Add Bike Lanes Away from Buses

96 Replies to “Add Bike Lanes Away from Buses”

1. Greenwood Ave N needs bike lanes south of N 110th St or so because that’s where the places people are trying to get to are located. It’s fine to divert riders who are simply traveling through the area to side streets, but as long as there are a significant number of businesses and apartments on Greenwood Ave N there will be people needing or wanting to bike there.

   I’m also not convinced that it makes sense to put bike lanes on greenways like Fremont Ave N or 1st Ave NW. Doing so would require removing a lane of parking or widening the road, two things that would be met with extreme backlash on a residential street. It may even make the streets less comfortable to ride on because it would cause drivers to go faster and introduce conflict points with drivers turning at intersections.

   I agree with you on N 130th St west of 1st Ave NE. It doesn’t need bike lanes, and your N 137th St (for people coming from the north) and N 128th St (for people coming from the south) routes would serve people better.

   1. It’s fine to divert riders who are simply traveling through the area to side streets

      My point is, it isn’t a diversion. The arterial is the diversion. It is for cars, it shouldn’t be for bikes.

      For example, let’s say I’m at 11th & Market and want to get to Ballard High School. If I’m in a car, there is really only one logical way. Go on Market to 15th, then take a right and go up to the high school. Yes, I could cut through the residential streets — it would be a bit shorter — but it would be slower. Furthermore, the city discourages such travel. More and more, you can’t really expect to be able to do that. Not in a car. So as a driver, I’m diverted to the arterial (as it should be).

      But a biker should not have to be diverted. We should have good bike infrastructure in places *other* than the arterials. It is really crazy that we don’t. We basically tell people “Here you go. here is a little bit of paint surrounded by cars going way to fast. Hopefully someone won’t cut in front of you (even though there are dozens of reasons why they would every second).”

      Or we have Greenways, with minimal bike infrastructure. What I’m suggesting is basically a parallel set of bike lanes throughout the city. With as much protection as those on the arterials, but way less traffic. Of course there will be places (like Eastlake) where the only option is to have all modes converge. But having a parallel set of bike paths greatly improves bike safety. There is a reason why the Burke Gilman and the Interurban are so popular, even though they manage to skirt the heart of various communities.

      I’m also not convinced that it makes sense to put bike lanes on greenways like Fremont Ave N or 1st Ave NW. Doing so would require removing a lane of parking or widening the road

      Just take the parking. I would go farther, and prevent cars from going through at various points. There might be some backlash, but the street actually becomes safer. Plenty of residents would welcome it, as this means a lot fewer people driving on it. I’m sure there were plenty of people who lived on Fremont Avenue who objected to the traffic changes. It made life less convenient. But the end result it that fewer cars use it, which I’m sure was popular with a lot of people. This would take it a step farther. Even fewer cars (and likely even slower speeds).

      Oh, and it isn’t like taking parking on the arterials is super popular either.

      1. I agree with you for the most part, but I don’t think Greenwood Ave N is a great example. The road is more than wide enough to accommodate PBLs and some transit priority if we give up a lane of parking. That’s likely a tough sell, but hopefully long term it should be possible.

         Looking at Google Maps, the road has a width of about 53′ at the 80th St intersection. That’s enough for:

         – At intersections: 6.5′ PBL, 11′ general traffic, 10′ left turn lane, 10′ general traffic, 11′ transit priority lane, 6.5′ PBL
         – Generally: 6.5′ PBL, 11′ general traffic, 10′ center turn lane, 11′ general traffic, 10′ parking plus door buffer, 6.5′ PBL

      2. Ross, I agree completely that Fremont north of the park should be the serious, north-south bike arterial west of Meridian. It’s equidistant between Aurora and Greenwood and runs right smack into the Interurban right-of-way as you showed. And the jog over to Aurora is fairly flat along 64th. That does drop the rider into three blocks up to the Aurora ramp, but the hill to the west is just too steep for a bike thoroughfare. .

         But once you get south of 80th it’s a slog and then a bigger slog and then around 65th a futhermucking slog up to Greenwood/Phinney. So it really doesn’t work for bike access to the business district around 65th.

         First doesn’t either, really. True, the hill is a lot less steep on the west side, but it’s still two fairly steep hills up to Greenwood, then flat to Phinney. Somehow there needs to be good bike access to the “top of the hill”. The main part of the park is there, too.

         I don’t have a good idea how to provide it; I just wanted to point out that it’s a fairly strong attractant for the sort of folks who bike.

      3. As someone who patronizes quite a few businesses on Greenwood Ave N, I strongly advocate for safe cycling infrastructure directly on it. Fremont Ave N works fine as a cycling thoroughfare, but if you intend to visit or explore stores and restaurants on Greenwood Ave N, then riding directly on it is much easier.

         N 128th, N 135th and N 137th will work better as alternatives to N 130th, on which there are very few travel destination along except around the intersection with Aurora Ave N.

      4. Thanks, Daigoro. I personally haven’t read a comment by you so far, though you may have made some, so I’ll say — for me only — “Welcome to the blog!”

      5. There are several new names in this article, so welcome all. I’m guessing it’s because this is the first article on bicycle issues in a while, or it was linked at a bike blog or forum.

      6. Hi Tom.

         Thank you for the welcome message. I’ve commented on other pieces written by Ross a few times in the past, but I’m definitely not a regular commenter. :-)

2. I agree with Hat. I don’t think neighborhood greenways need bike lanes. It would widen the road, potentially causing drivers to go faster, and spend SDOT cycling infrastructure money on something that many people feel to be safe and comfortable. SDOT does need to add better modal filters to prevent cars from going straight on safe streets and neighborhood greenways, like Vancouver does. I have seen many intersections when it says Bike only straight yet cars continuously go straight anyway. I think it’s great to have bike lanes or neighborhood greenways one block over from the bus route to allow bikes to be close to the route/have access but not impede on bus speed or make cyclists feel uncomfortable riding on higher speed roads.

   1. No one is suggesting we widen the road. I don’t know if there is anywhere in the city where we widened the road to put in bike lanes. We simply take a lane of parking. Same thing would happen here. That means you park on one side of the road, which is fairly common in other neighborhoods. The other side of the road has a two-way, protected bike path. As I wrote up above, I would go farther, by restricting access at various intersections. Even without those restrictions, there is no reason why there would be more cars, or the cars would go faster.

      1. I think that removing parking on a side street for a bike lane does make the road appear wider and encourages auto drivers to drive faster. If some sort of separation for bicyclists like a raised median or bollards are added it can mitigate that — but it may be best to just leave the parking alone.

      2. The best thing to do is force right turns every other block. That way people can still get to and from an arterial conveniently. It’s actually less construction than one of those little round-abouts one finds on Greenways all over the city. All it requires is a barrier with a slot in the middle wide enough for a couple of bikes to pass but narrow enough that no cars can go through.

         All crossing-streets should have STOP signs so that the bikes can pass safely.

      3. Removing the parking is what makes bike lanes or transit/BAT lanes possible, so if you don’t remove parking, you don’t get either.

      4. Mike, if you put in the “mandatory turn” infrastructure every couple of blocks, you don’t NEED “bike lanes”. The cars will avoid the street like the plague, except for the folks who live on it, and they drive slowly because they live there!

3. This sort of multi-modal thinking is what the Seattle Transportation Plan should have taken the time to consider in its first draft. We shall see what the final draft looks like, but it seems likely that bikes and transit will continue to be pitted against each other, and continually second to freight and general traffic, unless Director Spotts can be clever about guiding the new council away from typical conservative car-focus.

4. > Instead, the bike lanes come and go on Greenwood Avenue, a street with a major bus route (the Metro 5). There are additions to the bike lanes being considered as part of improvements to the 5.

   The study actually proposes converting the bike lane at Greenwood Ave/80th to a bus lane https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/image-1.png.

   Also if you check the transportation plan, greenwood ave is a bit odd. In the bike plan greenwood ave is not listed as part of the bike+ network. Instead it is fremont ave and 1st ave ne. However in the draft priority plan it lists it as a “multimodal corridor” (idk if that means bike or bus lanes).

   Under construction
   *Rainier ave* will have bus lanes, mlk way will have bike lanes.
   *Pike/pine* changing to couplet for protected bike lanes in one direction and bus lanes

   More recent conflicts I’ve seen around:
   *Leary Ave*, trying to fit both bus lanes with the route 40 upgrades and bike lanes (shared use path) on the sidewalk with the missing link alternative.
   *Beacon Ave*, with the route 36 improvements on beacon ave deciding between BAT lanes or trying to add protected bike lanes.

   Farther plans:
   *Interbay*, 15th ave is going to have the bus lanes while 14th Ave W is proposed to have bike lanes
   *lake city way* will have bus lanes, while the other trails and gridded streets will have bike lanes.

