How do you make bicycle commuting an easier proposition? If you work for Seattle's urban planning department, the answer is green Astroturf mats. What!? Here we go again…

With lots of visitors flooding into Seattle and staying at my apartment over the past several weeks, I have found myself participating in numerous tourist activities. While many of those adventures have been lots of fun, one disappointing event was The Seattle Underground Tour. The tour, which takes visitors through some of the remains of Seattle’s great fire of the late 1800s, was for the most part, boring and uneventful. However, it did feature one bright spot. During the introduction, the tour guide off-handedly commented on the will and perseverance of the citizens of Seattle: “no matter how ridiculous or stupid their ideas, Seattleites will stick to their guns no matter the cost, folly, or ridicule.” No truer words were ever spoken.

From the idiotic decision to hold caucuses and primaries during election season to self-service cross walks fully stocked with bright orange flags, the socks with sandals phenomenon to traffic circle gardens in the middle of neighborhood streets, Seattle does its own thing and doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks. I love that attitude and happily applaud the city’s every display of hard-nosed, self-determinist chutzpah. That being said, Seattle can now add one more silly innovation to their list of stubborn oddities: Astroturf mats lining busy roads throughout the city.

The green mats to which I am referring are long strips of fake grass turf laid out just before intersections and intended to signify oncoming bicycles. The mats certainly get a driver’s attention, no doubt about it, but who would ever surmise that their purpose is to warn of oncoming bicycles? Doesn’t common sense dictate that colored paint would do the trick much better and be more appropriate cautionary symbols than green turf? Or how about a large sign hanging from the intersection’s traffic light? Wouldn’t that likewise prove more effective than fake grass to warn motorists of nearby bicycles?

But really, who am I to say? I come from New Jersey, the state where most major roads force cars to make a right before they make a left, technology commonly referred to as “the jug handle.” Then again, I know there is science behind that particular urban “improvement” (it keeps traffic flowing). The green mats, on the other hand, seem more fantastical whimsy than trial and error ingenuity.

Whatever the reason for Seattle’s urban planners thinking bicycles = green turf mats I will probably never understand. But then again, there are lots of Seattle peculiarities I accept in the face of everything common sense tells me. If only Seattleites had an editing eye to trim the absurdity from their good intentions then perhaps they’d be true pioneers rather than well-meaning weirdos who never quite get it right. As is, those green mats are good for a laugh and a head scratch. And when it comes to Seattle that’s generally the best I can hope for. But you never know: some day these green turf mats might turn up in every city in the nation. Then again, nah, I don’t think so.

Gotta love that Seattle ingenuity and spirit!