Seattle Bike Blog

Today the City of Seattle has released what it’s calling a “blueprint” to electrify the city’s transportation system, further clarifying the city’s goals around decarbonizing our largest single source of emissions. Among the goals outlined with a 2030 deadline is … Continue reading →

The Washington Traffic Safety Commission is a public agency that flies under the radar. In February, the commission got a new leader when Shelly Baldwin, previously the Legislative and Media Relations division director at the WTSC, was appointed head of … Continue reading →

Update: SDOT’s SEPA checklist listed a 2023 start date but the department has confirmed a planned construction start of Fall 2022. Good news! In 2017, when protected bike lanes were installed in Downtown Seattle for a short stretch on Pike … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, by a 57 to 39 vote, the Washington House of Representatives passed HB 1330, exempting electric bikes and up to $200 in bike accessories from state sales taxes. In a tweet, Rep. Sharon Shewmake (D-Bellingham), who introduced the … Continue reading →

As soon as Monday March 15, people walking, biking, and rolling on the Mountains to Sound trail at 23rd Ave S & I-90 will have a more circuitous detour as crews pave the east side of the 23rd Ave crosswalk … Continue reading →

At a press event in Tacoma at a bus stop next to fast-moving traffic, with no actual sidewalk available for people to use to access the bus stop, Disability Rights Washington & Front and Centered outlined their priorities today for … Continue reading →

6:30 p.m. tonight (March 8), stream the Filmed By Bike short film festival with Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance. Tickets are $5 per person (create an account to see the checkout page). The films look great! Details from Evergreen MTB: Don’t … Continue reading →

The Seattle Department of Transportation announced today that as soon as Monday they’ll be starting work on the long-anticipated N 34th Street protected bike lane between Stone Way and Fremont Ave. The immediate impact of this is a planned 3-week … Continue reading →

SDOT is moving forward with its plan to implement up to 20 miles of “permanent” Stay Healthy Streets this year, even as the department doesn’t yet have a funding source identified to keep the Mayor’s promise from last summer. A … Continue reading →

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways affiliate groups Beacon Hill Safe Streets and Central Seattle Greenways have jointly asked the Seattle Department of Transportation to take another look at the feasibility of adding bike facilities to a dangerous segment of 12th Avenue S, … Continue reading →

A proposal to convert the curbside lane of northbound Aurora Ave N alongside Green Lake Park into walking, biking, and rolling space in the form of a Stay Healthy Street is still under active consideration by SDOT and WSDOT, Seattle … Continue reading →

As the Seattle Department of Transportation moves ahead with designing a planned protected bike lane between Mount Baker light rail station and the planned Judkins Park light rail station on MLK Jr Way S, with the bike lane planned to … Continue reading →

Update (3/1): SDOT has confirmed speed limit changes on Aurora and other corridors is expected in 2021 pending approval from WSDOT. The post has been updated below with comment from the department. Late last year, the Seattle Department of Transportation … Continue reading →

For a second year in a row, the Your Voice, Your Choice participatory budgeting program that awards funds for small street and park improvement projects will not be conducting any process to fund new projects in 2021. Last week the … Continue reading →

Later this year, the Seattle Department of Transportation is set to complete improvements that will make it easier to bike through one of Beacon Hill’s trickiest intersections. The changes planned at 15th Ave S and S Columbian Way come three … Continue reading →

A group of community leaders and residents of the Georgetown neighborhood have sent a letter this week to SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe asking the department to “re-engage” on the issue of creating a dedicated bicycle connection between the neighborhood and … Continue reading →

Correction: the data compiled by Ethan Campbell of Central Seattle Greenways has been updated after further analysis of the citations issued revealed a number of duplicates. The overall summary of the information has not significantly changed. The King County Board … Continue reading →

Last fall, SDOT released a report on the future of transportation in the vicinity of Interbay and Ballard. The result, the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation System (BIRT) report, focused on the big topics of what to do about the Magnolia and … Continue reading →

As early as next week, the Keep Moving Street in place on a portion of West Green Lake Way N, allowing space for people to more comfortably walk, bike, and roll apart from vehicles, will shrink by half as the … Continue reading →

A report completed by the Seattle Department of Transportation in December but not released until this week shows how much catching up the department is planning to do in 2021 to complete installing bike facilities that it had originally planned … Continue reading →

The Seattle Department of Transportation continues outreach around its proposal to finally connect the last segment of the Duwamish Trail between the West Seattle Bridge and the separated trail that starts a half mile down West Marginal Way SW. A … Continue reading →

Update: due to the anticipated snow event this weekend, the closure of Lake Washington Boulevard outlined below has been postponed to Monday February 15. It will run through Sunday the 21st as planned. A stretch of Lake Washington Boulevard just … Continue reading →

UPDATE (2/5, 1:45 p.m.): The bumps are gone. Bump be gone! pic.twitter.com/bcRYUKoHSM — G Hall (@MattGHall) February 5, 2021 UPDATE (2/5): The speed bumps will be removed. This morning we received an update from SDOT’s Ethan Bergerson: I want to … Continue reading →

This week SDOT told the Bicycle Advisory Board that an extension of the 4th Avenue protected bike lane downtown, to both the north and the south, is moving forward with construction planned for this Spring. With those extensions, the entire … Continue reading →

