Streets dangerous, high risk for collision and injury in business district
I recently had an encounter with an Everett Police Officer. According to the law, no person shall ride a bicycle upon a sidewalk in a business district in downtown Everett, on Colby Avenue. This occurred at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, when there were hardly any people downtown — only many parked cars.
The road conditions are very dangerous to bicyclists in the business core due to the character of the angle in car parking and the bike lanes behind these vehicles. As a motorist backs out of one of these stalls, the bicyclist and motorist are not able to see each other until the car has already backed into the bike lane and a collisions could easily occur. That has happened before.
Not all cities in the state have adopted or enforced this state law. Seattle, for instance, has much more pedestrian and bicycle traffic in its city core, yet bicyclists are not prohibited from using sidewalks, as long as pedestrians are given the right away and the bicyclist is riding in a careful and prudent manner.
This law discourages people from using their bicycles and going downtown in general. With our growing obesity rates, we all need to encourage people to park their cars and get out and exercise more. Allowing bicycles on city sidewalks brings more business downtown and as a former restaurant owner, I appreciate that we should do all that we can to help business owners succeed.
In addition, the less motor vehicle traffic we have, the less money we have to spend on car-related issues such as the effects of pollution, traffic management and providing more car parking stalls.
This state law is being arbitrarily applied and enforced by cities throughout the state. I believe that the intent is to protect pedestrians during business hours. It is overreaching to prohibit all bicycles from city sidewalks at all times. The very least I would like to see is to amend this law or enforced in a way so that the road conditions and character of the foot traffic on the sidewalk are considered. This is good and needed for our environment; bicycle safety is needed to bring more people and business to downtown Everett.
— Steve Corotas, Everett