   1. The study actually proposes converting the bike lane at Greenwood Ave/80th to a bus lane https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/image-1.png.

      That is one of the options. There are also alternatives that have bike lanes with boarding islands (like on Dexter). If you look at page 3, 4 and 5 of the outreach summary you can see both.

      My point is that we should go with the bus/BAT lanes on Greenwood, but still add bike improvements to Fremont and First. Interesting that is in keeping with (at least one aspect) of the transportation plan.

      Rainier ave will have bus lanes, mlk way will have bike lanes.

      That is exactly how I would do it. The situation on MLK reminds me of Eastlake. It is important for buses, but since Link is right there, not quite as important as it would be otherwise. The valley needs at least one major, flat, straightforward bike route through it, and MLK should be it. Rainier Avenue is the opposite. It is still important as a bike corridor, but it is one of the most important transit corridors in the city.

      Looks like they have the right idea with 15th/14th as well. In addition to that, I would put bike lanes on 17th (along with the same type of traffic lights found on Fremont for the various intersections). With a bit of work, 17th would make a nice bike route. That would be very good in its own right, but it would mean that you would have nearby bike corridors on either side of 15th.

      Lake City gets very complicated very quickly. I definitely think it makes sense to prioritize transit on Lake City Way (so again, they seem to doing the right thing).

      Leary is definitely challenging. Part of the problem is the Burke Gilman. If they could finish that (following the original pathway of the trains) then it would be an easy choice. Then it would be like Leary in Fremont. Sure, there is an argument to be made that we should we add bike lanes along all of Leary/36th (from Market to Fremont). That cuts through the heart of the various businesses. But if you did that, you would only get a small handful of riders compared to the Burke-Gilman (showing that running right next to the businesses isn’t everything). There are a lot of riders that prioritize safety. The Burke is extremely popular, even though it doesn’t go through the heart of things. It skirts them. Riders routinely use it, then deal with the last couple blocks in whatever way they feel comfortable. Everything from just riding on a busy street to riding (or walking your bike) on the sidewalk (since it is only a couple blocks).

      1. When I biked in Rainier Valley before Link, I found MLK the most efficient way to get through the valley or up to the U-District. That worked because MLK was wide and lightly-traveled so there was plenty of room for cars and me. With Link I think it would be less safe to bike now because the cars are right next to you and faster than on Rainier. With bike lanes it could make a nice bike route again. Although I don’t see how it can fit two Link lanes, four car lanes, and two bike lanes.

      2. MLK does seem like a good target for bike lanes, since it is direct and already has signals. I’m skeptical that it really needs to have two general-purpose lanes in each direction though. I can’t find anything newer than 2017, but SDOT’s Traffic Flow Map for that year shows that MLK carried around 20000 vehicles/day. I think that SDOT (probably based on MUTCD guidance?) has said previously that roads with flows up to around 35k/day can be supported by 3-lane diets, I would assume that two lanes with protected left turns would be more than enough for 20k/day.

         I think the bigger problem with MLK is that it also has to support the 106, has significant reliability problems and Metro saying it will require as many as 20000 hours/year to correct. As RossB has noted, cycling is allowed in our bus lanes, though I do feel guilty taking advantage of it since it can delay buses, plus getting passed by big vehicles (even with very considerate drivers) isn’t really an “all ages and abilities” environment.

         There’s oceans of parking lots along MLK, so I wonder if eminent domain’ing some of them for a “higher and better use” would be an option to get some more right-of-way for biking and BAT lanes.

      3. “loads with flows up to around 35k/day can be supported by 3-lane diets, I would assume that two lanes with protected left turns”

         How can you have protected left turn pockets with Link where the pockets would be?

      4. Sorry, I meant the existing protected left-turn lanes ought to be sufficient. Currently there’s already protected left-turn lanes on MLK where there’s cross streets, so I don’t think there would have to be a center turning lane like on Nickerson, which generally has unprotected left turns.

5. There are different kinds of “bike lanes”. There are different kinds of “transit lanes” too. Some are more dangerous or more ineffective than others. Some combos can work together while others are bad ideas.

   Plus, slope, lighting and adjacent vegetation (not to mention volume and adjacent land use) affect things.

   I think the important thing is to work with nearby residents and businesses to assess what’s the best trade-off rather than tell them. While there are certainly mode-advocates and mode-haters out there, the people who have the lived daily experience are generally more insightful about what’s best in each circumstance rather than some young SDOT eager to change the world.

   Finally, demand is going to have to a consideration. A bus lane for 30 minute service is silly to me, as is a bike lane getting less than 5-10 riders an hour at peak times. While transit ridership or bicycle use can increase by faster or safer facilities, they do require continual upkeep including the road pavement. If something won’t get used, it wastes public resources. If something isn’t used after several years, removal even needs to be put on the table.

   1. I think the important thing is to work with nearby residents and businesses to assess what’s the best trade-off rather than tell them.

      I definitely think it makes sense to listen to suggestions by nearby residents, but you also want to avoid the fustercluck that was 35th in Wedgwood. A group of residents didn’t want bike lanes, and after much back and forth, they did nothing. No bike lanes on the side streets, no bike lanes on the main streets. The bike community got screwed.

      Part of the problem is that folks often don’t want things to change. Another is that the loudest voices are often not representative of the community at large. The very nature of a lot of transportation projects is to move people through the community. Thus locals might complain about the loss of parking, while the vast majority of those that would benefit from a bike or bus lane live outside the area.

      In the case of 130th, the neighborhood Greenways group has spoken out about the subject. In general they agree with what I’ve outlined here. I can’t say everyone agrees with me on this, but I would say it as close to a consensus as any large group can get. But imagine if they didn’t. Imagine if they were insistent on bike lanes on 130th west of the station. Why should we prioritize that opinion over the thousands of people who will ride buses to the 130th Station? A lot of those people have no idea about the plans. Many of them aren’t even aware of the station. But it makes a big difference if the bus is stuck in traffic or not.

      One of the ideas that came out of that group, however, is a great example of community input. It involves this intersection right here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xTDSPrPBh5BnNmvG8. Right now, cars come and go on Third Avenue. It is common for drivers to turn left into it, or turn left out of it. This makes it extremely dangerous for pedestrians walking along that road. Very few walk the road now, but with the station at 130th, a lot more will. The solution is very simple, cheap and elegant: block automobile access to and from 3rd. 3rd would be a dead end (for cars) like Ashworth, south of 130th (https://maps.app.goo.gl/AKLrWWz2MDQC23og6). One of the people on the Greenways Group has already done the hard work. They’ve reached out to neighbors in that area, to see what they think. This includes people that work from their home (and thus get a lot of visitors) as well as the principal at Lakeside. There is overwhelming support for the idea. It would make the street safer and more attractive (a win-win all around). You would basically be able to walk from the station to 1st avenue (along 130th) without worrying about cars (other than a handful of people accessing their driveway).

      This has very positive side-effects as well. The initial plans have one lane each direction and a turn lane between 1st and 3rd. The turn lane is completely unnecessary if you block off third. That space can be used by buses.

      So yeah, but all means it makes sense to work with the community on the plans, as the community is sometimes one step ahead of SDOT. But we shouldn’t abandon a good project because of a handful of angry pitchfork-wielding locals like on Wedgwood.

6. I disagree with the notion that bicycle modes should be routed around and away from urban villages and commercial centers. Those are the areas where bicycles are best suited for last mile transport. This article reads like the Mayor Jenny Durkan sellout on NE 35th years ago.

   And how are bicyclists going to cross 128th and Aurora without bicycle improvements? Those very improvements will cut down on transit efficiency on Aurora. Drivers use 128th as a cut-through and are plenty displeased when they encounter a cyclist. Instead, 130th should be redesigned for cycling and pedestrian safety because it is adjacent to Ingraham High and Lakeside Schools.

   Link should never have been allowed to put a station at 130th and I-5 but it was cheaper so it’s time to suck it up and build the support to get non-drivers to and from the actual centers of Aurora and Lake City using 125th and 130th with transit, cycling, and walking. Otherwise, 130th will always be the orphan station that will someday merely feature a park and ride

   1. I disagree with the notion that bicycle modes should be routed around and away from urban villages and commercial centers.

      No one suggested that. You can always bike to the commercial centers and urban villages. You can bike anywhere. The question is where should we add bike lanes. If you are going a couple miles, then you should have an alternative that doesn’t involve going on an arterial for a long distance. At the end of your journey you may cut over to the arterial, but that means traveling on it a short distance. Riders can also use bus lanes (it is legal to do so). I wouldn’t recommend that for long distances (you end up leap-frogging) but that is the point. If there is an alternative, parallel option for going several blocks, then use it instead.

