(Image: Central Seattle Greenways)
A pro-bicyclist community group is organizing a walk and meeting Monday night to remember the life of Desiree McCloud and start the process of improving safety on the street where she suffered her fatal bike crash.
“Girl Scout leader, Magic player, Geek Girl Desiree McCloud was a dynamic young woman completely engaged in a positive way with many communities in Seattle,” the Central Seattle Greenways announcement of the walk reads:
Seattle Neighborhood Greenways honors people who have died walking and biking on Seattle streets. We only do Memorial Walks with the full blessing and cooperation of families of the victims. This advocacy honors families, provides a forum for the community to grieve the loss together, and gives communities an opportunity to address street safety.
CHS reported on the death of the 27-year-old McCloud after she crashed on a Friday morning in May while riding with friends on E Yesler near the First Hill Streetcar tracks. While authorities await the results of the investigation of the crash, friends and family say the city must do more to improve safety along the tracks which can cause riders to slip or tires to get stuck. Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has also started a petition calling on city officials to “develop a policy to provide safe, protected bike facilities wherever streetcar tracks are laid.”
Of course it is tragic but tracks are a part of life whether you live in a small town or a big city and you must use extreme caution around them when on a bike. I don’t know what can be done other than a sort of general awareness adults are expected to have if riding a bike parallel to train/trolley tracks. Another feature of big cities is tall buildings and people occasionally fall from them or out of them. Sometimes there is not much that can be done. Even a fall from a second story can easily kill someone if they fall on their head.
These particular tracks are particularly slippery, though. Surely there must be some way of, say, texturing the rails at points where bicyclists and scooters/motorcycles/etc. are expected to cross, or changing the way that the pavement meets the rails in a way that smaller tires (going perpendicularly) don’t ever put a large amount of their pressure on the rail itself.
It’s very callous to compare this terrible incident to someone falling out of a window on his or her head. Streets are made for transportation and this design has already caused a second bad accident (fortunately not fatal this time). From reports on this accident so far, it is not clear that the rider could have reasonably avoided the problem except perhaps by getting off her bike and walking it on the sidewalk. It’s really inappropriate to compare this to someone falling out of a window. This hypothetical is just that — nearly everyone in Seattle uses buildings with windows every day, and yet we almost never hear of people falling out of windows. The number who ride near these rails is a tiny fraction of this and the system is very new yet we’re talking about a very real death here, as well as another very real serious accident.
These tracks are (a) unnecessary and (b) not well designed. Why we need rails in the street, rather than trackless trolleys running on tires, is something only rail-lovers can answer. Streetcars with rails cost up to 6x what electric trackless trolleys (that is, buses powered by overhead wires) would cost for the very same service, so streetcars are a poor choice for cost-effectiveness. The tracks are large and deep, a poor choice for our street system if it’s gong to be bicycle and pedestrian friendly.
A couple of years ago, some city council members admitted to their decision to put in streetcars being due to Metro’s control over buses, and the city wanting to have its own transportation independent of Metro. (See, for example, Seattle PI May 6, 2008) So now we are building a more expensive, dangerous system, in part because of a political turf war. There’s obviously some vocal support for streetcars as well. But hopefully not many people share the view that this death and other accidents are inevitable as we build more new transportation for the city.
This is really sad and that is really my strongest feeling. I know this intersection very well- I’ve passed through it several times a day for nearly 20 years. It’s a poor design for most people now (bikes, cars, pedestrians). It works well for the streetcar. And I see people riding it all the time so I’m not against it at all. I think it adds more than it takes so I want it to stay. I think bikes, cars and pedestrians have to use a higher level of caution now and no one is entitled to an “ease” of commute in that stretch any more than anyone else. What that means is that passing may no longer be an option in certain spots where it used to be. Can bicyclists accept that and adjust their behavior? Cars are physically forced to do that and drivers have to adjust. The same goes for certain track crossing points. The way you used to turn certain corners might not work anymore. It seems like adjustment is needed. I’m not saying that like I think it’s easy. Sharing road space has been hard for everyone. We are going to have to figure out how to share space in new ways because everyone’s safety is on the line.