Blog: Cycling
Ghostcycle
07 Aug 05 by DL Byron
I ride my bike around the city a lot and as a cyclist, have had my share of close calls, road rage, and frustrations with the amount of cars in the city. Last week, I started seeing cyclist struck here GhostCycles installations. GhostCycle is an activist-art project “to raise awareness for everyone regarding bicyclists on the streets of Seattle.” I now see at least one of the 40 GhostCycles on every route I ride. Backing up the installations, is an impressive map with notations, Flickr clusters, and statistics.
This year I started really lamenting how the traffic in Seattle is affecting the quality of life. That may have come from the failing Monorail project, visiting cities that have working light rail, or just being plain tired of SUVs, stalled traffic, and frustrated drivers. What’s happening is that highway traffic is spilling into the side streets where I ride and roads like Lake Washington Drive, a bicycle right-of-way, are becoming thoroughfares for drivers. I expect to get to hear the yells, honks, close calls, and more — a week ago, we had a driver try to run us off the road. I hope those drivers see the GhostCycles, think about cycling in the city, and driving their cars.
filed under: Cycling | Link Cosmos | View Comments (5) | Post a comment
Comments
Posted by Billy The Blogging Poet | 08 Aug 05
Wow, what a great idea. I hope this slows at least a few of those careless SUV freaks to a more reasonable speed.
Posted by -b- | 08 Aug 05
Or they're talking on their cell phones. It's a great idea and effective.
Posted by Jason | 09 Aug 05
It's really too bad that Seattle can't come up with a decent solution to the traffic problems...the bus system is a joke.
Posted by -b- | 10 Aug 05
Agreed. I think most of the problems could be reduced by adding bike lanes everywhere, just like Portland and Eugene Oregon. For motorists, seeing cyclist in their own lane, seems to reduce the tension. I love Seattle, enjoy living here (Well, I'm suffering from the air quality right now), but I also think we suck when I visit a city that moves people around better.
Posted by john | 17 Aug 05
Nice blog.I like this.
John