These are the people who appealed the Bike Master Plan

During this morning’s City Council meeting, Councilmember Rasmussen noted that there had been an appeal to the city’s Bike Master Plan, which apparently no one else had heard about over the break.

The Master Plan, which was edited during a meeting in December, asks for between $400 and $500 million to spend on a wider degree of alterations to the city’s roads, with the goal of creating a transit system that’s safe for bikes. Because, you know, biking in Seattle is still very dangerous and deadly.

It would also create a bike track along Westlake, which is an area that is notoriously shitty for biking, but also required if you, say, live anywhere north of the ship canal and commute by bike.

Anyway, not everyone likes this plan, hence, the appeal. There’s not a ton of information on it yet, but the helpful folks over at Ravenna Blog found the organization who appealed the freshened up plan and sent us a link on Twitter.

This is their website and hooooo boy. They do not like the Plan one bit.

“We support a well-thought out solution that takes all stakeholder needs into consideration. This should balance safety and practicality for all stakeholders – with special attention to the needs of those who bear the risk. We are the risk holders,” states the site, imploring that the city think about all of the people who might be harmed if a cycling track is implemented, including “Argosy Cruises, Kenmore Air, Northwest Outdoor Center, Lake Union Crew and the many marinas that line Westlake Avenue North.”

THINK OF THE BOATERS AND THE RECREATORS! 

What’s upsetting for cycling advocates (and people who don’t like it when people die, and people who would like fewer cars on the road, and people who like the earth) is that New Mayor Ed Murray, unlike McGinn, is being seen as an advocate for basically everyone except cyclists. 

“The new Mayor Murray says, and I believe him, that he’ll talk to us,"Bill Wiginton told KING 5 in an interview. Wiginton is a landlord on Westlake who says he thinks the bike track is a bad idea that will rob the area of parking – a sentiment echoed by the Westlake Stakeholders Group. 

"The redesign of Westlake Ave. North to install the proposed Cycle Track may result in a substantial loss of parking which would be a serious threat to the viability of our community.”

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN. 

Now, to be fair, all they’ve done is file an appeal, which basically gums up the works and makes Murray take some time to look at everything before the Council votes. 

So…here’s hoping Murray will uphold McGinn’s plans to make transpo more fair and safe for non-drivers, which he should considering drivers are still hugely subsidized and mass transit users are losing out on a pretty big tax incentive to take the bus and also, cyclists are have recently been dogged by the threat of a fun tax on buying bikes. 

We’ll update with more info on the appeal when we get it.