Alert 7/21-September: Bike/walk bridge to Myrtle Edwards Park will be closed for trail construction

People will still be able to cross from the Queen Anne side to the overlook part of the bridge, but they won't be able to access Myrtle Edwards Park.

Work to redesign much of Myrtle Edwards Park, including the Elliott Bay Trail, will close access to the park side of the W Thomas Street Overpass bike/walk bridge starting July 21 and lasting seven weeks.

The Elliott Bay Trail is already closed as part of the project, and people biking have been routed to the parallel walking path through most of Myrtle Edwards (Seattle Parks) and Centennial (Port of Seattle) Parks between Broad Street and the Expedia campus. Crews will spend the rest of summer redesigning the trail connections to the Thomas Street bridge, which is not great timing for sure. Hopefully the project teams looks for any opportunities to limit these closures when possible because there's a pretty significant detour without it.

For most people, detouring five blocks or so via the 1st Ave protected bike lanes down to Broad Street will be the best option for getting between Lower Queen Anne and Myrtle Edwards Park. Broad Street is very steep and does not have bike lanes.

Work is on a somewhat rushed schedule to get the project completed before the World Cup next summer. Once complete, the park will include restored beach coves making it easier for people to touch the water," according to a project fact sheet (PDF). A new Centennial Park structure between the grain terminal and the fishing pier will include food concessions, a covered eating area and a restroom. It also has a large fire pit. It could become a popular bike ride stop along a soon-to-be-connected waterfront trail. The old, tiny concession building in front of the fishing pier with the door that opens directly into the bike path will be removed. The project also includes a lot of new plantings and lighting.

The final connection to the Thomas Street bridge will take a wider turn, and the point where the walking and biking paths diverge from the bridge approach will be larger. It's not a huge change on its own, though it is part of a remake of the landscaping in the area.

The Elliott Bay Connections project also includes a trail along the northeast side of Alaskan Way between Clay and Virginia Streets. However, the trail will require two extra street crossings compared to the two-way bikeway that SDOT is building on the southwest side of the street. Perhaps it will get heavier use when the cruise terminal is busy. It's definitely a little funny to have two bike paths in construction at the same time directly across the street from each other, but that's a consequence of the accelerated schedule of this private-public project, which was first announced in August 2023, reached final design just one year later, and then broke ground February 2025.

The plan for Mytle Edwards Park does seem like a nice upgrade, though I have to say that it was already pretty nice. Of all the public places in our city that could use a major redesign, Myrtle Edwards would have been pretty far down my list. However, prioritizing this project was not the city's decision. The $45 million project is fully funded through private contributions by Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Scott, the Diller-Von Furstenberg Family Foundation, and Expedia.

If you want to have a last hurrah on the W Thomas Street Overpass this summer, join Seattle Bike Blog's 15th Anniversary bike ride today (July 11)! We're meeting 5:30 p.m. at Gas Works Park, and we'll ride a loop around Queen Anne Hill via the Thomas Street bridge.

Also, can we please come up with a better name for the W Thomas Street Overpass? I've been saying this ever since it opened in 2012. It sounds like a freeway bridge, not a bike/walk bridge to a park. And the access point for the bridge is 3rd Ave W, not Thomas. Perhaps we can rename it when we also rename the newly-connected waterfront bike path so it has one cohesive name from Interbay to the Spokane Street Bridge.