      Traveling along a major arterial is fundamentally more dangerous than a residential street. Cars go faster. Legally, they are allowed to. Streets tend to be wider as well. There are more cars, which means more cars turning in front of bikes. Again, there is nothing stopping a biker from using an arterial (with or without a bus lane). But providing a safe alternative is the whole point of bike lanes, and running them on residential streets is by its very nature safer.

      Imagine your 10-year old kid needs to bike from here to here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jpCi4rUceiUW3gmD7. Would you rather the kid go down Greenwood or Fremont? This is what it is like crossing 85th at Greenwood: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fsx1LHtRkXoQBTWr7. You have to be in the middle lane. Have you taught your kid to “take a lane” yet? You have to be comfortable with cars on every side — especially behind you, wanting to pass (just to go straight). If the kid is moving slowly and the light turns yellow, watch out, since someone is going to want to make that light, and get in front. In contrast, this is Fremont and 85th: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5aEjuxPRnB5BUL7UA. See any cars on Fremont? Nope. Look on the other side: None to be found. The only person I see on Fremont is someone on a bike who as it turns out, could be ten years old. The only thing missing is bike lanes.

      It would take a tremendous amount of work to make Greenwood safe. It would mean completely reworking the intersection. In contrast, making Fremont safe would *only* require bike lanes.

      This article reads like the Mayor Jenny Durkan sellout on NE 35th years ago.

      Bullshit. They never added bike lanes anywhere. There are no bike lanes on the side streets. 35th is also an example of the exact situation I called out in the fourth paragraph. The reason 35th was appropriate for bike lanes is because the side streets were not as level. There really wasn’t a great alternative, and they didn’t even build a good alternative. Right now, there is nothing.

      And how are bicyclists going to cross 128th and Aurora without bicycle improvements?

      Come on Bradley. Read the article again. I specifically mentioned that I would add a traffic signal there. “This would require a new traffic light at 128th & Aurora.” I even gave an example of what it would look like 92nd. Honestly, it blows my mind how people will skim an article, miss a key element, and then quickly share their thoughts based on ridiculous assumptions.

      Those very improvements will cut down on transit efficiency on Aurora.

      Nonsense. The light would be timed with the other lights. It really only needs to be timed with the RapidRide E, which is fairly simple. (The E has Transit Signal Priority.)

      Drivers use 128th as a cut-through and are plenty displeased when they encounter a cyclist.

      That is the point of the bike lanes! You keep the cars away from the bikes. Do you really think it is easier to make 130th — a major thoroughfare — safer for bikes than it is 128th? Even if they add bike lanes, 130th will still be a huge mess. There are ways to make major intersections (relatively) safe for bikes, but they are rare and expensive. It requires special signals for bikes, and a right turn signal for cars (so that cars don’t cut in front of the bikes). Chances are, they cheap out, like they did on 130th and Greenwood, where bikes and cars do a weave (https://maps.app.goo.gl/wfH7h8v7UTupzaTW8). That is inherently more dangerous than 92nd and Aurora, which is what 128th and Aurora would look like.

      Instead, 130th should be redesigned for cycling and pedestrian safety because it is adjacent to Ingraham High and Lakeside Schools.

      First of all, Lakeside is not on 130th. It sits north of 135th. Ingraham is in between 135th and 130th. The area next to 130th is mostly ball fields though. The entrances are on 133rd and 135th. Thus the bike routes off of 130th would actually serve those schools better. From the south you would use 128th, and then go north on Ashworth. Ashworth is a dead end if you are coming from 128th. It now has a traffic light, making it ideal for bikes. If you are coming from the north, you could 137th or Roosevelt. This means that if you are east of Aurora, you have bike lanes that help with your trip. It means that if you are west of Aurora (and north of 130th) you don’t have to go all the way down to 130th, and loop around. It is much better for bikes, while allowing SDOT to add bus lanes as necessary for 130th.

      It’s time to suck it up and build the support to get non-drivers to and from the actual centers of Aurora and Lake City using 125th and 130th with transit, cycling, and walking.

      I agree, and the way to do that is to make the bus routes as fast as possible, and the bike routes as safe and convenient as possible. West of 1st Avenue Northeast, that means adding the bike lanes north and south of 130th. Yes, it will cost a bit more (mostly for traffic lights) but the results will be much better.

      Look, I live in the area. I occasionally bike. Add bike lanes on 130th and there is no way I bike there. Add them on 128th and I would. Yes, I’m old, and really cautious — that is the point. Add bike lanes on 130th and it is still too damn dangerous.

      1. “there is nothing stopping a biker from using an arterial (with or without a bus lane). But providing a safe alternative is the whole point of bike lanes, and running them on residential streets is by its very nature safer.”

         Some European cities go further, with off-road bicycle routes with limited level crossings like the Burke-Gilman Trail. This allows a network of “bicycle freeways” between activity centers. We can’t do that here because everything is already built up with through streets everywhere, and cutting off those streets would lead to too many hardships. But a greenway on residential through streets can gain much of the benefit without cutting anything off. So that’s what we’re doing. The main problem is the network isn’t complete or full-featured yet, so the routes tend to disappear in the middle and not exist in needed areas.

         Putting bike lanes on arterials has some benefit, but we’ve reached the point that it’s overused and displaces transit-priority lanes. That prevents us from having high-quality transit that’s highly competitive with cars. We need that. Transit can’t go on residential streets, which are designed to be low-speed and low-capacity. So the transit needs to be on arterials. And bike lanes, since they can go either place and are slower, are more appropriate on neighboring residential streets. Especially if there’s no room on the arterial for both transit-priority lanes and protected bike lanes.

7. Speaking of bike lanes, this video was in my YouTube feed this morning. I am truly flabbergasted at how this bike lane was ever approved!

8. Part of the challenge in Seattle is our topography. It’s a factor in bicycling. Of course, it was also a factor in laying out streetcar lines in the past that are now often our major bus routes, which in turn became our shopping streets.

   It isn’t easy to encourage bicyclists to use steeper streets — even with pedal assist. We are not Davis, Chicago or Copenhagen with essentially flat terrain.

   I also wonder at what downhill slope bicyclists will be going the speed of traffic. If a lower volume street is 25 mph and bicyclists coast downhill that fast, does it really warrant a bike lane?

   1. No, and in fact downhill bike lanes aren’t recommended for that reason, especially if they’re the classic, skinny, door-zone bike lanes. It’s far more comfortable and safer to be in traffic if you’re going traffic speeds where you’re out of the door zone and visible.

   2. Part of the challenge in Seattle is our topography.

      Absolutely. It is a major reason why I spent so much of this essay on a caveat. In a flat city with a good grid there is almost always a good alternative. We don’t live in that city. We have major topographic challenges. These challenges influenced the street grid.

      Take the example I mentioned: Eastlake. Take my basic, oversimplified argument to a ridiculous extreme. Add bus lanes there, and bike lanes somewhere else. Except there is no “somewhere else”. Various nearby streets start and stop, which would then require a crazy zig-zag (https://maps.app.goo.gl/D66nFMDZG3hBXRYC7). It just doesn’t work. The only alternative was to maybe reconnect Fairview, which means buying up a lot of private property (near as I can figure) and even then, I’m not sure if it is feasible (it might require a bridge). It took them a while, but SDOT made the right choice.

      Another example is Rainier Valley. South of where MLK and Rainier intersect, there are alternative pathways between them. But they are hilly, and the streets often don’t go through. Both Rainier and MLK were built because the route is fairly flat. There is no good long-distance bike path between them.

      Another example is the infamous NE 35th. For a good section of the proposal, there are no good alternatives other than 35th. Not only does it mean a lot more up and down, often the street ends, and you are forced to make a dogleg. This was really the crux of the issue there. Well that, and the 11th-hour BS. You just don’t raise objections to a project that has been in works for months right as the construction starts. That was clearly designed to kill bike paths, not come up with a better alternative. Opponents never actually presented an alternative, either. They simply didn’t like the bike lanes and said they should go “somewhere else”. The same is true for Eastlake opponents as well. There is no alternative in terms of bike lanes — they just want the parking.

      That is not the case around the 130th station, nor the other example I gave (in Phinney Ridge/Greenwood). There are good alternatives. SDOT just needs to implement them.

9. What do you guys think would be best for the ave in U district? I’ll preface with saying that I like being able to get on and off of an east-west bus right on the middle of the commercial corridor.

