Seattle Bike Blog

UPDATE: The trail reopened Wednesday. The atmospheric river inundating Seattle has triggered a small landslide along a slide-prone section of the Burke-Gilman Trail in Lake City between Lakeside Place NE and NE 112th Street. Seattle Parks says they hope to clear the trail by 4:30 p.m. The (hopefully) good news is that this section of [...]

The 520 Bridge is completely closed this weekend, and this time the closure includes the trail. Crews will close the bridge starting at 11 p.m. tonight (Dec. 1) and will reopen it 5 a.m. Monday (Dec. 4). The map shows that the trail will be open on the Eastside up to 92nd Ave NE. The [...]

The design for the Georgetown to Downtown Safety Project, which will build a long-awaited and sorely needed bike connection, is nearing completion. The biggest changes are that the route will now access the SoDo Trail via S Lander Street rather than S Forest Street, which the SoDo Business Improvement Area requested. They have also revealed [...]

The day before Thanksgiving, SDOT released a first look at their design concept for a Ballard Missing Link bike route alternative following 17th Ave NW, Leary Way and Market Street. The plan includes a 10-foot-wide multi-use trail" on one side of the street as well as significant traffic calming and safety upgrades to Leary Way [...]

For a budget cycle with tough revenue projections, the City Council still added some excellent street safety projects and mostly protected safety efforts from cuts. The Council passed the 2024-25 budget Tuesday after weeks of hearings and debates. Highlights include $1.4 million to transform the Mt. Baker station area into a safer and comfortable place [...]

I am still riding high on the happy and caring vibes from Seattle's 14th Annual Cranksgiving. 168 people biked all over our beautiful city Saturday to buy items the U District, Rainier Valley and Byrd Barr Place Food Banks requested. Pannier by backpack by trailer load, the riders all pitched in to deliver an all-time [...]

If you see a yellow silhouette attached to a pole or sign around town, it's there because a person was killed in a traffic collision near that spot in the nearly nine years since Seattle first approved it's Vision Zero goal in 2015. The sheer number of these yellow memorials, numbering over 200, provides a [...]

Cascade Bicycle Club is hosting a screening of The Street Project 6 p.m. Tuesday (Nov. 14) at their office in Magnuson Park. The 50-minute documentary is an inspiring story about the global, citizen-led fight to make our streets safer," according to the trailer: There will be a Q&A with Cascade advocacy staff after the film.

I'm on my way to Vancouver, WA, with a Brompton full of books. A bike to Link to Amtrak adventure is a lovely way to start a day. I'm giving a book presentation and selling copies at the Vancouver Bicycle Club meeting, 5pm at the Aero Room this evening (Nov. 8). It's amazing how much [...]

Good bike lights are empowering, pun intended. But really, with the end of daylight savings plummeting evening commutes and dinnertime grocery runs into darkness, many readers may be spending a lot of time biking around town at night for the first time. But with a good set of lights, a little darkness does not need [...]

The new Marion Street Pedestrian Bridge to the revamped Seattle Ferry Terminal is set to open this week, and crews removed the temporary walkway over the weekend. But thanks to a creative exchange the Puget Sound to Pacific Collaborative facilitated between the City of Seattle and Clallam County, that temporary walkway will not go to [...]

Volunteers for the Pedaling Relief Project have hauled 1.2 million pounds of food by bike since 2020, all to support local food bank operations. That's equivalent to about 1 million meals. It helps us and the other food bank partners achieve their mission at a time when volunteerism is not keeping pace with the growth [...]

What I started Seattle Bike Blog in 2010, I chose an icon that seemed to best represent the experience of biking in Seattle at the time: The sharrow. Officially called a shared lane marking," SDOT had painted dozens of miles of sharrows in mixed traffic lanes across the city, including on many busy streets. The [...]

Sniff. Can you smell that? There's a crisp coldness in the air, and is that a hint of cranberry sauce? That can mean only one thing: It's almost time for Cranksgiving. For the 14th year, Seattle Bike Blog is presenting a joyful day of bike adventures and good will to celebrate winter riding and support [...]

Seattle has completed the design for the RapidRide J project, which includes complete and protected bike lanes on Eastlake Ave. The design even includes protected bike lanes on the block immediately south of the University Bridge, which was lacking protection in an earlier design. Thanks to many years of persistent advocacy, the project is poised [...]

Within hours after the City Council approved a deal with the railroad now formerly known as the Ballard Terminal Railroad Tuesday, SDOT crews had already marked out the area under the Ballard Bridge where they plan to pave over both the railroad tracks and gravel pits in order to create a safe bicycle pathway. Work [...]

Confusion over the rights to a mostly unused and perhaps even forgotten rail line has delayed work on a major designed and funded remake of East Marginal Way between downtown and the West Seattle bridges. As we reported in April, the contract for construction has been awarded with work scheduled to begin right about now. [...]

Your ballot for the November 7 general election should be in your mailbox or in the mail. If you have not yet registered, don't worry. Eligible voters have until October 30 to register or update your address online. After that date, voters will need to register in person at a voting center. With all Seattle [...]

The Seattle Transportation Plan will guide the next 20 years of local investments in our streets, so it's very important that we get this right. Most immediately, the plan will form the basis for the transportation funding measure that Seattle will need to send to voters in 2024 to replace the expiring Move Seattle Levy. [...]

In a surprise development in the long, injurious and frustrating history of the Ballard Missing Link of the Burke-Gilman Trail, Councilmember Dan Strauss announced Tuesday an agreement with the Ballard Terminal Railroad Company that should set the city up to pave over the rarely used tracks near and under the Ballard Bridge. This is a [...]

