Seattle Bike Blog

We don't use the term dynasty," lightly, but the 1960s Boston Celtics have nothing on Washington State's utter dominance of the bike-friendly state rankings by the League of American Bicyclists. The League announced the 2024 rankings today, and the trophy is coming home to the Evergreen State once again. Since the League started publishing their [...]

SDOT Director Greg Spotts will resign February 12, he announced Tuesday morning. I depart the Puget Sound with great enthusiasm for Seattle's future and profound gratitude to Mayor Harrell for the opportunity to serve a dynamic, innovative and fast growing city with unlimited potential," he wrote in a Bluesky post. I'm also very thankful for [...]

Even the dramatically watered-down and insufficient traffic calming improvements planned for Lake Washington Boulevard are now apparently at risk after pushback from people who enjoy driving as fast as they want along the boulevard," as Seattle Neighborhood Greenways put it. Neighbors have campaigned for years about the need for safer walking and biking space on [...]

Big thanks for Nic Laporte in Vancouver, BC, for inviting me to ramble about biking in Seattle on the Radio Free Urbanism podcast. You can listen wherever you get your podcast or watch via YouTube:

SDOT's Find It, Fix It app is surprisingly powerful. You can report a pothole or broken walk signal or broken bicycle detector and SDOT crews will look into the issue as part of their regular maintenance process. Sometimes, you get results within days. Sometimes, especially if the problem is extensive, it does not get fixed, [...]

I am still in shock. I knew we had a good crowd Saturday morning as we sent Cranksgiving riders out into the city to buy food and necessities for local food banks, but I had no idea we were on the verge of turning all previous participation and donation records to dust. Riders crossed the [...]

The very long-awaited biking and walking bridge over SR 520 in Montlake will finally open with a community celebration 11 a.m. December 14. For the better part of a decade, folks trying to bike through Montlake have been dealing with a variety of different detours, and they've been stuck mixing with people on the sidewalk [...]

SDOT is hard at work building a major improvement to bicycle access on Beacon Hill: Protected bike lanes on 15th Ave S and Beacon Ave S. When completed, this will be one of Seattle's most important bike route improvements in years. But first, folks need to get through construction. The city's official bicycle detour points [...]

Seattle's least-discussed infrastructure megaproject has wrapped up a pair of multi-year, trail-disrupting closures in Fremont and Ballard in recent weeks. Work on the $561 million Ship Canal Water Quality Project has taken place in multiple locations, including bike-route-disrupting closures on Stone Way in Fremont and near Fred Meyer in Ballard. Work at both sites is [...]

Thanks to Seattle voters, in 2025 the city is poised to invest $21 million in new sidewalks, $4.2 million in sidewalk repairs, $8.6 million in Vision Zero, $1.6 million in Safe Routes to School, $9.8 million in new protected bike lanes, and $1 million to upgrade existing bike lane barriers. To deliver all this, they [...]

The future has become even bleaker for the low-ridership South Lake Union (SLU") Streetcar line as Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka has proposed funding a plan for how to wind down and end service on the line. The budget changes would no actually end service, but they set the stage to do so as early [...]

Though you would hope it would have been common sense, the Seattle Police Department recently updated its emergency vehicle operations policies to specify considerations officers should make before choosing to drive above the speed limit, Andrew Engelson at Publicola reported. Officers should take into account the street's character," such as whether it is a side [...]

As darkness once again descends around us, your bicycle is a torch to illuminate the path and keep the monsters away. It's brutal to end daylight savings time the same week as we hold an election with foreboding implications. Nightfall has suddenly jumped an hour earlier, matching my emotional state. Though it is not the [...]

The Seattle Transportation Levy appears to be sailing to a landslide victory after the initial drop of ballots showed the measure passing with 67% of the vote, a margin that could grow as more ballots are counted. Over eight years, the levy promises to invest more than $160 million in Vision Zero, $193 million in [...]

I biked my ballot to the drop box near Gas Works Park the other day, which got me wondering: Is this the most bike-friendly ballot drop box in Seattle? It's across the street from the Burke-Gilman Trail, so that's got to be hard to beat. I threw together this map overlaying ballot drop box locations [...]

Join me at the Center for Bicycle Repairs 6th Anniversary party 1 p.m. Saturday (November 2) at their shop on Jackson Street between 10th and 12th Avenues. I'll be giving a presentation about some of my book research followed by a conversation and Q&A with Center founder Cory Potts. I'll also be happy to talk [...]

