Celebrate Seattle Summer Streets

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Comment by Josh Mahar on April 8, 2009 at 4:41pm

Just wanted to let all Capitol Hill cyclists know that I will be hosting a ride to the Greenwood Summer Streets from Cal Anderson park. Event details here:
http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/events/2009/04/10/ride-to-greenwood-summer-streets

Comment by Phillip Wayne Decker on March 31, 2009 at 8:35pm

Nice, I like the multi organization approach.
Wiffle Ball - love it!.... or even an old schoolTrac-ball event?
I'm looking at getting a Boys and Girls Club fundraiser where we will have Big-wheel races down the local streets and cap it off with a BBQ in the street.

Comment by John C Todd, Jr on March 18, 2009 at 3:49pm

When I pitched the idea of closing Greenwood Ave as part of this program to the Greenwood Community Council at its September, 2008 meeting, I proposed three partners:

* Phinney/Greenwood Climate Change Action Now's "Green My Ride" event
* The Seattle Electric Vehicles Association
* Bicycle cab operators

PGCCAN has held its "Green My Ride" event at about this same time the last two years, which is one reason I suggested this time frame to the Greenwood Community Council last September, but the last I spoke with PGCCAN they seemed unlikely to host that event again due to a lack of volunteers willing to spend so much time organizing it. However, it seems to me that they might be willing to provide a more limited commitment in this event now that others have taken overall responsibility.

The latter two suggestions were both made to faciliate more convenient "public" transportation -- more than a mile of Greenwood/Phinney Avenue will be closed during this event, and in order to give all attendees access to the entire event I felt it would be highly advantageous to provide accessible transportation options to augment walking, personal bicycling, and the King County Metro #5 bus, which operates every 10 to 30 minutes during the event's duration. It seems to me that both bicycle cabs and electric vehicles could operate along the length of the closed section of Greenwood/Phinney Ave N as well as between that corridor and the large parking lots in front of Fred Meyer and Greenwood Market on N 85th Street.

It would seem ideal if the city paid licensed bicycle cabs to operate during this event, leaving the additional opportunity for their passengers to tip the operators.

I imagine it might be trickier to allow neighborhood electric vehicles to operate in this manner, as I imagine their owners are not typically licensed to operate as passenger conveyances, though perhaps the city could grant a variance in this case? If not, I expect that some of their owners might still have an interest in displaying their vehicles, or in giving demonstrations of their operation in more limited ways.

Finally, I am working on organizing a community wiffleball event as part of this event, and I hope to procure the temporary use of a large bike rack from a local school, similar to what I arranged for last September's Park(ing) Day, as a way to encourage participants to bike to the event:

http://www.phinneywood.com/2009/01/28/on-street-bike-parking-in-a-neighborhood-near-you/#more-550

Ideas? Questions? Comments?