Here's some great news for people who walk or bike to and from West Seattle: SDOT has completed work on the Spokane Street Swing Bridge in just half the time they originally estimated. The bridge is now operational, and the vital trail it carries is open. The bridge was closed October 7 to install a [...]

I'm presenting about Seattle bike history at REI's Seattle flagship store 6 p.m. Thursday (October 12). Sign up via their event page. You'll have a chance to buy a copy of my book Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars or get your copy signed. My presentation includes a [...]

Seattle needs to make it easier, not harder, for the Department of Transportation to improve safety on our streets. To that end, the City Council should not pass Resolution 32097, which is scheduled for a vote Tuesday. The resolution, which was passed unanimously out of the Land Use Committee rather than the Transportation Committee, contains [...]

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell will join SDOT and Sound Transit leaders as well as community members to celebrate the start of the MLK Way S safety project 10 a.m. Friday (October 6) where the I-90 Trail crosses MLK. The project includes protected bike lanes from S Judkins Street/I-90 Trail to and, importantly, through the intersection [...]

The grand opening celebration for the East Lake Sammamish Trail is set for noon Saturday (October 7), a moment decades in the making. Meet at the trail parking lot in Redmond across the trail from Whole Foods for a family-friendly party and banner break. Then you can ride in peace all the way to Issaquah [...]

People are injured and killed in preventable traffic collisions on Denny Way every year, yet Seattle is planning to invest more than $5 million in the street without addressing its dangerous street design. Instead, the project is moving forward without regard for the city's Vision Zero goals and without addressing needs specifically called for in [...]

We've published guides to biking in the rain in the past, and the advice in those posts still holds true (especially this one with lots of advice from readers). Finding proper rain gear that works for you is vital, but it's about so much more than defense from the elements. For people who want to [...]

Seattle's least reliable bridge will be unusable for a week from October 7 through 14, creating a major headache for people who walk or bike between West Seattle and mainland Seattle. The bridge will need to remain in the open-to-sea configuration while crews replace the faulty turn cylinder that was removed during the previous unexpected [...]

Rainier Valley Greenways-Safe Streets and SDOT are hosting a community celebration of the long-awaited pathway connecting the I-90 Trail in Sam Smith Park to the start of the Rainier Valley Neighborhood Greenway at 28th Ave S. There will be a community walk at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday (September 26) starting at College Street Park followed by [...]

When Seattle invests in a major road repair project, the city does not always repair the adjacent sidewalks or build new sidewalks if they are missing. Councilmember Tammy Morales has proposed an ordinance that would fix this glaring omission, requiring that the construction project shall include an evaluation of existing sidewalk conditions and correct any [...]

Rather than going project-by-project to build one-off bike projects, Bellevue is currently planning a more comprehensive and less incremental approach. The Eastside city is currently seeking feedback on what they are calling Bike Bellevue," a network of 11 projects that will build on existing work to create a connected network of bike routes in and [...]

Starting today, Puget Sound Energy crews will be working along the Interurban Trail between 37th Street NW in Auburn and the Boeing Auburn facility near 5th Ave N in Algona. The trail should generally be open, but crews will close it as needed while installing utility poles. Flaggers will instruct trail users on what to [...]

OK Broomer is starting to look like a boomer compared to the all-electric eSwingo 200+ bike lane sweeper SDOT is currently renting. The new style of sweeper is part of the city's goal of electrifying as many city vehicles and machines as it can. Tenting before buying is wise because while the sweeper is rated [...]

Despite a scary incident moving the spans from the barge to the terminal, early in the project, crews reopened access to the vehicle deck on the Bainbridge Ferry Tuesday evening, hours earlier than originally planned. So people can now bike onto the ferry again after nearly a week operating as walk-on only. Crews closed all [...]

Seattle's Department of Transportation created a new way to bike through the notoriously dangerous track-crossing section of the Ballard Missing Link: A ramp. Though now that I look a little closer, I'm beginning to wonder if this really is an official piece of transportation infrastructure. Something about the font doesn't seem quite right. But is [...]

You've been asking-no, begging-the city for more surveys about road safety projects. Luckily, the city has heard you. Today (9/8) is the final day to fill out this short survey about the Leary/Market concept for connecting the Burke-Gilman Trail through Ballard. In classic Seattle survey fashion, it asks a handful of questions the public really [...]

After a failed attempt at convening a task force to discuss ways to make Lake Washington Boulevard safe for people walking and biking, Seattle Parks is now preparing to make some small adjustments to the street that fall far short of what is needed and what the vast majority of people have said they want [...]

The Port of Seattle plans to remove a couple problem spots for trail users traveling through the Terminal 91 rail yard in Interbay, work the Port Commissioners could approve during their September 12 meeting. The highlight improvement is removal of a rusting and skinny fenced-in bridge with a couple sharp turns and fairly steep approaches [...]

I had the privilege of sitting down with KUOW's Libby Denkmann this week to talk about some of Seattle bicycle history I wrote about in the first part of Biking Uphill in the Rain. The Soundside episode is 30 minutes, so grab a cup of something and give it a listen on their website or [...]

The Eastlake Community Council last week voted 5-4 to kick those four members off the Board after they voiced support for a fully designed and funded bike lane and transit project ready to begin construction on Eastlake Avenue. The act has sparked outrage and called into question the legitimacy of the organization, which has existed [...]

It's finally out. Preorders should arrive in the mail any day now, and you will start to see it in bookshops around town. Or you can order it online from UW Press. Last night was surreal. Thank you to everyone who packed the reading room at Elliott Bay Book Company. It was a huge relief [...]

Ahhh! News on the blog might be a bit slow the next couple days because I am working on a presentation for the book release party at Elliott Bay Book Company 7 p.m. Monday (August 28). So whether you preordered a copy or are planning to buy one at the event, you should come to [...]