Comments

1

If you must use the flex bollards, fill them with bright blue green sparkle paint, the kind that doesn't come off at the car wash.

Makes it easier to track down hit and run miscreants who ignore Seattle traffic laws and signs, like those three state legislators who try to make it so we can't impound them for dangerous driving on our streets

3

The lack of bollards in Seattle is dangerous and ridiculous. There should be retractable bollards on the Barbara Bailey Way festival street, the location of the Capitol Hill Farmer’s Market, 11th Ave on the cafe street by Pettiroso, and many other streets around Seattle.

4

Interesting that the first comment contemplates filling the flex posts with paint--because as for myself, I've often wondered what would happen if they were filled with concrete.

5

The flex posts are worse than useless. Once broken the metal spring and other metal parts attached to the pavement are genuine hazards to cyclists.

I'll quibble with your ideal bollards in the last picture. Threading a sport bicycle between them may be no problem, but a cargo bike or a bike pulling a trailer is going to have a tricky time. The people who design bike trails have a poor grasp of the universe of bicycles.

6

I now love bollards.

7

@4 concrete increases global warming emissions.

Shame and public shame that continues to repeat over and over and over works much much better.

Although I suppose raccoons playing with them might get a shock to now be covered in paint ...

8

Thank you Charles for covering this issue. Plastic posts are hardly bollards.

SDOT replaces flex posts that sometimes don't last a full day, just as it repaints the paint that doesn't physically protect people on our streets even before it disappears. Perhaps that's better than nothing, but we ought to have PERMANENT infrastructure that physically protects people walking and rolling.

Why can't we use "ECO Blocks" or Jersey Barriers to physically protect people from increasingly powerful cars and even more dangerous trucks driven by increasingly distracted people? No one asks those at Fremont Brewing or the Seattle Police Department in Capitol Hill whether plastic posts would protect them...

I am a Bike Lawyer at Washington Bike Law and a daily bike commuter. I have a collection of failed flex posts in my office that I collect along my commute. I don't want more clients, I want safer streets.

I believe that SDOT wants safer streets. SDOT knows how to do it right, it just needs to DO it. Preferably before the next person is seriously injured or killed by negligent driving and this clearly inadequate infrastructure.

9

Wow, what a difference a month or two makes in the Stranger's views on bollards...seems like just yesterday this 'news source' was complaining about the inequity of Fremont Brewing's use of them as a prevention of permanent 'unhoused' folks setting up camp.

10

@9 - Bollard to protect a person vs. bollard to repel a person. It's not hard to tell the difference.

11

If bollards are good, then Jersey Barriers must be better,
Right?

12

One problem with rigid bollards is that they are often closely-spaced and slightly higher than bicycle handlebar height. As the spouse of one who broke a wrist due to a momentary distraction on a bike, I can't fully love them, even as I understand their charms.


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