Seattle to Improve Bicycle Facilities

Seattle's Transportation Committee met today to discuss improvements to the City's bicycle network and support facilities.

The Committee plans to create a series of interconnected on- and off-road bicycling facilities, with the goal in mind of increasing ridership and improving safety.

The city added 26 miles of marked bicycle lanes and 67 miles of sharrow* lanes between 2007 and 2009, and plans to add 135 more combined miles between now and 2016. The total breaks down to about 13 miles of bicycle lanes and 6 miles of sharrow lanes per year.

The city completed 34 miles total of new bicycle facilities total over the last three years, which means the rate of completion will nearly triple over the next 6 years. **(See below for diagram of planned and completed facilities)

The plan also calls for improved safety on current facilities in the form of pavement repairs, crack sealing, control of vegetation overgrowth and street sweeping to name a few.

The current slated cost of the ongoing project is 240 million dollars over the next six years.

*Sharrow: Markings placed on streets known to be popular cycling paths, but too narrow for traditional, marked bicycle lanes

**(Below is a diagram of Seattle's bicycle facilities in 2000, 2009, and facilities slated for completion in 2017)

Today's post will be an educational post; a post full of figures, facts, maybe even a pie chart (we'll see how ambitious I feel by the end of this).

Here are some of the figures related to my search for a broadcast job(any resemblance to a certain line of credit card commercials is purely coincidental):

The cost of posting a broadcast resume on tvjobs.com: $40

Cost of a laptop with Final Cut to edit and create a demo reel: $1175

Cost of streaming a demo reel on digitaltalent.com: $75

Cost of mailing resumes and demo DVDs all over the country: $207 (and counting)

Receiving little to no response: Priceless. (infuriating?)

In 2009, my final year at WSU, broadcast students were told to fear the worst: "There are no jobs! You'll be poor forever!" was the general sense conveyed by most. And to this point, at least in my case, they appear to be correct.

But when life gives you lemons...you eat the lemons? (Let's be real, most recent broadcast grads aren't rolling in the dough, and wasting food wouldn't be a prudent course of action here)

My ultimate goal is to be a journalist AND get paid for it.

But until that time, what's to stop me from reporting the news for FREE?

Nothing. That's what.

Starting tomorrow, a new brand of reporting begins: independent reporting, grassroots reporting...Guerrilla Reporting.(I like the sound of that)

Here's a preview of what to expect:

Seattle Drivers: Have you ever been slowed by a cyclist in traffic and thought to yourself "Ten Points!"?

If so, you're not alone.

The City has plans to deny you those points, as bikers everywhere heave a sigh of road-rage reduced relief.

Check in tomorrow to see what the plan entails and how much it will cost taxpayers.

Until next time, I leave you you with this pie chart. WARNING: these are startling figures:

Percentage of pie I like:

Likes: 100%

Dislikes: 0.0%

(My next post will include a pie chart that illustrates how bad puns negatively impact blog readership...)

Happy Monday, kids.

---S.M.

Weekend Wrap (Pro Bowl, Grammys, and more)

Happy Monday, weekend warriors. But before embarking on another week, it feels appropriate to tie up some loose ends from the weekend that was.

A quick note: I've been accused of being a competitive person...an unhealthily competitive person. The only problem? I lack the speed, skill, coordination and general athletic prowess to take part in most competitive sports.

Therefore, I make my own.

Examples:

-At the gym, I turn my treadmill to a slightly faster setting than the person next to me.

-I walk on escalators, despite the fact the stairs are already moving. When someone in front of me isn't doing the same, chaos ensues.

-At Thanksgiving, I strive to finish more food than my brother (Tip: sweatpants are your friend. Stretchy waist band = more stuffing. I haven't lost in 4 years).

SO...point made. I am competitive. As such, I chalk up wins and losses to happenings in everyday life...and on TV.

Here are MY winners and losers from this weekend:

WINNERS:

1. The Kings of Leon: An American band forced to move overseas before anyone noticed them. The Grammy statue for best Rock Album and shots with Green Day should help ease the sting.

2. Matt Schaub: Having Andre Johnson at the Pro Bowl made him look very good...like MVP good. If he has the good fortune to play with Andre his entire career, we could be looking at a future Hall of Famer.

3. Avatar(IN 3-D!!!): For the seventh weekend in a row, James Cameron's intergalactic body switching space epic sits atop the box office, beating down it's next closest competitor by nearly 13 million dollars. Sure, the dialogue was bad, but I swear the jungle foliage and walking robot bullets were COMING RIGHT AT ME!!!

4. The NFL: Moving the Pro Bowl to Miami (or anywhere on the mainland) was a long overdue move, and the financial decision paid off: Attendance at the game was the highest it's been in a half century.

LOSERS:

1. Taylor Swift: (Wait, didn't she pull in 4 Grammy's?) Yes, she may have won 4 Grammy's, but her performance with Stevie Nicks vaulted her into the losers category. Why? Because the raw power of Stevie's raspy chords made Taylor's trademark high pitched yodel sound like a live cow being cheese grated to hamburger.

2. Apple's Marketing Department: Congratulations! Thanks to Steve Jobs, you now get to try and sell an I-Phone too big to fit in your pocket that DOESN'T MAKE PHONE CALLS. GOOD LUCK with that.

3. "Lost" Fans: With the final season of JJ Abrams' epic series about time traveling, island marooned plane crash victims, soon its cult following will only be left with "Heroes" and "Fringe" to confuse them on a weekly basis.

4. Anyone who watched the NFL Pro Bowl: Mario William's intentional "whiff" on Aaron Rodgers was enough to make west coasters wish the Grammy's hadn't been on time delay. Pro Bowl rules are already designed to make defenses look bad, and cutting Aaron Rodgers a break by not putting him on his back only further proves that the players couldn't care less about the outcome of the game.

5. Me: My drivers license somehow fell out of my wallet and is now lost forever. I know in my heart that some 16 year old is bragging to his friends over an illegally purchased 30-bomb of Pabst Blue Ribbon about the 23 year olds ID he found at the gas station. (If you didn't know better, you'd swear they were twins)

And thus ends my list of winners and losers for the weekend. I'd love to rattle off some more, but I feel it necessary to take some time and reflect on more important matters. Matters such as whether the new heart emblem next to my name on this temporary paper Driver's license will make emergency medical responders less likely to revive me in the event of some horrific, heart stopping trauma. (Skeptical? Watch "Crank 2: High Voltage". I REFUSE to let the Chinese mafia replace my heart with a battery powered knock-off.)

Look for the first edition of "Mundane Broadcast Copy" (News stories written in AP broadcast style, but lacking the element of relevancy and sometimes truth...), and career updates in my next post.

But until that time, keep it real, you TV-fed, pop-cultured news junkies.

---S.M.