signs halt speeders too. @ Steve/Kansas: 38 years and counting in Olympia. WA state is YOUR liberal heaven, own it buddy. Own the legalization of heroin. Own the high car tabs. Because until we become Europe, you and many here will not be happy.
not sure why the city is making “parking” for bike share companies.
@Scott: Seattle actually used to have bicycle license plates. The program cost more money than it brought in and it was deemed silly. If you want, you can buy a vintage Seattle bicycle license plate to put on your bike, if you so choose. They go for hundreds of dollars though…
Legalization of heroin? Think you’re pretty delirious as usual on that one, but you can thank the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016 at the national level, which basically took away the DEA’s ability to crack down on pharmaceutical companies leaking periods onto the open market.
If Seattle and Washington are so bad, what are you still doing here? Sell your house and buy a mansion in the conservative paradises of Idaho, Mississippi or Kansas!
*leaking opioids. What a disaster of an autocorrect…
Every bike and bike rider ought to have a readable identification number. Put some of these freeloading street campers to work stamping them, and the cost will go down. Each bike would cost $25 to register annually. If you don’t register its $100 fine or 5 days stamping plates (or picking up needles and human feces from street campers), while coaching some of our new demographic residents that they need to be productive members of society, or go live someplace else.
@Uff da: And what would that accomplish?
I love this service. Now that my kids are almost grown, I can do without a car nearly all the time thanks to these bike shares. Commuting is easier than the bus in my particular location. I don’t know how they will keep going, but I so hope they do. Thanks for making them available.
@uff da – what if my bike is my house?
Chinese bubble economics, based on a me too model to inflate Chinese stocks.
Google share bike pile, and see mountains of these bikes covering huge areas.
Double the cars on the road in 5yrs, fill the city with junkie thieves, then stack rental bikes to be tripped over and stolen. Great plan!
Please let these bikes succeed or fail on their own. No more tax money into these private companies’ operations. No more bailouts when they don’t work as hoped. The bike share companies are not going to share their profits with taxpayers, and taxpayers shouldn’t pay to support their business.
@Scott
This program is just for tourist selfies and to make the “Seattle Condo Lifestyle” look more European and laid back than the its reality of commuter gridlock and city waste. They WILL serve a purpose but it will isn’t for the plebs, but to sell real estate. Gee, I wonder if the developers are smarter than the hippie idiots who rubber stamp their scams? Upzone=more affordable housing, etc! Haha.
I probably see at least 3-5 lime / otto bikes being stripped every week in ballard commons park by the junkies that frequent the church and the urban rest stop. I wish Seattle would spend more time trying to figure out how to get rid of the homeless people in the tents camped out in front of the ballard library as they did for things like this. $3500-$4000 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment and 300 feet away I’ve got homeless people camped out in tents on the sidewalk for the past 6 months and a urban rest stop across the street where they do nothing but yell fight and do drugs all day long. The east side is looking better and better every day.