   I also like the vibe of just walking down there to go get a bite to eat with buses just driving past and unloading people onto the street. It just feels very dynamic and lively. It’s one of the more “urban” streets that buses go down IMO and is well connected to the light rail stations

   I’ve seen people mention wanting the ave to be pedestrianized. I don’t know what to make of this. On one hand I think foot traffic can be too high for the current width of the sidewalks at times and I hope that they could be widened by using some of the spaces used by parking. But on the other hand full pedestrianization to me insinuates kicking buses out of the ave and onto an adjacent street which I’m not sure I like the idea of, though maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal

   Do you think any changes should be made to this street? What would you personally like to see? I don’t really mind closing access of the street to cars but when it comes to buses or pedestrians or bikes I feel it becomes a more complex issue for me to approach

   1. I’ve been on the Ave for forty-four years, first visting as a junior high and high school kid, then living in the UW dorms, then living at 56th, then transferring buses to work, and now just for shopping. There’s been talk on and off about whether to pedestrianize it. In the early 2000s the city rebuilt it to widen the sidewalks and speed up the buses. It sounds like they need to widen it again, but I don’t think full pedestrianization is necessary. I like having frequent buses steps from the businesses and apartments, and as I ride the bus through the neighborhood I look to see if there’s any place I might want to go to now or later. The businesses are concerned that losing the buses and cars would decrease business, and I’m inclined to agree. It just works so well as is, a pedestrian-friendly environment with a lot of transit options, and some car access for those who must drive. If only we could make other neighborhoods work this well. So why change it?

      1. Mike,

         I agree that our city would be even better off if we had more ave style commercial corridors. I think your observation on how multimodal the corridor is, is what must to some degree be providing the kind of liveliness that I also feel whenever I walk down that street

         I think buses down this street feel part of the urban fabric and messing with that could be a negative change. Apart from maybe some amount of sidewalk widening I am properly happy with the ave whenever I have the opportunity to go visit a business along there

      2. The liveliness comes from the large of businesses that meet a wide variety of people’s everyday needs, the pedestrian orientation of the buildings, an intimate vertically-oriented architecture instead of harsh modernism, the ultra-frequent buses that are steps away, and the other pedestrians to see. This can be replicated in other neighborhoods like Ballard or Rainier Valley or Bellevue but you need all of it. Not just a few businesses. Not just boutiques that are only relevant to a narrow range of people and don’t meet everyday needs. Not making pedestrians second-class citizens after cars and parking lots and garages. Not a sterile space-wasting design that creates dead space nobody uses or wants to linger around, and pushes thing apart so that people have to walk further. Not inconvenient or barely-existing transit.

      3. What I most like about the U-District is how you can go a whole month without leaving the neighborhood except maybe for work because everything you need is in walking distance. Pike-Pine is like this too. Ballard is getting there, and downtown Bellevue. This is what we need more of.

      4. Totally agree with all your points mike,

         I mentioned this in a previous article to Ross. But I really hope this is the year for statewide zoning reform. Not only do we have missing middle as well as TOD housing bills (though recent proposed changes by some notable sponsors leave me quite worried about the bills future) being considered but there is even a “neighborhood cafe” bill that as I understand it would allow small businesses with limited menu items to pop up shop in residential neighborhoods. I hope this bill can be expanded to other types of business like non food selling establishments and larger variety retailers like grocery stores

         So many neighborhoods not just across the city but across the state stand to benefit

      5. “I really hope this is the year for statewide zoning reform.”

         The car-dependent mindset is like a fever that can take decades to get over. In the 70s and 80s the “no growth” movement was overwhelming. By the 2010s it had yielded to “contain growth in villages; everything else must remain single-family”. In 2012 Metro started making bold reforms in restructures. Since 2016 it has backslid a bit, but is still going forward.

         We just need to reach critical mass in pedestrian-oriented infrastructure. Then businesses will stop saying, “We need street parking to stay in business,” and start saying, “We need pedestrians and frequent transit to stay in business” like they do in real cities. Washington DC and its suburbs and Reston Town Center switched to a TOD model around 2000, and it was so successful that now every suburb wants it. We just have to reach that point. The Netherlands reached it in the 1970s.

   2. The U-District and transit is very complicated. There are lots of buses, coming in from various directions. Some layover there, some keep going. The routes will change with the Link extension. There are multiple streets they can go on.

      For the buses from the north, I would continue to run them on the Ave. It is basically the center of things. I would even take it one step further, and consolidate more, by having the 67 run on the Ave. I think we need to create a “spine” between 65th and Campus Parkway, and the Ave is the best route for that, in my opinion. In the future there will be a 77 coming from Lake City, along with the 45 and the 67. South of 65th, I would have them all follow the current 73 pathway (which means Roosevelt/Ravenna/University Way). This means the 45 turns on Roosevelt (not 15th, like it does now). Folks in between the two Link stations would not only have a good shuttle to Link, but the type of frequency and convenience that makes it handy to get around the neighborhood. I expect these buses to either end at Campus Parkway, or through-route through campus.

      The buses from the south are a different story. The 48, 271 and 542 don’t go very far past 45th (if they even get that far). Again, it is nice to form a spine, but it combining it with the other one is not essential. It would be nice to have added frequency between 45th and Campus Parkway, but it is more important to have a common corridor between Campus Parkway and the hospital. There are also issues with the buses ending around there. Running on 15th (for those buses) seems like the way to go. Since the 44 ends up going to the hospital (triangle) as well, it makes sense for it go on 15th too.

      Then there are the buses that go through the Ave. Some of these are paired with buses that come from the north. The one that isn’t is the 372. It should follow the same pathway as them (at least until the station). That way someone from the Ave can take a bunch of buses to the other end of campus if they want. This would be a modification of the 372, and require it take a left from the Ave to 43rd instead of 15th. No matter what the future combination is, I would approach it that way.

      That leaves a few other buses. The 31/32 is fine. The 79 and 73 are going away. The 49 is fine, as is the 70. Eventually the 70 gets replaced by the J. Eventually that should go up to 70th (via Roosevelt) thus covering that corridor (with watering down the area too much).

      With all that in mind, that leaves some of the other streets for buses. Brooklyn seems like a great street for bikes lanes. Except for a tiny section, it doesn’t have buses on it. I’m surprised they allow cars between 43rd and 45th (it should be buses and bikes only). They did do some work to widen the sidewalks, so it is fairly easy for bikes to go that way if they want. North and south of there they should add bike lanes (where they aren’t there). There are bike lanes on 15th close to Cowen Park. Those should be extended both directions (but phase out as they reach 45th). 47th would make a great east-west bike route, especially if they add a bridge over I-5 there. That costs money though. Oh, and what would be dirt cheap is to close the I-5 ramps at 45th (or at the very least make them HOV-3 only). That move a lot of traffic to 50th, where there are no buses.

10. For the route 5/Greenwood changes specifically, do we know where the delays on the route are? It seems like a good portion of the delays are in its through-routed 21 portion and not along Greenwood. I have to admit that the prospect of losing bike lanes along a well-used bike route doesn’t sit well, but it would help knowing that it at least would improve the 5, rather than just being a giveaway for drivers.

11. This seems at odds with my understand of how to actually high bike adoption as transportation. Will isolated bike thoroughfares “bike-freeways” like the Burke-Gilman are great for people commuting longer distances (>3 miles) or riding for recreation, improvements to this type of riding would likely not illicit the development of biking as a significant mode share.

    For example, in Amsterdam, the poster child for effective bike infrastructure, the average bike trip is less than 2.5 miles at a speed of ~10 mph. Biking excels for trips in which the ride is takes under 15 minutes, and where the rider feels safe while doing so. It is not unlike a walkshed in this regard, most people are simply not interested in significant physical exertion, time commitment, or danger as part of their travel. This means for it it be attractive, one needs to be able to comfortably and safety bike to local destinations. In the Greenwood example both the densest housing and essentially all the local businesses are on Greenwood Avenue, so for bicycling to attract a significant percentage of mode share for such trip pairs likely requires bike lanes on on Greenwood Ave. Requiring an half mile (round trip) uphill detour to Fremont and adding unsafe short segments on Greenwood Ave. would likely destroy potential ridership.

    I think part of the divide here might simply be different goals. If we are just looking to improve biking for those already committed to biking, who must be less sensitive to distance and risk given our current bike network, then the proposal here makes sense. If we want to meaningfully increase the number of people who bike for transportation, then a network which allows people to bike safely directly to their destination is paramount.

    1. Edit to the 1st paragraph, need to proof read before I post:

       This seems at odds with my understand of how to encourage high bike adoption as transportation. While isolated bike thoroughfares “bike-freeways” like the Burke-Gilman are great for people commuting longer distances (>3 miles) or riding for recreation, improvements of this type would likely not elicit the development of biking as a significant mode share.

    2. By bike freeway I didn’t mean three miles with no exit, but an off-road route. So you don’t have to ride next to a wall of cars and asphalt or have to stop every block at an intersection. The routes would connect all the neighborhood centers, so like Ballard and Greenwood and Greenlake. So you can ride just between two adjacent ones, or join the route in the middle. We don’t have space for off-road routes here, but it would be nice if we did.

       1. My point still stands, if the bike infrastructure doesn’t take people directly to their destination in a safe and straightforward manner I think its prospects for becoming a significant mode share are limited. It has to feel more convenient than driving or people will continue to drive.

