The bikeway is like a little street. Look both ways before you cross, Grandpa.

@1:

I don't know about you, but I can listen to someone talk AND check emails on my phone at the same time - adults call it "multi-tasking", and most of us have learned to do it as a matter of course, particularly because our jobs demand we split-focus on a regular basis.

Thanks for the follow up piece, Katie.

I think all citizens should show up at all public events and ask why we don't have the UN mandated minimum requirement of public restrooms, which causes everyone to pee on everyone's bushes and reek when they ride on transit.

Especially any public meetings about cops. And then talk for like 20 minutes, ignoring the 2 minute testimony limit.

@3: That's still rude behavior as you're not giving the person speaking your full attention. I trust you're not that way at home at least.

@2 Same thing goes when you cross the street in front of my SUV.

@5 Maybe you can ask why with two honey buckets on Ballard commons the bums still shit and piss on the library? Bad aim?

Was Schwartz the guy who kept putting tacks on that cycle track in 2016? Because that was pretty annoying.

It is quite possible that he isn't fucking annoying, but rather, fucking boring. He shows up at the council meeting, and despite the fact that at each council meeting you are supposed to talk about a different subject, he keeps talking about the same old shit. This leads others to, well, look at their phones, and try and get a jump on their real work, all the time paying a little bit of attention to the man, the same way someone would while cat-sitting. It is like watching baseball. Sure, you want to be there if something interesting happens, but let's face it, nothing will for a very long time.

He must be a member of the Seattle chapter of PITA (Pains In The Ass).

Bike license plates will never happen. You might as well have license plates on your sneakers.

@2 I don't have to dodge unrelenting, unconcerned, speeding traffic when i set my garbage out. But I hope you have to when YOU get old(er), you shit. Or maybe you will die of unsufferability before then.

First and on topic, if the city councilmembers behave like middle-schoolers they should get the same treatment - before the meeting, all electronics go on silent, and into a plastic bin by the door. They can be picked up after class, er meeting. Doesn't matter if it's boring, it's part of your effing job - do it.

Second, to deal with fast cyclists (and drivers), I recommend what I call "a Russian lunge". Back in the 90ies when I was a teenager and to an extent even now, drivers in Russia did not/do not yield on crosswalks. So what do you do if there's an endless stream of cars gunning it and you need to cross? Stand close to the road and make a big lunge TOWARDS (but not into) the road, as if you were about to run across. You'd be impressed how good the breaks are in modern cars, sometimes the tire marks are also a sight to behold. Then when the car is fully stopped, walk calmly across. Would probably work with cyclists too, some might wipe out and ride slower afterwards (spoken as a cyclist who wiped out trying to pass a car going at the speed limit on the left and doesn't do that anymore).

Ah, Twitter as journalism.

@11, Good recall. It wouldn’t surprise me. That was some malicious bullshit.

Unpopular opinion: Many Seattle bicyclists (not all!) are entitled assholes who think nothing of running roughshod over the path of pedestrians. Bicycling is awesome for those who can afford the bike and associated accouterments. But bicycling concerns should take a back seat to the vast majority of people traversing our city on foot.

This doesn’t excuse placing tacks or similar shitty behavior, of course.

Katie, I respect your willingness to follow up and fill in the backstory of this brouhaha.

Every so often some anti-cyclist RWNJ initiates what they apparently deem to be a serious effort to get the NYC city council to implement the whole license plates on bikes initiative. It always winds up being a hilarious joke and they get made fun of ruthlessly and deservedly, as the idea is comically dense and untenable for innumerable reasons.

I absolutely believe Katie when she claims this guy's not an asshole personally (most people aren't when you actually get a chance to meet with them face to face) but his motives surely aren't as civic minded and altruistic as he's leading on.

Thank you for revisiting this story. You give me hope for some civility in our uncivil world.

Good of you to follow-up, Katie. More often than not, life and people and circumstances are complex, and patience while researching the complexity is a journalistic virtue. It might not excite a right- or left-wing base; it might not sell copies or boost ratings; it might not rally followers to perceive those who disagree as enemies... but careful, thoughtful accrual of information is the best, fairest way to go. Real justice begins with respect for complexity, not the need to pillory a straw-man enemy. Good of you to acknowledge this man's humanity and your own fallibility. It's all too rare in this age of braggarts and blamers.

Katie: Thinking for yourself ain't gonna win you any friends in uber-woke Seattle, but thanks for looking behind the character hit job done by "Spek" and the other self-righteous snot-flingers. It was something to watch them rush to defend a Council full of "corporate bagmen" (with the exclusive exception of Kshama "I don't take corporate money but I will automatically withdraw yours from your bank account, SA Comrade" Sawant). Makes you wonder if they'd ever heard of the Head Tax repeal.

