Seattle Bike Blog

EDITOR’S NOTE: With Mayor Jenny Durkan delaying or cancelling so many bike route plans, Gordon Padelford and I had a conversation wondering how the movement for safe streets and better bike routes should evolve from here. Padelford, Executive Director of … Continue reading →

The Chief Sealth Trail will be detoured for about two blocks along S Graham St and 31st Ave S starting today (April 22) and lasting up to one month. The closure is for a project to make crossing improvements where … Continue reading →

Neighborhoods all over Seattle have been hit hard by Mayor Jenny Durkan’s proposed bike plan cuts. And as is depressingly typical, West Seattle got hit especially hard. They already had lackluster improvements in the previous version of the bike plan, … Continue reading →

Just 21 months ago, Seattle turned American bike share on its head by permitting companies to launch free-floating bikes all over town, an effort that dramatically increased the number of bike trips all over town, turned heads in city halls … Continue reading →

Seattle is once again set to choose the convenience of car driving over the safety of people walking and biking and our city’s Vision Zero, Climate Action Plan and Bicycle Master Plan goals. This time, it’s on E Union Street … Continue reading →

Rebecca Twigg has won six world track cycling championships, 16 U.S championships and two Olympic medals, likely making her Seattle’s most decorated bike racer. Today, she is one of the more than 12,000 people experiencing homelessness in the Seattle area. … Continue reading →

Hello, wonderful Seattle Bike Blog readers. I’ve got some cool bits of blog and family news to share, so I figured I would write you all a letter keeping you in the loop. First, my incredible spouse Kelli started work … Continue reading →

SDOT has announced a series of four “café-style conversations” about the latest short-term bike plan, which includes significant cuts through the life of the Move Seattle Levy. The events, produced with help from the Department of Neighborhoods, will be a … Continue reading →

Unlike the $4.4 million advertising budget and public fanfare celebrating the new SR 99 car tunnel, no official celebration or encouragement campaign was planned for a major new set of protected bike lanes on NE 65th Street. So excited community … Continue reading →

Details from the event listing: Unlike the new downtown tunnel for cars, we don’t have an expensive ad campaign to encourage people to use the new bike lanes on NE 65th St, so let’s create our own! Bike #Fix65th Sunday, … Continue reading →

SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe and Deputy Mayor Shefali Ranganathan sat down for a long talk with the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board Wednesday to have a difficult and at times uncomfortable conversation about Mayor Jenny Durkan’s commitment to building the city’s … Continue reading →

The Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board meets 6 p.m. the first Wednesday of every month at City Hall. Anyone can sit in on meetings and provide public comment at the beginning and (thanks to a recent change) end. The volunteer board … Continue reading →

Seattle’s bicycle movement emerged from chrysalis Tuesday transformed into its newest state, and it put on a powerful display inside City Hall. I highly recommend watching the testimony and the very interesting Committee conversation, during which Councilmembers Mike O’Brien, Rob … Continue reading →

26 miles of bike facilities are gone completely, and another 27 are at risk. That’s the harsh reality of the latest iteration of the Bicycle Master Plan Implementation Plan (the “Bike Plan Plan”). The result is what could be a … Continue reading →

Mayor Jenny Durkan’s decision this week to scrap planned, designed and contracted bike lanes on 35th Ave NE has drawn a major backlash as people are dismayed to hear that Seattle’s mayor is abandoning the Bicycle Master Plan in order … Continue reading →

Mayor Jenny Durkan has officially abandoned the Bicycle Master Plan, which was approved unanimously by the City Council and funded through a vote of the people. The Mayor has until recently only delayed Bike Master Plan projects, like essentially all … Continue reading →

After public pushback, including by many of you, Seattle City Light has dropped their plans for an electric car charging station on Broadway near Denny Way that would have been located in the path of a planned-but-delayed extension of the … Continue reading →

SDOT will update the City Council Transportation and Sustainability Committee today on the progress (or lackthereof) on the downtown Basic Bike Network. The City Council passed a resolution last summer calling on SDOT and Mayor Jenny Durkan to complete key … Continue reading →

Non-budgetary bills in the Washington legislature had until yesterday to pass in at least one chamber in order to remain on track for passage into law. We wrote about a few transportation-related efforts Tuesday, so how did they do? Well, … Continue reading →

Our local pride and joy is now officially a national treasure! After 8 years of tireless advocacy by @SenatorCantwell, Congressman Reichert, and the rest of our WA delegation, the Mountains to Sound Greenway has become our nation’s newest National Heritage … Continue reading →

So Washington Democrats have both legislative chambers and the Governor’s Office for the first time in a while, so what does that mean for transportation? Well, some great things are moving forward, but so are some pretty not-so-great things. As … Continue reading →

$42. That’s the “unsafe lane change” ticket a teenager received for striking and killing John Przychodzen while he biked in the shoulder of Kirkland’s Juanita Drive in 2011. Authorities claimed that because they couldn’t prove he was driving recklessly, the … Continue reading →

After adding more bikes and changing its fare structure this week, JUMP’s red bikes now reach all of Seattle and cost $1 less to ride than Lime’s green and yellow bikes. JUMP initially launched Seattle service in November with a limited … Continue reading →

