Waterfront bikeway now open as far north as Pier 62

Seattle officially opened the long-awaited downtown waterfront bikeway as far north as Pier 62 beyond the aquarium Saturday. Much of the path has been open for weeks, but the final curving piece underneath the Overlook Walk to Pike Place Market has finally completed the connections to Belltown via Elliott Way and to Pier 62. It is sure to be one of the most-traveled and most-photographed sections of bike path in the city.

The celebration marked the completion of the part of the bikeway that was part of the major Alaskan Way Viaduct removal and waterfront redesign effort. However, the weekend opening was really just part one because construction crews are still working on a separate project to link this now-open bikeway to the existing Elliott Bay Trail at Myrtle Edwards Park. Construction on the full connection does not yet have an opening date but is expected in the summer. If you missed the opening this weekend, do not despair. The more exciting celebration will happen this summer when it will be possible to ride an almost-flat, car-free loop around Queen Anne Hill.

In addition to a ribbon cutting, Best Side Cycling also hosted a large group ride around downtown and along the waterfront. The group ride photos here are of that ride, and you can watch the video below.

Not only is it always fun to see so many people out biking together, but it was also a great opportunity to see how the path's design holds up under the stress of a large crowd. There have been a good number of concerns about sections of the path that reduce in width and make dramatic swerves. Would the design be too skinny to handle large crowds? Would there be head-on crashes? The metal landscaping barrier is also unusual, and folks have expressed concerns that a bike pedal could strike it and cause a crash.

However, the path made it through its first big test without issue. I will keep a look out for any stories of crashes, but as I noted previously, People on bikes are used to dealing with much worse than a few bike path pinch points." People on bikes are generally very good at avoiding collisions in low-to-mid-speed situations like the waterfront path. To be clear, it is frustrating that these design downgrades were hardscaped into the path design without any outreach or public awareness, and the city needs to be closely monitoring for issues and be prepared to fix them as they arise. But I am cautiously optimistic that they will turn out to be mostly non-issues. I'm most curious to see how pedicab riders will navigate the area, and I wonder if these tight curves will lead many of them to instead travel in the walkway area like they have been doing for many years.

Turning onto Yesler Way.

In addition to the under-construction path along Alaskan Way to the north, work on a few blocks of missing bike lanes on Yesler Way in Pioneer Square is set to begin construction in the spring to better connect the waterfront path to the rest of the downtown bike network.

The solid green, blue, purple and magenta lines are bike lanes that have already been built. The dashed magenta line is opening March 8. The dashed green line on Alaskan Way is under construction and expected to open in the summer and connect to the Elliott Bay Trail. The dashed green line on Yesler Way is expected to begin construction in the spring.