Check Your Narrative!

It’s is very important to remind everyone here that the city council is the focus of this, not Richard Schwartz. They ignored him, not the other way around. He doesn’t owe it to them to talk a certain way but they do owe it to him to listen. This is where democracy dies. It is like the orange man making fun of reporters he doesn’t like. Are we going to be the same way? Thanks for setting the record straight!

The City Council is out of control!

First warrant-less searches of houses and now this!

At least there is another female lawyer running against The councilmember who is interrupting.

Thankfully we have some good candidates running this year to replace this awful council. Deborah Juarez needs to be voted out. Check out D5 Candidate Ann Davison Sattler at https://neighborsforann.com

Speed bumps are insanely dangerous for cyclists. When a biker hits that bump at too fast a speed, more than their shocks that a beating. A friend of mine was dangerously injured by a speed bump. He nearly died. He spend months in the ICU. And he's just learning to walk again. Speed bumps need painting and very visible marking. Unless the city is committed to replacing signs, making sure they aren't over grown, repainting faded street markers religiously etc. Speed bumps shouldn't be in bike lane. A safer option would be partial barriers (think of the kind you see at train tracks). Those are in the cyclists face. And their fairly easy to navigate around safely, but do require the rider to slow down. Bikes (all of them) don't corner well at any speed above a crawl.

So Katie, did you apologize to him for being a sloppy "journalist" and a dip shit?

I neither think the man is fucking annoying or not fucking annoying because, Dear Katie, you are not the arbiter of fucking annoying, although others may say you are fucking annoying. Not the same thing.

@23 Did they ignore him, or did they give him an answer he didn't like? Sounds like a nice man who believes he's got an idea to improve his neighborhood but that doesn't mean his squeaky wheel tactics aren't annoying.

What's funny is this—whether calculated or by dumb luck—might be the attention that gets the city to address his issue. Give the man a speed bump for chrissake and call it a day.

@30 myself, I meant speedHUMP not speedbump, there's is a distinction. @27's barrier idea would be more effective if feasible in the space.

I bike, but some of my brethren need to turn off their Strava and take it down a notch.

Does putting gratuitous expletives in the headline of a newspaper column, regardless of whether the expletive is preceded by "not", make the columnist or the newspaper edgy or cool? No, it's just immature, and makes readers unlikely to take anything the columnist writes seriously. Sort of like how you'd have a hard time taking a potty-mouthed 14-year old seriously.

That bike path is already too slow to be useful what with all the pedestrian crossings that are there now. And as for the license plate argument, does Mr. Schwartz have an example of a bike that injured a pedestrian and then could not be found?

This isn’t about Mr Schwartz , this is about an inattentive City council period ! I’ve attended many city council meetings where public testimony is allowed , and every time members of this council are focused more on their phones and laptops then 20 min of public testimony- that is unless it’s someone they want to listen to like Nick Licata or Jayapal . It’s a trend and they got caught ! Juarez isn’t the only one that doesn’t pay attention and that is evident by past meetings. We the voters put them into office and we can remove them D5 🇺🇸 Ann Davison Sattler!

Wow, the Ann Sattler crew is hitting this thread hard!

And by crew, I obviously mean one person creating multiple accounts 😂

@7:

Clearly SOME humans aren't good at it, hence the old saying, "...can't walk and chew gum at the same time". But, that doesn't mean NONE of us can do it.

@37: Science is not on your side:

“Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time. At first that might sound confusing; at one level the brain does multitask. You can walk and talk at the same time. Your brain controls your heartbeat while you read a book. Pianists can play a piece with left hand and right hand simultaneously. Surely this is multitasking. But I am talking about the brain’s ability to pay attention. It is the resource you forcibly deploy while trying to listen to a boring lecture at school. It is the activity that collapses as your brain wanders during a tedious presentation at work. This attentional ability is not capable of multitasking.”

(http://brainrules.blogspot.com/2008/03/brain-cannot-multitask_16.html?m=1)

The corrupt, Luciferian, central banker-financed United Nations Agenda 2030 goal of ensuring the cattle remain close to the cities (for easier tracking) by destroying their car mobility will ultimately win, since the public is totally ignoranct of the source of these plans and these plans are infinitely financed by central banks that have the legal right to generate money out of thin air. Fighting this is futile. A better approach is to infiltrate and undermine your local sustainability green groups. Make sure to use the Delphi technique and become an expert in Edward Bernays=style propaganda before embarking down this path -- fight fire with fire.

@41: You might want to worry more about the Pastafarians. Their philosophy is far more corrosive to your beliefs. Trust me on this.