Ghostcycle
posted by DL Byron on August 07, 2005
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.
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Aug 08 | Billy The Blogging Poet said:
Wow, what a great idea. I hope this slows at least a few of those careless SUV freaks to a more reasonable speed.
Aug 08 | -b- said:
Or they’re talking on their cell phones. It’s a great idea and effective.
Aug 09 | Jason said:
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.
Aug 10 | -b- said:
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.
Aug 17 | john said:
Nice blog.I like this.
John