       2. My point still stands, if the bike infrastructure doesn’t take people directly to their destination in a safe and straightforward manner I think its prospects for becoming a significant mode share are limited.

          Depending on what you have in mind, that means a really long wait. Say, fifty years. Just imagine two possibilities:

          1) We build a bike network that consists of pathways like the Burke Gilman and bike lanes on residential streets.

          2) We have a similar network, but on all the arterials. They are safe as they are in Amsterdam.

          The first one seems quite plausible in the next decade or two. The second one doesn’t. They aren’t opposites, either. We could build the first one, and eventually evolve to the second if somehow we get a lot of money and don’t need to spend it fixing bridges, running the buses more often, or anything silly like that.

          Despite spending quite a bit of time and money over decades trying to build the latter, we are much closer to the former. The safest crossing — by far — of Aurora is on a side street. Same with Lake City Way. We have very few, if any, safe arterial-to-arterial crossings. Whether in the heart of the city, or the more suburban areas (which make up a good portion of the city). We just haven’t built any of it.

          For example, this is what a typical suburban bike pathway looks like outside of Amsterdam: https://maps.app.goo.gl/h3xDtAjEWWTtu1Hx9. Notice the completely protected bikeway to the left. Despite being a major auto throughway, the speed limit is quite slow there (30 KM). The side road (which again is a major throughway) is narrow at that point. The actual gap where an accident could occur is fairly small. A driver would have to be extremely reckless for that to happen. In contrast, this is what a similar crossing looks like in Seattle: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xq2xDSaJXDg4CVid9. There is no barrier to protect bikes from cars on the approach to the intersection. Bikes have to basically weave with cars before they even get there. There are no caution signs, suggesting this is a place where you should slow down. The speed limit is much higher. Impatient drivers will routinely run lights, or speed up to the intersection to avoid running it. Yet this road is actually *better* than a typical arterial-arterial intersection in Seattle. My guess is, this particular intersection is basically done. I don’t think there are plans to improve it, and make it safer. We have so many other fish to fry.

          In contrast, look at 92nd again. You can’t drive straight across. Thus for some trips, drivers have to go out of their way, while bikers have a straight shot (shades of Amsterdam). Aurora is one of the most dangerous, fastest streets in the city. Left turns from Aurora are especially dangerous. Drivers are focused on incoming traffic, not side traffic (especially not side bike/pedestrian traffic). They see a gap and punch it. In this case though, left turns are prohibited. Not with a sign, but cement. It is less of an issue, but left turns from the side streets are also prohibited. This is one of the few places in the city that actually resembles the safety levels of Amsterdam. Same goes for Lake City Way. Different dynamic, since 82nd intersects at an angle, but they still manage to make the crossing extremely safe. Not despite it being a side street, but because it is so much easier to make crossing there safe.

          As far as “straightforward” goes, it is worth mentioning that Amsterdam is not straightforward. It is a city full of canals, which means a lot of trips make you go this way or that (https://maps.app.goo.gl/h6iwbaKuHps4fjpp9). But the bike route is more straightforward than driving, which is very important. Switch modes to driving (on Google Maps) and it is much, much slower (https://maps.app.goo.gl/KECsEo38Gy5Z46hT8). Do you really think Seattle is on the cusp of doing that? No one seriously considered making Eastlake one way for cars, let alone turning the street into permit-only (like they would in Amsterdam). We are just so far behind, in every respect. Adding a few bike lanes on bus streets and pretending we are catching up is spitting on the fire.

          The key is safety. That route is not particularly fast (only about 11 MPH). It is just that it is fastest. And pretty darn safe — even though a lot of that particular route mixes bikes with cars. Yep, even in Amsterdam they do that. There just isn’t the room on some streets. So they slow down traffic, much as folks have mentions happens in various places in Seattle (like The Ave, or even Lake City).

          The Burke Gilman is not really straightforward. It skirts the main destinations. If you want to go through the heart of the neighborhoods, then go on Leary. But it is way more popular than if we had built bike lanes on Leary. Every day thousands of people go out of their way to go on the Burke because it is considerably safer than anything else. They bike a few blocks to it, ride it, then bike a few blocks from it. Like Amsterdam, those few blocks are way less important than the Burke itself. The trips are not necessarily that long, either. Ballard to Fremont is about 2 miles. Same with Fremont to the UW. There are a lot of destinations in between as well.

          I’m sure the existence of the Burke Gilman has dramatically changed the modal share in the area. Do you really think the only people who ride the Burke are those going for really long trips? Of course not. It works for short trips and long ones. It is one of the main selling points of living in Fremont. Few people live right on the Burke, but plenty of people live a few blocks from it.

          In contrast, adding a few bike lanes on Leary — the type of thing we’ve done a lot of — won’t cut it. Cars will still go way too fast. It takes a tremendous of effort to build proper infrastructure on areas with lots of cars and buses. I am not convinced we will do it. The areas that I see that resemble Amsterdam are on the side streets (away from the arterials). Those crossings of Aurora and Lake City Way, for example.

          We tend to half-ass our way through, mainly because we don’t have the money or interest in building a top notch system. There was push-back just taking parking on Eastlake. Imagine turning the street into transit/bike only like they do in Amsterdam! Good luck with that. So we muddle along, and do the best we can. My point is that we can accomplish a lot more by running on residential streets than we can on the busy ones. The Burke Gilman is ridiculously popular not because it runs through the heart of the U-District, Fremont or Ballard, but because it allows for a very safe connection between them (and the various places along the way).

          Arguing that the bike lanes have to right next to the businesses is like arguing that we need a bus stop at every block. For many trips, the Burke Gilman eliminates the “last mile”, problem, leaving people with a “last quarter mile” problem. I’m saying that is not a major problem. One of the great things about a bike is that it is so damn flexible. You can ride it on a fast, busy street, or the sidewalk. Of course you want to go slower on the sidewalk, but every day, thousands of people go across the Fremont Bridge on the sidewalk. They don’t go fast, but it works. The last few blocks of the journey can be a dangerous hell-hole and at worst you just push your bike.

          First Avenue North — what I proposed as an alternative to biking Greenwood Avenue — is literally one block away from the main arterial. One block!

          It is worth noting that Amsterdam did not sacrifice transit to enable safe bike routes. It is laughable that we built a brand new tram (when we didn’t really need to) and then allowed it to be delayed by cars. In contrast the tram streets were wide enough in Amsterdam to support transit lanes, stops in the middle of the street, and bike lanes. The ability of transit to move fast is essential (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis). If you can do what Amsterdam did, then great. But there are only a handful of streets that are that wide (MLK being one of them). In other areas we have to find a way to make the buses faster, even if it means putting the bike lanes on the side streets.

       3. Agreed.

          Though that 130th and Greenwood example wasn’t a particularly good one. We actually did a pretty good job of emulating your Amsterdam example just the east, at Linden. Not a huge arterial, but not a residential street really either.

          https://maps.app.goo.gl/iBhoBeUUA6hbXjZv8

       4. I don’t think we need to wait 50 years. Higher-trafficked arterials with somewhat restrictive ROWs (Rainier being a prime example) are very far from becoming safe for bikes, but lower-volume ones with over-allocated ROWs like Greenwood are pretty close. Greenwood already has reasonable auto volumes and speeds, and it often makes sense for auto traffic to divert to Aurora or even the 5 rather than travel down the corridor. I think the larger problem is how to connect Greenwood to the Burke-Gilman. The obvious routes are via Phinney or Fremont, but I suspect that it’d be difficult to get buy-in to remove parking along either street.

          I think that if we need to make a choice, transit should (generally) be prioritized over bikes, but often we can have both if we remove on-street parking. That’s probably not politically feasible right now, but I could see it happening on the Fremont/Phinney/Greenwood corridor in the next 10-20 years if we continue infill development in the area

          Obviously we can’t have protected bike lanes on all the arterials, but we are starting to build out to a good network of protected bike lanes, and I think Greenwood is a fairly obvious addition. Take a look at the map below. There are some obvious missing links, but filling in Eastlake, Pike/Pine, and MLK is a substantial step in the right direction.

          https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/bike-program/bike-maps

          As an aside – I think it’s important to (eventually) have arterial bike lanes not only because they are the best way from point A to point B but also because the visibility is great advertisement for biking – the same way bus lanes bypassing traffic is great advertisement for transit.

       5. Adding a bit more – I think the most important thing for transit and bike adoption along Greenwood is going to be land use. If we can get even another half block of infill development up to 105th I think it’ll be much more politically feasible to reconfigure the roadway

          https://seattle.gov/dpd/research/GIS/webplots/Smallzonemap.pdf

       6. @Ross

          I agree with most of the points you’ve made, I just think the depiction of your plan as being ideal for both bikes and buses is inaccurate. Not having bike infrastructure on main commercial streets is not ideal for bikes and will, IMHO, limit the extent to which biking develops as a meaningful mode of transportation.

