Seattle Bike Blog

For more than a century, Washington State has funded portions of its transportation work using gas taxes. But due to inflation, politics and the rise of electric vehicles, gas tax revenue nationally and in Washington State has continually fallen in recent decades. The state's current gas tax rate is at or near it's lowest point [...]

A proposed bill in the State House would resolve confusion by establishing a new set of rules for a shared street." No existing streets would become shared streets by default. Instead, a local authority (such as SDOT in Seattle) can choose to designate certain nonarterial" streets as shared streets. On these streets: The proposed bill [...]

Pacific NW Magazine, the glossy magazine inside the Sunday Seattle Times, includes two excerpts this week from my book Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars - Out now in paperback. Go buy a copy while they are still on newsstands. Or you can check out the piece online [...]

Want a good deal on a used bike or want to find some unusual parts? Then get to the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall Saturday (February 8) for Cascade Bicycle Club's annual Seattle Bike Swap. There will be a bunch of bikes for sale on consignment and a wide variety of vendors selling all kinds of [...]

An upcoming paving project on Pinehurst and Roosevelt Ways NE is a chance for the city to upgrade the existing mishmash of bike lanes and sharrows to a complete set of protected bike lanes from NE 92nd Street to NE 117th Street/15th Ave NE. Potential upgrades may include new crosswalks, upgraded bike lanes, and improved [...]

Work is underway on a two-block rebuild of hilly Bell Street between Elliott and 1st Avenues that includes a two-way projected bike lane and a new intersection design at Western Ave. The project is estimated to take about five months to complete. The new bike lanes will connect to the one-way lanes on Elliott and [...]

Preorders have been shipped, and one person who selected local pickup" from the Seattle Bike Blog shop already has the new paperback edition of Biking Uphill in the Rain in their hands. Also, if you buy a copy of the book in either paperback or hardcover from our shop, I will sign it and add [...]

As one of the final acts for outgoing SDOT Director Greg Spotts, the department released its first annual workplan laying out the first year of projects that Seattle voters funded by approving a $1.55 billion transportation levy in November. We are aware there was a perception in 2016 that SDOT did not get off to [...]

Sean Duffy sailed through the US Senate nomination process to become the new Transportation Secretary this week. His first acts were to order a rewrite of the Federal fuel economy standards for pickups and SUVs (rolling back climate initiatives is a common theme among Trump's nominees, and Duffy has a history of denying human-caused climate [...]

Bike trips across the Spokane Street Bridge (AKA the lower West Seattle Bridge) have followed a very different pattern compared to the Fremont Bridge, mostly due to extenuating circumstances around the emergency closure of the high bridge as well as multiple extended closures of the Spokane Street Bridge itself to maintain the unreliable swing bridge [...]

A large section of the downtown waterfront bike lane quietly opened, connecting the Alaskan Way Trail toward West Seattle all the way up to Union Street near the aquarium. The northbound bike lane on Elliott Way up to Western Ave in Belltown is also now open, though you have to weave through the plaza area [...]

I am beyond tired of people acknowledging that Seattle needs more affordable housing and then not doing anything about it. Seattle voters have an opportunity to take action by voting YES on Proposition 1A by February 11. Ballots are in the mail. If you have moved since the November election, you can change your address [...]

Adiam Emery is moving from Deputy Mayor to Interim SDOT Director, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced. She will take over the top transportation role February 4 when Greg Spotts departs as he announced in December. Starting as an engineering intern, Emery held several roles within SDOT before joining Mayor Harrell's executive team with a focus on [...]

After 14 and a half years posting on the site once known as Twitter, Seattle Bike Blog stopped using the service this week. There is a lot of Seattle bike history buried in those Tweets, however, and I did not want to lose it all. For many years, the @SeaBikeBlog account was very active, and [...]

The number of people biking across the Fremont Bridge in 2024 clocked in at 931,637, up 3% over 2023 and the largest total measured since the COVID-19 pandemic. 2025 is shaping up to be a big test both for the downtown workplace economy as well as efforts to encourage people to commute by bike. Office [...]

After surveying 1,200 people (PDF) and writing a 50-page report (PDF), SDOT has determined that calming traffic and upgrading the walking and biking spaces on a handful of blocks at Alki Point has increased walking and biking use, has made people feel safer, and has not caused a parking crunch as detractors feared. The Alki [...]

Washington State's e-bike rebate program will launch in April, two years after the state legislature funded it as part of the Move Ahead Washington transportation package. The $5 million budget for the rebates is funded by emission taxes that are part of the Climate Commitment Act, which voters supported in November by rejecting Initiative 2117 [...]

I have been running in-house ads for a while now that say, Shop Local, Advertise Local," but I think it's time to expand on what I mean and wax about the state of being a local and independent journalist in 2025. I also hope to convince business managers and owners to rethink some of their [...]

Washington State is facing a revenue shortfall, so it is vital that legislators this session maintain the unprecedented" level of transportation safety funding outlined in the 2023 Move Ahead Washington package. As the state's transportation safety crisis shows few signs of slowing, safety funding should be spared from the cutting block. Preferably, the state would [...]

My book Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars is getting a second run, this time in paperback. It is set for release through University of Washington Press in February for $25, and you can pre-order a copy via the Seattle Bike Blog Shop. I will get it to [...]

A lot of transportation stuff happened during the 2023 state legislative session. There were major budget wins through the Move Ahead Washington transportation package, which included unprecedented funding for safety projects as well as an e-bike incentives program that still has yet to roll out to residents. But legislators also tried for a third time [...]

Got some bike fixing knowledge you want to put to good use in 2025? Or do you have an interest in learning and improving your bike repair skills? Volunteer with a community bike program near you! One of the greatest strengths of bicycling for transportation is its resilience. When a car dashboard throws up a [...]

I agree with Bob Svercl. 2024 was an overall great year for bicycle transportation in the region. But I especially agree with what he says starting at the 7:40 mark. Wishing you all a great 2025.

I was out of town when WSDOT cut the ribbon on the walk/bike bridge over SR 520 in Montlake earlier this month. Luckily, Best Side Cycling was there to capture it all. It's always cool to see how many people show up even when it is pouring rain. But it stopped long enough to get [...]

People still prefer the city's fully-designed Burke-Gilman Trail plan on Shilshole, though that project remains held up in a web of legal challenges. So if the city decides they must move forward with a route along Leary Way and Market Street instead, they want to see much more separation between people walking and biking than [...]

Seattle has lost another bike shop. Ride Bicycles is closing its Seattle location after 14 years, consolidating into its Issaquah location while also shifting to an online retail focus. The lease was up, so I had to make a decision," said owner Christiaan Bourdrez. I was going back and forth and back and forth all [...]

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 [...]