The Mayor’s $3 million investment will connect downtown neighborhoods and help thousands of students bike and walk to school safely

Today the city of Seattle announced that funding previously dedicated to the relaunch of bike share will be allocated to invest in safety improvement projects and expanding the city’s bicycle and pedestrian network.

“This shift in funding priorities allows us to make critical bicycle and pedestrian improvements — especially for students walking and biking to school," said Mayor Murray in a press release. “While I remain optimistic about the future of bike share in Seattle, today we are focusing on a set of existing projects that will help build a safe, world-class bicycle and pedestrian network.”

Cascade applauds the Mayor for accelerating the downtown bicycle network and connecting key neighborhoods to where people live, work, play and shop.

Bicycling downtown is currently not safe. Though there are select corridors with protected bike facilities, these corridors are not connected, and therefore not suitable for riders of all ages and abilities. A simple set of connected and safe bike facilities would provide a network that is intuitive to use, and make bicycling downtown more inclusive to new, beginner and intermediate commuters; as well as business patrons and residents.

New safety improvements around 19 targeted schools will help more students get to school safely. These investments will also amplify the bike and walk education Cascade provides to the more than 15,000 students in every 3rd, 4th and 5th grade in Seattle Public Schools.

According to the city’s press release, Pronto Cycle Share service will end March 31, 2017.

Cascade acknowledges the challenges Seattle has faced in implementing a well-functioning bike share system, given the small pilot project that has operated for the first two years.

Though the pilot program did not achieve the anticipated ridership, Cascade strongly believes there is enormous potential for a bike share system in Seattle in the future.

Cascade looks forward to working with our partners at the city, businesses and neighbors to build an all ages and abilities bike network in downtown and around targeted Seattle Public Schools.