          With regards to your two possibilities, while 1) does not strictly preclude 2), I do think in practice they are somewhat mutually exclusive, as they simply represent different ideological approaches to biking infrastructure. In 1) biking is given priority equal to that of motor vehicles and walking being given real estate on our most important streets commensurate with that status, whereas in 2) it is secondary and shunted to side streets. As we are currently much closer to 2) than one, I completely agree we could realize that vision more quickly and affordably, but I believe that will in effect remove 1) as a long term goal (even though it is still theoretically possible).

          Arguing that the bike lanes have to right next to the businesses is like arguing that we need a bus stop at every block.
          I disagree for a couple reasons:
          1) Despite the flexibility of biking in theory, in practice most people will not feel comfortable riding on either a busy street or a sidewalk. If the last few blocks are dangerous or unpleasant, many if not most would sooner not bike. I don’t have hard stats, but anecdotally having been a commuter on the Burke-Gilman for years, with the exception of people going to UW (where there is safe integration) most bike commuters seem to be fairly serious bikers: strong confident riders with nice speedy bikes (or expensive e-bikes). It’s a wonderful path, but its lack of integration does seem to limit the types of users throughout much of its length.

          2) Travel speeds for buses can be competitive with cars, particularly if they have dedicated lanes and there is traffic. To be competitive, then, bus stops just need to be spaced such that the walk is comparable to distance one expects to walk after parking a car. Bikes are inherently slower unless the traffic is horrendous, so they need that last quarter mile advantage to be competitive. If you can park a car closer then where you have to dismount your bike, driving will almost always be faster.

          It is worth noting that Amsterdam did not sacrifice transit to enable safe bike routes.
          This is true where they have the space, but largely is not the case in my experience (though it has been a decade since I’ve been there). There are many streets in which busses/trams run in mixed traffic but there are dedicated bike lanes. Here is a random example of how I remember it. It’s really just a matter of priority, Amsterdam has given priority to biking, and it has developed as a major mode share.

          As you mentioned, Seattle is so far from that standard that aiming for such a vision might be futile. Money and road space may very well be better served improving bus routes to make them a more competitive alternative to driving, and greenways used to make biking safer for those committed to cycling. I just think we should be realistic about the impacts such decisions have for for the long term modal share.

    3. You’re not wrong that the best place for bike lanes is on these corridors, but also the best place for bus lanes as well. I mean alternatively would it be better if it is flipped and fremont ave is the bus lane corridor and greenwood ave is the bike lane corridor?

       Or if you prefer both of these avenues to have bike lanes then where exactly are the bus lanes going to go?

       I guess the main implicit question is how important is route 5 on this corridor

       1. *I mean fremont ave is the bus lane corridor and greenwood ave is the bike lane corridor? in the question

       2. I think the real question is this a good corridor for cars? North south auto travel through Greenwood is available on Aurora, 3rd, and 8th, and detours are far less of a problem via private vehicle than they are for buses or bikes. If I had carte blanche, Greenwood Ave. would probably have protect bike lanes(one in each direction), bus lanes (one in each direction), a single lane of one way traffic for local access (not sure the optimal direction, probably segment dependent), and no parking. I doubt this would be politically feasible, but I think this is the type of vision we should have for the long term use of our main neighborhood commercial and high density housing corridors.

       3. Sure, it’s kinda what pike/pine will be like or parts of alaska street in west seattle. But SDOT can only politically reallocate so much street space at a time from general traffic/parking so we’d most likely will have to prioritize choosing one of them.

12. Since getting an electric bike, I’ve been far more willing to taking hillier routes to avoid car traffic than I have been in the past. For example, I have one regular route where I need all 750 watts of motor power to make it up the hill at 10 mph, but it avoids an awkward stretch on the flatter arterial that would require riding in the door zone and merging into the left turn lane to turn left.

    That said, the design of a city bike network should not just assume that everybody has an e-bike, and I think it’s important that routes of appropriate distance be feasible to a broad part of the population, even with just pedal bikes.

13. I don’t think anyone of us are really debating whether it’s *most* useful for bikers to have bike lanes on greenwood or for transit riders to have bus lanes on greenwood (or any dense corridor). I mean after all if there’s useful businesses and density and relatively flat then practically every time both busses and bike will usually want to travel on the same corridor.

    However the implicit question is how important is the bus route for each corridor and where’s the threshold that it’s more important than adding bike lanes/the other way around. For example with Eastlake, with the bike lanes for most transit riders they have an alternative of Link if they are traveling from UW to downtown. Most of the major transit routes sdot chose bus lanes on rapidride C, D, E and route 7, 44. For greenwood ave and route 5, I’d say it’s right on the edge. The route had ~6.3k riders before the pandemic and 3.6k now. There’s the alternative rapidride E but around 0.5 miles away.

    I guess sdot criteria (and generally I agree) that I can think about are
    1) safe, relatively fast, close* alternatives for bikers.
    2) bus ridership numbers (idk what number threshold)
    3) traffic on the road blocking busses

    Another example to look at is Delridge Ave they opted for bus lanes on the northern section with the most traffic. And then sent bike riders to the greenway for the rest of it. Unfortunately while it isn’t far it’s a pretty high elevation change. However, I’d still prioritize bus riders on this section as there’s quite a lot of transit riders.
    Beacon ave is undergoing the similar questions over which intersections to add bus jump queues versus adding bike lanes, though looking at the traffic diagram it’s really only the north most 1 mile that has traffic.
    *though by this criteria the next question is how far is close enough, not quite sure if the greenway is a good alternative for rainier ave. Is fremont ave being 0.25 miles close enough for greenwood?

    1. SDOT did evaluate several options for the Eastlake corridor. It might have worked to place southbound eight-to-eighty cyclists on a parallel street and use more ROW on Eastlake for transit priority. Fast cyclists could still use Eastlake. The J line infrastructure will have potential conflicts at the stations between cyclists and bus patrons going between the sidewalk and the buses.

    2. The issue is bus paths between all the neighborhood centers to each other and to Link stations. That tells you where the transit-priority lanes should be. If the ridership isn’t there already, it will be when you get the buses out of traffic and make them full-time frequent.

       1. I agree.

          It comes down to bike paths more than transit, simply because the baseline for transit is so high. A lot of our buses are stuck in traffic. We could probably use hundreds of miles of bus/BAT lanes just in the city. When we finally look at an area (like Greenwood) or a bus route (like the 5) and want to make it faster — by definition it is a very important bus corridor.

          At that point, it may or may not be that important as a bike corridor.

          The reverse does happen, but rarely. I think Magnolia is one of those places (the roads are dramatically overbuilt) which is why adding bike lanes along the 33 route is no big deal for the bus, and a very good improvement. But that is exceptional. Almost all the buses (at least the ones in the city) follow busy corridors that could use a BAT lane (or at the very least, would suffer if two general purpose lanes were converted to one).

    3. They key here for safety in high-demand arterials where there are businesses and many other attractions, both for those getting on and off buses on foot, as well as those riding bicycles (and as a bonus, those driving and riding in cars), is to slow down everything.

       If you change the design of the road to narrow or remove the general purpose lanes, that has the effect of improving safety for bikes even if you don’t explicitly build infrastructure for them.

       So if a road that routinely had people going 35mph is redesigned to include a BAT lane and take enough general-purpose real-estate to bring traffic down closer to 20, your kid or your grandma on a bike is immediately more comfortable in the area even if their is no protected bike lane directly on the arterial.

       That’s why the Ave is so comfortable for all users. Traffic is slow.

       1. I agree. There are parts of Lake City Way that would be crazy on a bike. In contrast, in Lake City itself (125th to about 130th) people slow down (due to the work that SDOT did a few years ago). It is a fairly small section, but it is also the commercial heart of the area.

          Or consider Fremont. For example, imagine you are trying to get from somewhere on Westlake to Brouwer’s (https://maps.app.goo.gl/R2bDbUQXtEEYtHY19). The key here is Westlake itself. Whether it serves the commercial businesses in the area (or whether there is much there at all) is largely irrelevant. Once you get to Fremont itself, it doesn’t matter as much whether there is strong bike infrastructure or not. Folks are generally driving slower, and if you aren’t that comfortable outside of a bike lane, you can always walk the bike (or ride slowly on the sidewalk).

          I would bet that the most popular corridors in the city are those that do *not* go through the heart of the commercial areas. The Burke Gilman, Westlake, Eastlake, Roosevelt. Other than maybe Eastlake, none of them go the main commercial areas. That isn’t why they are so popular. Riders are forced to get off the highly protected pathways, and then deal with the last quarter mile. Typically, this isn’t that bad, simply because those areas by their very nature should have slow speeds. Cars should go very slowly through Lake City itself, even if they drive 35 not too far away.