Derek Blaylock drove his son to school the morning of September 21, 2016, then grabbed his bike and rode to Northgate Transit Center to catch a bus to work. On the way home, he was biking from the transit center … Continue reading →

Chrystal Barber, 51, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after she pleaded guilty to striking and killing Alex Hayden, 50, with her aunt’s red pickup truck on Rainier Ave S last July. After veering into the … Continue reading →

Seattle is about to invest to build a public car charger directly in the path of the on-hold Broadway Bikeway extension north or Denny Way. Once complete, people biking northbound in the Broadway protected bike lane would need to merge … Continue reading →

The Mercer Island Parks Department is creating a master plan for Aubrey Davis Park, including the Mountains to Sound Trail, and they are looking for public feedback. Their open house got snowed out, so the rescheduled event is 6–8 p.m. … Continue reading →

A man biking across Rainier Ave was killed Monday evening when someone driving a white sedan struck him and fled the scene, according to Seattle Police. The suspect is still on the loose. The man’s identity and age have not … Continue reading →

Ballard and Fremont have both had local chapters of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways in the past, but they have been quiet in recent years. So some neighbors are organizing to bring the neighborhoods together into a new supergroup, and you’re invited. … Continue reading →

About 80 percent of the King County Parks budget comes from a levy that goes to voters every six years, and King County Executive Dow Constantine is proposing an even bigger levy to send to voters this autumn for 2020–25. … Continue reading →

Building walking, biking and safe streets infrastructure employs more people per dollar than a road-only project. In Seattle, building trails employs 25 percent more people per $1 million invested compared to building roads, according to a 2011 study (PDF) by … Continue reading →

Even though most streets in the region are clear following the massive snow fall last week, trails that are far from salt-treated roads can still be icy in spots. Much like the wonderful people who have volunteered their time in … Continue reading →

A large tree fell over the weekend and has blocked the Burke-Gilman Trail in Bothell, and King County Parks says it cannot remove the tree until Tuesday. The tree is blocking the trail at about 91st Ave NE, a tricky … Continue reading →

Work is starting on a Seattle Public Utilities project that will detour the Burke-Gilman Trail along a stretch of Seaview Ave NW in Ballard so crews can stage equipment. Unfortunately, the detour plans currently say that people biking will be … Continue reading →

The Seattle Bike & Outdoor Show is this weekend. So if you want to check out the latest wares or test ride some new bikes, head down to CenturyLink Field Event Center in Pioneer Square 9–6 Saturday or 9–5 Sunday. … Continue reading →

Alex Kostelnik is getting out of the e-bike showroom business. After nearly three years on the front lines of a volatile e-bike industry, selling shiny new bikes out of the Central District’s Electric Lady, he finds himself looking longingly up … Continue reading →

There were zero pedestrians counted at this Ballard intersection on a Tuesday in January. It was built late last year as part of bus enhancement project. We counted again on Tuesday in January and usage meets the MUTCD threshold for … Continue reading →

Crossing I-5 in Northgate is terrible today. The freeway divides the neighborhood, and the few places where crossing on foot or bike is possible are either far apart or very stressful. So as the region prepares to open a light … Continue reading →

SDOT is moving forward with a plan to redesign N 34th Street between Stone Way and the Fremont Bridge, a major connection in the regional bike network linking the Burke-Gilman Trail to the Fremont Bridge. Though the most popular option … Continue reading →

Seattle residents and organizations submitted more than 300 specific Neighborhood Street Fund ideas for improving our city’s streets, and now SDOT needs help prioritizing them. You can weigh in online by February 22. The refined list will then go through another … Continue reading →

It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s a look at some of the stuff floating around the web that caught my eye recently. First up! Seattle Police tweeted this the other day: SPD PRO TIP: Bike lanes are for … Continue reading →

Seattle’s annual bicycle adventure presentation series Stoked Spoke kicks off 2019 Wednesday with a unique look back at the early days of American cycling by Tessa Hulls. Swift Industries (a SBB sponsor) is once again hosting the series at the … Continue reading →

“The Great American Rail-Trail” could stretch from Seattle to Washington D.C., entirely off-road and with gentle grades. This is the dream the national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (“RTC”) announced today, noting that about half the 4,000-mile route is already complete in some form … Continue reading →

You may have seen a headline from the Seattle Times going around this weekend saying that people in Seattle and Kind County don’t like bike lanes. Well, it’s not really as simple as the headline might suggest. I’ve been thinking … Continue reading →

So it turns out that when people across the Seattle region plan ahead and change their transportation habits, we can prove to ourselves that we don’t need SR 99 to go through downtown after all. After months of news stories … Continue reading →

The bike counter at the foot of the Spokane Street Bridge to West Seattle measured a 327 percent more trips Monday than seen at this time of year previously. The counter has only measured more trips in a single day … Continue reading →

Biking around the city this morning was amazing. Sure, the weather helped a lot, with clear skies and a jaw-dropping sunrise fueling my ride to join the SE Seattle Bike Train. No matter how many times I experience it, the … Continue reading →

Biking on city streets can be more fun and less intimidating when you are with a group. And riding with a group can be a great way to become familiar with a route and learn some tips before trying it … Continue reading →