The 2015 Move Seattle Levy added nearly 100 miles to Seattle's bike network, repaired or replaced 44 public staircases, built 1,600 new accessible curb ramps, made 293 transit improvements, repaired 220 blocks of sidewalk and built 350 new blocks of sidewalk. This is in addition to all the other road and bridge maintenance work. It's [...]

The 15th Annual Seattle Cranksgiving is November 23. Last year's Cranksgiving was a record-breaker, with 168 riders hauling 3,699 pounds of donations. Can we do even better in 2024? Seattle Bike Blog is once again partnering with Cascade Bicycle Club's Pedaling Relief Project to host the annual food drive bike ride to benefit Rainier Valley [...]

SDOT is starting work on a series of new and upgraded healthy streets in the Aurora-Licton Springs area that will connect to the existing 1st Avenue NW healthy street and upgrade the regional Interurban North bike route on Fremont Avenue N. Planned upgrades to connect the route to the John Lewis Memorial walk/bike bridge to [...]

The Spokane Street swing bridge (AKA the lower West Seattle Bridge) is closed to biking, walking and driving until 10 p.m. Sunday (October 27). There is no official bicycle detour. The only bike route alternative without the Spokane Street Bridge is to ride many miles out of the way through busy industrial streets to the [...]

Hanoch Yeung and I accidentally coordinated out outfits with our Brompton folding bikes, then rode around for a while talking about the state of bicycle infrastructure in Seattle and the need for voters to approve Prop 1, the Seattle Transportation Levy. Our conversation is probably the most in-depth I've gone into the politics behind the [...]

Rita Hulsman lost her husband of more than 40 years in December when a person turned his Chevy Tahoe in front of Steve while Steve biked downhill on Marine View Drive SW not far from his home. Steve died shortly after the collision. He was 66. In the months since that horrible day, Rita has [...]

Alright, folks, let's do this. This is the big one for a lot of reasons, but for biking in Seattle specifically this is the most important ballot of the entire decade. We need to vote NO on Initiative 2117 and vote YES on Seattle Proposition 1. If we want to make our streets safer, connect [...]

Just like they did with the 2015 Move Seattle Levy, the Seattle Times Editorial Board once again urged voters to reject the Seattle Transportation Levy. Seattle voters ignored them in 2015, approving the levy by a landslide 59-41. Let's do it again in 2024. Read our endorsement of Seattle's Proposition 1 and see a breakdown [...]

It's midnight, and you're biking home from a night out. Should you ride on the separated biking and walking path or along the side of the nearby state highway? If you think the answer is obvious, then congratulations! You're a lawbreaker. King County Trails are only open from dawn until dusk. We can debate whether [...]

Do you often find yourself reluctantly biking on busy 8th Ave NW and its incomplete and skinny door zone bike lanes? Well then, you have something to celebrate Saturday. SDOT will cut the ribbon on a new neighborhood greenway on 6th Avenue NW from Leary Way to the NW 58th Street neighborhood greenway Saturday (October [...]

The 520 Bridge Trail will be closed across Lake Washington from 11 p.m. tonight (October 11) until 5 a.m. Monday (October 14). There was a bit of confusion about this earlier, but WSDOT has confirmed the closure. Despite this, biking is still going to be the best way to get around town this weekend. I [...]

Move Redmond put out an action alert asking people contact the Redmond City Council and/or attend one of the upcoming public hearings on October 15 urging them to add enough funding to upgrade the city's planned buffered bike lanes to protected bike lanes. Now, I may be biased because Move Redmond's Executive Director Kelli Refer [...]

Seattle leadership across three mayors have supported building bike lanes on Eastlake Ave as part of the RapidRide J project, but you just never know what might happen before the shovels hit the dirt. Well, the shovels are officially in the dirt now, and at the groundbreaking celebration today (October 8) Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell [...]

Our family cargo bike just rolled over to 10,000 miles. It took three years as our primary mode of kid transportation to get there. Even as much as I talk up how great an electric cargo bike can be as a family-hauling vehicle, I may still be underselling it. 3,333 miles per year is equivalent [...]

Mayor Bruce Harrell's proposed 2025-26 SDOT budget (PDF) had to be written assuming the 2015 Move Seattle Levy will expire at the end of 2024 without a replacement. So it is a grim look at how SDOT's work would be gutted if voters do not approve the Seattle Transportation Levy (Proposition 1) on the November [...]

