Watch: Zen out on a New Year’s Eve tour of some of Seattle’s 2025 bike lanes (feat. Gordon Padelford)

SDOT delivered a huge number of bike lane projects in 2025. Many of them were the result of a late push by SDOT to deliver as many projects promised to voters who approved the 2015 Move Seattle Levy as they could. Seattle stopped collecting Move Seattle Levy funds at the end of 2024, creating something of a hard deadline for projects that had been facing delays such as the 15th Ave S and Beacon Ave S bike lanes. The result was several years worth of bike lane projects all delivered in one transformative year.

Gordon Padelford, Executive Director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, asked me if I wanted to go on a New Year's Eve joyride touring a bunch of the new bike lanes. It was supposed to be just for fun and not for work, but I brought the camera along to create a timelapse. The day started sunny and crisp, but then we pulled into Jefferson Park on top of Beacon Hill just as a strange ethereal fog rolled in. I was expecting a view of downtown, but instead we were engulfed. You never know what a Seattle bike ride will bring.