Our very own Tom of SeattleBikeBlog is helping to organize a ride for bicyclists of all types Saturday afternoon to mark the deaths of Seattle riders including Vivace general manager Brian Fairbrother. Details on the Safe Streets Social ride are below.
Date: September 24
Time: Meet at 3 p.m., ride at 4
Place: South Lake Union Park (the Moving Planet event will be wrapping up)
Route: We will ride to the memorials created for Mike Wang, Brian Fairbrother and Robert Townsend.The number of people killed while biking in Seattle and around the region this summer has been devastating. The mayor responded by calling for a road safety summit, Cascade Bicycle Club held a press conference and many media outlets in town have run stories and editorials calling for a solution.
But perched on bike saddles all around the city, residents of Seattle are feeling a mix of fear, anger, sadness, hope and everything in between. Friends and family of those injured or killed on the streets of Seattle are coming to terms with their forever-changed lives.
Seattle, we need to get together, honor those who have lost their lives in traffic and support each other. We need to work for change. There is no better way to do this than to ride together.
So with the help of Davey Oil (of Bike Works fame, though he is helping plan in his free time) and Adonia Lugo (one of the founding forces behind LA’s CicLAvia events and author of Urban Adonia), Seattle Bike Blog is organizing a ride that will visit the memorials of Mike Wang (Dexter/Thomas), Brian Fairbrother (1171 Fairview Ave N) and Robert Townsend (University Way/Campus Parkway) while providing an opportunity to come together as a community in favor of safer streets.
We encourage anyone whose life has been affected by injury or death on the roadways to join us September 24 for a slow bicycle ride. If you are not usually a bicycle rider, find a bike and helmet to borrow. We will ride slowly and nobody will be left behind.
The ride starts directly after Moving Planet, a day-long sustainability festival taking place at South Lake Union Park. If you show up by 3 p.m., you can help be in a large aerial photo for 350.org.
More information: http://seattlebikeblog.com/2011/09/20/safe-streets-social-slow-ride-to-honor-the-fallen-and-support-each-other-924/
It will create more. Byciclists have rights, too, but a “slow bike ride” will not help your cause. Please re-consider. Those deaths were accidental. Noone was trying to mow them down and, from what I’ve read, Fairbrother rode down a flight of stairs. He wasn’t even on the streets. He was on a bike path.
A set of stairs on a bicycle path with no caution sign is a concern for safety.
Mike Wang was killed in a hit and run: http://www.kirotv.com/news/28698775/detail.html
An obviously redundant phrase in Seattle.
So now we’re going to have another “Critical Mass” group? Yeah, that really ought to do wonders.
it seems some people are missing the point of this and just being snarky. an event like this is not another critical mass. What it will do is raise awareness and give some riders that knew these people a chance to say good bye in a hopefully positive way. I knew two of these riders and frankly Im appalled by the way seattle drivers act around bikes. The lack of road sharing is going to have to be looked at and if the Mayor is willing to review the situation because a few people have lost their lives then at least their sacrifice have served some small if very sad purpose. please stop with the snarky responses. those of us grieving over this find them very hard to read and show how heartless some people can be when they are anonymous on line.
Hey look, it’s too bad that the sandwich delivery guy got killed, but he was driving way too fast and didn’t have brakes. And it’s terrible that Brian Fairbrother died, but he was driving too fast and wasn’t paying enough attention. Awful about the cyclist on Dexter, and I hope they nail the hit-and-run motorist.
But none of this justifies obstructing traffic. It’s obnoxious, and will only increase motorist resentment, which is already considerable.
I am also appalled and surprised daily at the way cyclists act around cars. This can go on and on and on, and will online for a bit, but short attention spans will rule out, and we will be on to the next topic of the hour. I am human though, and am sorry for the loss of these lives.
I have a better idea: slap some engines on those bicycles!
I was hit by a bike (I’m a pedestrian). Can I direct the slow riders to where I was hit?