Last night the oversight committee for the Move Seattle levy was told that the popular Stay Healthy Streets program will likely have to pause if the Seattle Department of Transportation doesn’t get approval to divert funding from 2.5 miles of … Continue reading →

A week after the Washington House Democrats unveiled their proposed transportation package, which would fund bike, pedestrian, and transit programs at a level never before seen from the state, the chair of the state Senate’s transportation committee, Steve Hobbs, unveiled … Continue reading →

Seattle’s Complete Streets ordinance turns 14 years old this year. Since becoming one of the first major American cities to codify in city law the idea that all major transportation improvements should include accommodations for all types of street users, … Continue reading →

UPDATE: the closure planned for February 5-8 is no longer happening due to a change in work. The highway will be closed but the pedestrian and bike trail will remain open. The next trail closures are February 26-March 1 and … Continue reading →

Preliminary data on traffic collisions from last year shows that the total number of collisions involving people on bikes in Seattle was down by more than 50% compared to the average of the three previous years. This follows the trend … Continue reading →

The plan to finally connect the Duwamish Trail by installing a protected bike lane along the west side of West Marginal Way SW continues to face an uncertain future, as SDOT continues to conduct outreach before a final decision is … Continue reading →

City crews are putting the finishing touches this week on a new Neighborhood Greenway on 18th Avenue in the Central District, the first phase in the long-planned Central Ridge Greenway. Along with the normal speed cushions and stop sign adjustments … Continue reading →

The latest block of sidewalk-level one way protected bike lane has opened on 7th Ave in the Denny Triangle, which means that bike lane now runs southbound all the way from Bell Street to Pike Street downtown. There’s also a … Continue reading →

This month SDOT says they are starting work on an extension of the West Seattle Neighborhood Greenway, which will finally connect the current greenway in the south end of the neighborhood with Alaska Junction. Most notably, the project will bring … Continue reading →

The painted bike lane is now in place on the Dr. Jose P Rizal Bridge on 12th Ave S, a big construction milestone in the 12th Ave Vision Zero project, which is creating a bike connection between Little Saigon and … Continue reading →

Correction: a previous version of this post listed the timeframe of this package at 12 years instead of 16. Yesterday the Democratic caucus in the Washington State House announced their proposal for the next major state transportation package. Their proposal … Continue reading →

A bill introduced into the Washington House of Representatives by Representative Sharon Shewmake (D-Bellingham) would exempt electric bikes, and up to $200 in bike accessories, from state sales taxes. HB 1330 would not apply to non-electric bikes, using the definition … Continue reading →

SDOT has released a study looking at how to improve access for people walking and biking around two coming light rail stations at the north end of the city. The station in Shoreline at 148th Street is currently planned to … Continue reading →

As of this past Monday morning, SDOT has turned on the automatic cameras that are able to ticket drivers $75 who aren’t authorized to use the Spokane Street drawbridge between 5 am and 9pm. This is great news for transit … Continue reading →

The Washington State House of Representatives Transportation Committee convened for the first time this session on Tuesday and WSDOT head Roger Millar was there to lead the members through a presentation, which was titled “Return on Investment”. At the beginning … Continue reading →

A speed study conducted by the Seattle Department of Transportation early last October showed that 92% of drivers using Aurora Ave N at N 112th Street, where the speed limit is 35 mph, were exceeding that speed limit, with 66% … Continue reading →

Today we are circling back to some news that we missed from last autumn. SDOT has announced they will be making big upgrades to the Queen Anne approach of the Thomas Street overpass connection to Myrtle Edwards Park and the … Continue reading →

“Not accomplishing anything” is how Tim Parham, the Director of Real Estate Development at Plymouth Housing Group described the current requirement to include a secure bike parking room in all of the buildings it constructs as Permanent Supportive Housing. Plymouth … Continue reading →

The legal fight between the City of Seattle and the coalition of Ballard businesses fighting the completion of the Burke Gilman trail’s Missing Link on Shilshole Ave NW moved ahead Friday morning as oral arguments were heard in the Washington … Continue reading →

Update: this post has been changed to clarify that any changes to Lake Washington Boulevard or Golden Gardens Park Road are not necessarily off the table but are not part of the permanent Stay Healthy Streets process. A large majority … Continue reading →

During the last state legislative session in 2020, Steve Hobbs (D-Lake Stevens), chair of the State Senate’s transportation committee, released his latest version of the “Forward Washington” transportation package. The list of proposed projects to receive funding in the package … Continue reading →

In the decade between 1924 and 1934, the number of people dying in traffic collisions in Seattle each year increased 250% from 48 to 121. About 70% of those killed were people walking. By the end of the 1930s, Seattle … Continue reading →

The Washington legislature’s long legislative session starts next Monday. This is set to be an important session as lawmakers modify Governor Inslee’s proposal for the biennial budget. If you were wondering what Washington’s statewide bicycle advocacy organization is planing to … Continue reading →

The Duwamish trail provides one of the only dedicated bike routes to and from the South Park neighborhood, which is currently dealing with an influx of drivers looking for any shortcut they can take to avoid the repercussions of the … Continue reading →

2020 was a year of adjusting to new realities, and Seattle’s effort to meet its goals for expanding its bike network did not escape the curveballs that were thrown during the year. In response to a fundamental reshuffling of demand … Continue reading →

State law in Washington that dates from the 1990s requires that the Washington Department of Transportation complete a “bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways plan”. The last version of the plan was created in 2008, and is getting a brand new … Continue reading →