    4. However the implicit question is how important is the bus route for each corridor and where’s the threshold that it’s more important than adding bike lanes/the other way around.

       That is part of it. But the main thing I want is for SDOT to build bike lanes away from bus corridors *whenever possible*. Obviously “whenever possible” is a key phrase. But consider Greenwood again. Let’s say after much study, they rate the corridor an “8” for bikes, and a “7” for transit. So that means bike lanes, right? Now assume that traffic increase over time, and the bus is like the Metro 8. It is extremely slow, and inconsistent. Does it still make sense to have bike lanes on Greenwood?

       Of course not. Not when there is a very good alternative. That is my point. There will always be corridors — like Eastlake — where we have to make tough decisions as to which mode to favor (bikes or transit). But there are a fair number of corridors where we don’t have to make that choice, as long as we stop assuming that adding bike lanes need to be on the main arterials. Add bike lanes to residential streets.

14. Nice post by RossB.

    Both transit and bike infrastructure aim for many of the same arterials. Transit is on the former streetcar lines and former and current ETB lines. Streetcars needed the low grades or extraordinary infrastructure (e.g., counter balance on QA; cable cars on Madison and Yesler). The urban villages developed along the streetcar lines. But just because cyclists need to reach those business districts, it does not imply that those arterials should have eight-to-eighty bike infrastructure. The cyclists comfortable in traffic can go anywhere. Where do we want to put the grandmothers and grandkids? Providing priority to both bike and transit on the same arterials is both costly and ineffective as there is too little ROW. Too often, transit ends up in congestion (e.g., Broadway, Pike-Pine in the CBD, NE 65th Street, Roosevelt Way NE).

    One conflict to note is between bikes on transit arterials and bus patrons going between the curb and the bus. This conflict has not be considered well enough by recent SDOT projects.

    Two other things to note: first, Seattle bike infrastructure has developed over time; some of the most important bike routes have older technology; second, there are several types of cyclists and some individuals are in different types depending on their trips (e.g., road cyclists, practical cyclists, hipsters, grandmothers with grandkids). They have a range of comfort in riding with traffic, let alone alongside articulated buses.

    Consider the older important arterials: 24th Avenue NW, Stone Way North, Fremont-Phinney-Greenwood. They have parallel parking, bike lanes, and frequent transit. the bikes and buses weave; that slows transit. Could those three be elevated to the Dexter infrastructure where the bike lanes are against the curb and transit stops in lane and bus stops are on islands? The effectiveness would vary with grade; cyclists might like being against the curb when going uphill but uncomfortable while going downhill. I expect that is the feeling on East Union Street.

    I like the neighborhood greenways that are parallel to transit arterials. I am not sure they need to upgraded. I like the bike lanes for climbing on non-transit arterials (e.g., Western Avenue in the CBD, 23rd Avenue South south of Rainier Avenue South). Ballard has some bike lanes on non-transit arterials: 20th Avenue NW. 28th Avenue NW would have been a good candidate; it is wide as it once carried the Loyal streetcar line.

    A major issue is that SE Seattle has three major transit arterials that are diagonal to the street grid. Both transit and cyclists want to be on the same streets. I biked Rainier Avenue South today, but it was a holiday and traffic was light.

    The post implementation study of NE 65th Street shows that transit is slower. The bike infrastructure ends at 20th Avenue NE. We would have been better off with transit priority on NE 65th Street and bike infrastructure NE 68th and 70th streets.

    The 35th Avenue NE project was stillborn. I had hoped that bike lanes could have been added to 40th Avenue NE for through trips and buses provided in-lanes stops on 35th Avenue NE.

    Some recent SDOT infrastructure is awkward. The Pike Pine Renaissance will disappoint. Westbound cyclists will have to transition via Melrose; I expect eastbound transit to be slow on Pike Street. It would have been better to match the Capitol Hill pattern in downtown with two one-way PBL on Pike Street and two-way transit on Pine Street; some funds could have been spent on ETB overhead eastbound on Pine Street. With the PPR, there will be a 400-foot transfer walk between Link and eastbound buses. The NE 43rd Street project has a pocket hazard westbound at 12th Avenue NE; buses turn right with cyclists to their right. The same hazard is on 7th Avenue at Stewart Street in the CBD. The Roosevelt Way NE bike lanes on the the right with transit. SDOT has chosen to duplicate them on 11th/12th avenues NE.

    SDOT is in the midst of getting a draft Seattle Transportation Plan adopted. They found that the greatest ROW conflicts was in the bike plan. So, is this really the time to close the great transit transfer point on northbound Fremont Avenue North between North 34th and 35th streets? SDOT proposes to split Route 40 from routes 31, 32, and 62. Does the plan need a measurement, say per minutes to evaluate the modal conflicts?

    1. “One conflict to note is between bikes on transit arterials and bus patrons going between the curb and the bus.”

       I haven’t seen any problem on Roosevelt or 65th. There’s hardly ever a bike at the moment I’m crossing to the bus stop. If there is, I let them go through first, and that takes only a couple seconds. Collisions don’t seem very likely.

    2. Consider the older important arterials: 24th Avenue NW, Stone Way North, Fremont-Phinney-Greenwood.

       In all of these cases I would look to add bike lanes on parallel (sometimes residential) streets. This would allow BAT lanes to be added for the buses. It might seem like overkill now, but eventually those streets get more traffic, and having the flexibility to add BAT lanes is important. There are areas where it would be awkward — the streets make little zig-zags, but overall it should work.

       I think we’ve been taking the wrong approach with bike lanes for a long time. I’m not saying they haven’t added value, but the default has been to treat them like automobile infrastructure. The thinking goes something like this: We add bike lanes on the arterials, since that is where we assume people want to bike. It is also where it is most dangerous to bike. But even after adding the bike lanes, it is safer to bike the side streets. So safe, that folks assume it is “safe enough”. It is really twisted logic. If safety is the highest priority, then we should make the relatively safe corridors (unprotected Greenways) even more safe. People are attracted to safe routes. Some people — myself included — will only travel on routes that are really safe. For some that is the level of an unprotected Greenway. For others they need more, like bike lanes on a residential street.

       Those that don’t care as much about safety are going to go on the arterials. I’m sure there are people who bike Leary instead of using the Burke Gilman. They are willing to risk it. That doesn’t mean we should put a lot of effort into making Leary safer for bikes — not when there is a very good alternative nearby. Not when we have much bigger needs in the city (like the lack of routes as safe as the Burke Gilman).

       Speaking of which, it reminds me of the Missing Link. Compared to most of the city, it isn’t especially dangerous. The main reason that people want to fix it is because the rest of the Burke Gilman is so safe. Not completely safe, but much safer than that section. If we built more bike lanes on residential streets we could provide a real network as convenient and safe as what the Burke offers (without worrying about bike/bus conflicts).

       1. That’s a fine and clearly stated goal, however, as I said in a previous post, I think it is an approach which relegates biking to continue being a relatively minor mode share. If we want biking to be a popular mode of transportation there needs to be the infrastructure (protected lanes) to make people feel safe along arterials, because that is where the destinations are located.

          I think arguing that we are better off using this space for buses and general purpose lanes is a valid, and I might be inclined to agree, but I just think we should be honest that it is a vision of the city in which biking continues to be a minor mode in our city’s transportation landscape.

       2. I guess to clarify my own position a bit, I still think adding protected bike lanes on these routes like “24th Avenue NW, Stone Way North, Fremont-Phinney-Greenwood.” are important, however less important than bus lanes if we’re able to build them.

          There’s around 5 lanes worth on most of these avenues which is technically just enough to squeeze in both protected bike lanes, bus lanes, and general lanes. However, typically we can only really reallocate like 1 or 1.5 lanes worth at a time. If I was forced to choose I’d still choose the bus lanes as long as there is some close enough alternative for bikes. But if we can ever reallocate the remaining parking/turn lanes I’d still build the PBLs.

          Or I guess there’s some other compromises we can discuss like 1 bus lane direction and protected bike lane in the uphill direction etc..