I might not have been hit if the biker had been using his light. This is one easy thing bikers should do; please use a light after dark. Tonight I saw 3 bikers w/o any lights, at 9:30, when it was quite dark. It scares me as a pedestrian, but it’s even worse for them; do they no realize cars have a really hard time seeing them at night?
Frankly, between bikers and cars I don’t feel safe walking around the city at all.
It’s terrible when anyone dies in a traffic accident, whether they are driving or riding in a car, or riding a bike. Loss of life is terrible. What bikers seem to fail to realize, is they are watched by drivers who are, mainly, observing the rules of the road as they speed through red lights and stop signs, wander out into road traffic from the bike lane, and generally are disagreeable to anyone not on a bike.
There is much to blame for road rage and anger caused by both drivers and bike riders. And riding slow through town is not going to engender happy thoughts in other people, rather it is going to harden the feeling that the bike riders are just being their arrogant, elitist-thinking selves.
Get a clue, cyclers, you will always lose the physical argument against a truck or car. When it is usually caused by your own ignorance and arrogance, don’t bewail the fates and try to change other people – look in the mirror first when you decide you want to change the paradigm on the road.
So you’re implying someone’s going to purposefully hit one of the bicyclists because of this event then? Maybe not everyone is as ridiculously messed up in the head as you.
bikes evil bikes crash red lights bikes are slow, bla bla bla
act is getting old
If that happens it would be a shame, but I’d blame the bicyclists. I do hope their ride produces nothing like that, but for chrissakes, what is it about you people that causes you to want to intentionally piss off motorists?
Don’t tell me that these deaths justify it. Some of them were very much the fault of the cyclists. Others were the fault of the motorists, and as a motorist I want to see those motorists apprehended and punished. But tying up the streets? What a bunch of obnoxious, petulant children!
Where is this land where the drivers are mostly following the rules of the road? I would like to bike there. Most drivers I see are speeding, few use turn signals and many pass cyclists way closer than safety allows.
Are the vehicles in a funeral procession also “obnoxious, petulant children”?
I think this is a nice idea, in theory, and would support it IF the organizers obtain the proper City permits, as anyone who takes over our streets must do. Otherwise, it becomes just another passive-aggressive, Critical Mass-type event…aka, let’s get in the way of motorists, piss them off royally, and show them who’s boss!! To Emily, who says it will “increase awareness”…get real!…the only things increased are the tempers of the affected motorists, and also the divide between motorists and bikers. Counterproductive to the cyclists’ cause.
I would like to point out that there already has been a memorial event for Brian Fairbrother, and another one is planned for sometime in October. As for Mike Wang and Robert Townsend, I’m sure their families and friends are memorializing them in their own way.
Jo..funeral processions are permitted by the City and accompanied by an SPD escort (to keep things moving and safe)…not likely to occur for this bike event.
SPD does not escort the procession, it’s up to the funeral company on who to hire. They do hire off duty officers as well as firefighters however this is NOT a service SPD provides. The motorcycles used are provided by the private motorcycle escort company.
Funeral processions do not require any sort of city or state permit.
My husband was hit twice this summer, once by a hit and run driver, and then by a car crossing over a double yellow and directly in front of him and then over a curb. If you haven’t spent any time in the e.r, it’s not fun. So y es, I think awareness is a really imprortant part of the solution.
Seattle boasts one of the highest automotive accident rates in the nation, but still, cycling is a great way to get around. It is faster and way cheaper than driving, but without a big steel box around y ou, it is much more dangerous. Sure riding slow through the city might not make a difference, but I have to think that even if a small step is made for cars and cyclists to be aware of the impact they have for cycling safety, then at least we are heading in the right direction, ,which is always a good thing.
Well said. This is just Critical Mass hiding as a “memorial”. I hope these bike riders don’t hit another person in the head with their bike lock and then run away.