Last week, I published a story recapping a wonderful train plus folding bike trip my kid and I took to Portland shortly before the start of the school year. Though we had a great time biking around and exploring the city together, I was surprised by the lack of complete and connected protected bike lanes [...]

As with other places across the nation, traffic deaths and injuries are rising at a desperate rate. Across the Puget Sound Region, annual traffic deaths have nearly doubled since 2010. We have almost reached one per day. If you live in King, Kitsap, Pierce or Snohomish Counties, take this survey about the Puget Sound Regional [...]

The 520 Bridge Trail will be closed from 11 p.m. tonight (September 27) until 5 a.m. Monday (September 30). The Bill Dawson Trail, which connects from Montlake Boulevard to Montlake Playfield, will also be closed starting 10 p.m. Friday until the same time Monday. Speaking of the Bill Dawson Trail, access to the trail via [...]

Seattle has made a lot of big improvements to biking using voter-approved funds from 2015's Move Seattle Levy. That levy ends this year, but voters have the chance this November to approve an even better version to replace it. Cascade Bicycle Club and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways have both endorsed the 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy and [...]

Celebrate the opening of the new 572-foot bridge over the White River that will connect King and Pierce Counties via the Foothills Trail Saturday. The celebration begins 11 a.m. Saturday (September 28) on the Buckley side of the bridge. The Foothills Coalition, parks departments in both counties, and the cities of Enumclaw and Buckley are [...]

UPDATE: SPU wrote to say that as of Friday morning, the intersection detour returned to its previous state. I'm writing to let you know that SPU removed the detour today at 7 a.m.," spokesperson Brad Wong wrote. This specific area has returned to the status it's been for the past six weeks. The removal was [...]

Timothy Egan won the 2024 Washington State Book Award in general nonfiction for A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them. Congrats to him on what is so far an excellent read. I recently started it even before the Washington Center for the [...]

As something of a last hurrah before the school year began, my kid and I took a trip down to Portland for no purpose other than to have fun. So we needed to travel by what may be my favorite method: Taking the train with a folding bicycle. Our Brompton folding bike is not just [...]

There is now a complete and connected protected bike lane on Pine Street from Melrose Ave to 1st Ave. It addresses the awful intersection with Boren Ave and as of this past week includes a bike lane through the brick-paved section near Westlake Park. The change is part of the larger Pike Pine Streetscape and [...]

The RapidRide G started service this past week, promising six-minute headways between downtown and Madison Valley via Madison Street. But you go to other sites to learn about the implications for transit service. I'm here to talk about the bike racks inside the buses. That's right, inside. The new RapidRide G buses have a couple [...]

Site Note: Our ancient and no-longer-supported calendar plugin finally died for good this week, so the Seattle Bike Blog Events Calendar is out of service until I find a replacement. As a result, you may see more event notices posted as regular posts. Anna Zivarts is giving a free talk 7 p.m. Thursday (September 19) [...]

Years after the final train rolled down the rails, a Federal agency has approved a nearly 12-mile section of abandoned railroad for use as a trail extending the reach of Snohomish County's iconic Centennial Trail all the way to the King County line. Snohomish County has announced that they will resume planning work for the [...]

If you were waiting for Washington State's rebate program to kick in before buying an e-bike, the state still has a lot of work to do before it is available. When it finally does launch at some undetermined point in the future, the state expects all 8,500 of them to be gobbled up quickly and [...]

As captured on video by West Seattle Blog, Rita Hulsman chose to use her address to the crowd gathered Saturday for a memorial bike ride in honor of her late husband Steve to promote action to make sure traffic deaths like his do not continue happening to others (starts at 6:45 in the video): Steve [...]

Even after a series of widely-publicized crashes on the Jackson Street streetcar tracks years prior, the City of Seattle failed to make the street reasonably safe for people riding bikes. So after Janet Ball and Eric Boris crashed there in two separate incidents in 2019, they sued the city for negligence. The city settled the [...]

Cascade Bicycle Club is hosting a set of memorial rides 9 a.m. Saturday (September 7) to celebrate the life of Steve Hulsman," a longtime Cascade ride leader who was killed while biking on Marine View Drive in West Seattle in December. Hulsman loved riding difficult hills and measured his biking in feet of elevation rather [...]

One of the most important choices on November's packed ballot will be rejecting I-2117, an irresponsible initiative backed by a wealthy conservative hedge fund manager that would obliterate funding for a laundry list of great things Washington State invests in like clean air, asthma prevention, wildfire prevention, Safe Routes to School, trails, ferries, public transit [...]