Bikes—Yay!
On November 5, the city council adopted
an ambitious Bicycle
Master Plan aimed at tripling the number of bike commuters in the
city. The plan calls for 118 miles of new cycling facilities and 19
miles of trails in the next 10 years.
In surveys, Seattle residents have said repeatedly that the
number-one reason they don’t ride bikes is concern for their
safety. As several recent bike/auto clashes have shown, the
streets of Seattle remain dangerous and sometimes deadly for cyclists.
On November 1, for example, a West Seattle biker was shot in the
lung while traveling home on Delridge Way Southwest. So while the
bike plan is a good first step, it won’t accomplish much if the city
doesn’t actually implement it and enforce the laws protecting cyclists
that are already on the books. Already, planned bike lanes have been
replaced in some places by
“sharrows,” markings that tell drivers
bikes may be out in the lane of traffic.
Meanwhile, in famously bike-friendly Portland, the city is preparing
to spend $24 million building 110 miles of bike boulevards, which are
designed to get cyclists away from cars. ERICA C. BARNETT
Republicans—Ick!
Evidently, there are some Republicans who aren’t gay. Or at least
they still hit on women in bars. State House Minority Leader Richard
DeBolt (R-20, Chehalis) disciplined Representative Jim Dunn (R-17, Vancouver) for making off-color comments to a female staffer at
a bar after a pre-session meeting of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Education.
Several members of the committee reportedly overheard Dunn joking
about
buying the young woman a drink and
“taking her
home“—and now DeBolt
is removing Dunn from his committee
assignments.
Dunn, a grandfather who’s been married for 42 years, has
scoffed at requests for
his resignation. NANCY DREW
dads—weird!
A parental dispute at Roosevelt High School over the rules governing
the cheer squad ended in a bizarre police report involving a dentist,
sexual-assault allegations, and carpools. On October 7,
Roosevelt’s cheerleading coach called the home of one of her
cheerleaders to remind her to get to practice on time. The girl’s dad
answered the phone and, according to the report, launched into a
diatribe about the rules followed by a “monologue” about
inappropriate behavior by some of the cheerleaders, citing a
photo on Facebook showing one of the girls holding a wine bottle before
hanging up.
According to the report, the coach later received a call from
another cheer-squad mom who had discovered the angry dad’s dental
license had been revoked after he allegedly sexually assaulted several of his patients. She demanded that the dentist be barred
from carpool duty.
According to Seattle Public Schools spokesman David Tucker, the
school is
working to resolve the issue. JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE
Monopolies—Boo!
On Friday, November 9, the Federal Communications Commission will
hold a public hearing at Town Hall about FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s
proposal to relax media ownership regulations that prevent one
company from owning a TV station, radio station,
and newspaper in
the same market.
Go to www.reclaimthemedia.org for
details about the hearing, Martin’s proposal, and why media
consolidation is bad for children and other living things.
The hearing is scheduled from 4:00 to 11:00 p.m. Town Hall is on
First Hill at 1119 Eighth Avenue. JOSH FEIT
