The official 2025 Seattle Bike Map shows a network finally coming together (in places)

Click for a large image or download the PDF.

The official 2025 Seattle Bike Map is here, and it illustrates a bike network that is finally coming together in some key places like the downtown waterfront.

You can find this and other area bike maps on our Seattle Area Bike Maps page, which I update regularly. You can download the print map in PDF or large jpg formats. SDOT also hosts a web map, though I prefer viewing the large jpg version of the print map even on my phone. It loads faster and is nicer to look at.

The map includes a couple key projects that are still in construction but are scheduled to open full this year, including the Alaskan Way bikeway between Myrtle Edwards Park and the overlook walk, the 15th Ave S/Beacon Ave S bike lanes on Beacon Hill, and the Georgetown to Downtown bike connection to the ID via 6th Ave S. So be aware that not everything is open at this moment, though it will be soon.

The downtown inset.

The waterfront bikeway, which has literally remade the Seattle bike map. With that connection (almost) complete, long stretches of the city are now fully connected by separated and protected bike routes. You can do a car-free loop around Queen Anne Hill. You can bike from Golden Gardens to Alki via the Locks without ever really mixing with cars. We are very close to a Duwamish River loop via the Duwamish Trail, the under-construction Georgetown to South Park connection, and the mostly completed Georgetown to downtown connection. I mention loops not just because they provide options for recreational rides, but because completed loops provide reliable segments to so many different bike routes for homes and destinations along those loops. A completed loop is a sign of a connected bike network. Before 2025, Seattle had very few fully complete and connected loops, but a great bike network will have loops all over the place almost as a side effect of that network.

The 2025 bike map also makes it clear where the city continues to fail its residents. Rainier Valley again stands out, especially if you are aware of how many shortcomings there are on the Rainier Valley Greenway route. Parts of the route are fine, and it's a great local connector for folks. But there are some extremely steep sections, and riding it requires an absurd amount of climbing compared to the three continuous north-south roads in Rainier Valley: MLK Jr. Way S, Rainier Ave S and Lake Washington Blvd. None of these roads has separated biking space, and the shameful disparity only gets more pronounced as the network comes together elsewhere.

The SDOT bike map does have a few drawbacks for users. First off, understand that this is a map of bicycle facilities constructed by SDOT and a few other agencies. It is not a comprehensive bike routes map. There's a lot of overlap between those concepts, but the SDOT map excludes things like most bike routes that go through parks or popular bike routes on streets that have never received an official bike route treatment. It does, however, include all the streets where the city has marked a sharrow whether that street is actually good for biking or not (e.g. NE 45th Street). Everyone who bikes around town regularly knows that the best bike routes go through parks because parks are great and usually car-free. Side streets that dead end into parks are also often much lower-traffic because they are useless for cut-through car traffic. It's frankly silly to exclude paths through, Woodland, Ravenna, Jefferson, Volunteer and Genesee Parks, to name a few larger ones. Even the Arboretum Trail is marked as a pedestrian path bicycles permitted," which is strange since it's a bog standard multi-use trail built with biking in mind. Odds are there's a smaller park near you that is also a great local bike route but is not included in the map. This issue likely isn't SDOT's fault and is more likely due to Seattle Parks being really weird about marking bike routes in parks. I have a long rant about this in me, but I will do everything I can to save it for a different post. But for real, why is Parks so prescriptive about how people enjoy their own public park spaces? Like, it's not the Parks Department's job to tell someone that biking there is great if they are recreating, but don't you dare have a destination in mind because this path is not a transportation facility. Why should the Parks Department care my reason for biking in a park? And it affects their designs. Look at Lake Union Park. They purposefully didn't include a properly-designed multi-use path for the Cheshiahud Loop, so instead we now have two-way biking and people walking all squeezed into this one sidewalk between Westlake and the Center for Wooden Boats because it's obviously the shortest route and avoids all the road chaos on Valley Street. They won't even fill in a 10-foot gap in the path, so some anonymous hero built a bike park style bridge in the dead of night. Just treat bike riders as park users! I don't understand the point of resisting. Regular people don't care or even notice whether a space is under SDOT or Parks control because it's all public space, and they're just trying to get around and have a nice time doing it. Everyone is a Seattle park user at some point, and the Parks Department should care about them even when they aren't actively in a park. Oh no, I've said too much. Back to the main point of this post.

The SDOT bike map is one tool you can use to help you get around town. I especially recommend picking up a free copy if you ever see SDOT tabling at an event somewhere. Other agencies or transportation orgs may also have them available. Keep your eye out and you'll probably come across one.

For more advice on how to find a bike route, check out our bike maps page.

A few random notes of map feedback

There's something off about the ! markings that are supposed to show staircases. It looks like there's a staircase in the way if you're biking up 10th Ave E at E Howe Street, but this isn't true. There is a staircase on the greenway at Boyer and Howe a few miles away that is not marked with an ! at all. Perhaps it got the wrong Howe location? There is also a staircase in the way on 17th Ave SW south of Myrtle, but that ! is in the wrong location nearby.

I still feel like the Ballard Bridge sidewalks need some kind of warning that they are extra skinny. And the Chittenden Locks should have a warning that they are only open during daytime hours (currently 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.).

Unfortunately, some of the bike shop locations are also wrong. Several marked shops have been closed for quite a while, such as School of Bike at 45th/Meridian, Counterbalance Cycles at Blakely and the Burke, and Performance Cycles at 45th and Roosevelt. You know what? I'm not gonna go through them all cuz it's kind of depressing. But that dataset needs updating badly.

I also don't see the value of giving Healthy Streets its own color designation. They are not sufficiently different from a neighborhood greenway to justify such a dramatic difference in appearance. If off-street trails and protected bike lanes are treated the same, then neighborhood greenways and healthy streets should be, too.

The Fremont Bridge should not be marked as a protected bike lane because it's a sidewalk just like the Montlake Bridge. The University Bridge remains the only ship canal crossing that has proper bike lanes. The Aurora Bridge should also be marked as having bikeable sidewalks. They aren't great, but they're at least as good as the Ballard Bridge sidewalks and could come with the same skinny sidewalk warning I suggested a few points earlier.

The north approach to the University Bridge could use an inset and an all-around reassessment. It's a really complicated and confusing area to display on a map, but there are some clear errors here. It shows a protected bike lane on NE 41st street there that doesn't actually exist. Maybe it's an error in trying to draw the two sides of Campus Parkway? It's not clear that there is a protected bike lane westbound on Campus Parkway that goes under the bridge and then (almost) links up with the southbound bike lane across the bridge. It also draws a protected bike lane on the cloverleaf from NB on the U Bridge down to 40th Street, but that unfortunately does not have a bike lane. Unless you're saying one's coming?!?

If you notice any other errors, let us know in the comments below.