15. My perspective on the development of Seattle’s bike network over the last decade or so is:

    – The really big, fundamental issue we have is that in American development patterns almost every public destination is accessed via car-arterial. Thus even streetcar-suburb “main streets” that we usually wouldn’t call “stroads” have this aspect of stroad-iness: that they have to serve local access and through-traffic functions.
    – The rarity of car-light “market” or “high” streets casts a shadow on the ones we do have. The Ave serves its neighborhood well but, being surrounded by more car usage than it would be anywhere else in the world, is less car-light than it would be anywhere else in the world. Pike Place survives by giving tourists a taste of a market street rather than giving locals a full bite, and by this tradeoff gives up usable hours and practical retail. Ballard Ave does the same for region-wide fine-diners that drive in and hunt for parking — this shows in the selection of available businesses, in the current street layout, and in SDOT’s recently published Leary/Market BGT plan that turns even more streets into glorified parking aisles to be accessed by crawling down a one-way Ballard Ave, a pretty lousy situation for locals shopping local by bike.
    – A lot of the development of our bike network in the last decade really has been about routes that don’t follow those “main streets” via the Neighborhood Greenway program. Pre-Greenways there were some signed non-arterial routes but they didn’t really contribute much beyond wayfinding and often required you to cross or follow arterials in vehicular fashion without any extra support. From an outreach perspective Greenways brought in community organizers (at least in their initial form) and from an infrastructure perspective they put in the effort to make sure arterial crossings were actually feasible. The later “Healthy Streets” projects have gone farther in terms of car diversion.

    I think if we’re going to make Greenways better/safer it’s going to look more like the car-diversion of “Healthy Streets” and less like adding bike lanes to side streets. To be honest, I think bike lanes would make most Greenways less safe by channeling riders into either door zones or places with poor sight lines. There might be a small number of places in the Greenway network where bike lanes would be an appropriate solution (IIRC there’s a short stretch of bike lane along 1st Ave NW near 85th that seems reasonable; maybe something similar would work on 17th Ave NW approaching Market in either direction).

    1. I guess I should also say I’m pretty sympathetic to the idea of prioritizing transit reliability on arterials, maybe even to a greater degree than the original post is, and that’s as someone that bikes a lot. Almost all my riding is for practical trips and these days a pretty small portion of it is along arterials outside downtown. Transit moves a lot more people in Seattle than biking does. It’s hard to imagine a future where the opposite is true, and even harder to imagine a good future. Transit moves a lot of people in a lot of situations that biking can’t and won’t.

       I love biking and I’ll do it for many trips where the bus is faster because I love it. But on a day like today when I’m struggling to see through the fog and drizzle and the Reynaud’s syndrome is at painful levels even riding at low speed with waterproof mittens over insulated gloves and four layers over my whole upper body… I should have taken the nice warm bus. When I broke my arm a couple years ago and couldn’t bike for half a year the bus was there. When I’m tired and the only way to where I’m going is up a steep hill the bus is there. It’ll be there for more people than a bike is.

16. I do think that there is too much emphasis on “lanes” and not enough on “points” for both bikes and transit. I get concerned that the tacit assumption here is that.

    Adding a bicycle lane or transit lane maybe helps with safety but it does very little to change overall citywide travel behaviors. Why is that? I think it has to do with advocates looking at what benefits them personally but doesn’t change behavior.

    In the past 20 years, there have been widespread additions to the bike network and to a less extent the transit network. How has that reduced driving?

    I feel that in the coming decade, we need to move beyond pavement and to look to other elements of our modal systems. For bicyclists I see the need for these changes in priority :

    Bicycles:
    1. Safe, dry bicycle parking for both long term periods as well as very short term periods. Getting on a wet seat or not having a place to leave a bike except an unprotected bicycle rack are major deterrents.
    2. Expanded bicycle ownership opportunities. That could take the form of rebates for college or younger students or drawings with giveaway bicycles as prizes. Along with that comes ways to prevent bicycle vandalism or theft (where are the bicycle parking cams?)

    Transit:
    1. Improvements to accessing and waiting at stops. Poles are not enough. Sidewalks to waiting areas are basic. So is good lighting at the pedestrian — or bicycle — level (I feel that LED streetlights do this even more poorly than the earlier technologies used for streetlights). It’s also not only installing good lighting but monitoring placement away from tree canopies. A street light surrounded by a leafy tree is pretty useless. LA’s La Sombrita program may be derided but things like that do help the rider experience.
    2. Creating transit networks to serve shorter-distance non-work trips. Our current routing ends up focused on long routes (length makes reliability harder) and flat fares regardless of distance. Our bus frequencies contribute to people avoiding transit use after 7 at night.

    I’m sure there are other things to improve the travel experience as well. And surely new programs run the risk of failure. But the primary focus on adding lanes seems increasingly ineffective if the other components of a transportation system aren’t given better attention.

    1. I disagree what is the use of points when one can’t get there. Or for a more concrete example the fanciest bus station won’t get people to use it if the bus is unreliable and slow. Secondly, our rapid rides do already spend lots of money on bus stations.

       For bikes I’m not quite sure what point infrastructure would be better than protected bike lanes. Like bike theft is a problem for all cities I doubt Seattle will find a magical solution better.

       1. I agree in general, but I can see Al’s point as well.

          I would bet that a very high percentage of the biking in the city is via the major, relatively safe corridors. The end destination may be crap. You may have to leave your bike in the rain. You may have to worry about theft. But it pales in comparison to a bad bike ride. I would say the biggest issue is whether most of your trip is safe and (relatively) level. Even the second is less of an issue as people use electric bikes. But the first is essential for a high proportion of riders.

          Anecdotally, I used to bike quite fast and aggressively, back in my youth. I would sprint up hills and bomb down them. Something like the current Lake City wouldn’t scare me in the least. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve moved towards the other extreme. The only time I’ve commuted by bike was via the Burke Gilman. Even then, it was a hybrid commute. I took the bus to the UW, then biked from there to Fremont. Over 90% of the trip was on the Burke Gilman, which made the other parts (getting to and from the bikeway) almost meaningless.

          But this does give some credence to Al’s point. I didn’t bike from home. I was lucky, as my wife had a bike locker I used. Maybe if there were more bike lockers, more people use it. There is certainly a lot more the city could do to improve things in that manner (such as having a decent bikeshare system, like Portland).

          But without the Burke (or similar roads) it is a moot point. Folks like me will just avoid the trip entirely. We would just transfer to the 31/32.

          The most important thing is to have a bike network that is really safe. Otherwise, it falls apart. Put it this way: I frequently go from my house in Pinehurst to Broadview. There is really only one good way to do that, and that is to drive. The walk is really bad, and the biking is worse. A transit trip is not much faster than walking (about 35 minutes, if you time it right). If they add bike lanes on 130th, I’m not sure I will ride them. If they add bike lanes on 128th (and a crossing of Aurora there) I know I will. I’ll figure out how to lock up my bike later.

       2. WL: my comment is directed at City of Seattle actions. Not the region. Not Metro or ST either.

          I’m trying to point out how Seattle government tends to think only about changing pavement for these other modes. The City has spent lots of money and energy adding transit lanes and bicycle lanes these past 20+ years. Many obvious lane conversion improvements have been around long enough to have start affecting behavior but it’s not working. Sure there are incomplete segments but the big connections exist. Still, I don’t see that behavior will change by just changing the function of lanes.

          It’s akin to how ST3 won’t have the ridership or travel time benefit that Sound Moves or ST2 has had. And if we don’t see a major behavioral shift by now, continuing only looking at expanding the same thing doesn’t bode well.

          Consider that a bicycle lane does no good if someone doesn’t have a bicycle or bicycle sharing app. Or a bus lane does no good if there are no buses on it or if riders find the lane scary or difficult to reach.

          I’m basically saying that lanes are not enough, and that I see that we need to focus more on other things. If you want to disagree and say that lanes are enough, go ahead. But as our past 20 years are showing us, it’s not impacting the general population’s travel by very much.

       3. @Al S

          > The City has spent lots of money and energy adding transit lanes and bicycle lanes these past 20+ years.

          > Improvements to accessing and waiting at stops. Poles are not enough. Sidewalks to waiting areas are basic. So is good lighting at the pedestrian — or bicycle — level (I feel that LED streetlights do this even more poorly than the earlier technologies used for streetlights). It’s also not only installing good lighting but monitoring placement away from tree canopies. A street light surrounded by a leafy tree is pretty useless.

          I guess I am a bit confused here, you do realize that a sizeable amount of the money when installing RapidRide’s is basically already doing what you list right? One can hardly decrease the amount of money allocated to bus lanes.

          I can’t find the Rapidride H detailed numbers at the moment but here’s Rapidride R one’s:

          90 million planned.

          * 18 million is for the bus stations,
          * 18 million for access to transit (sidewalks, pedestrian lights etc…)
          * 11 million pavement rehabilitation
          * 18 million communications (TSP)
          * 15 million trolley
          * 11 million for speed and reliability

          https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/metro/programs-projects/rapidride/r-line-corridor-planning-and-upgrade-report-executive-summary.pdf

          Out of the 90 million, like 34 million or a third of the budget is for exactly what you talk about. only 10million or 1/9th is actually for speed and reliability, I guess maybe 2/9ths if you count the transit signal priority. Part of the reason RapidRide’s cost so much to implement now is because we are spending a higher fraction of the transit money on items outside of transit lanes.

          Even for rapidride J https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2023/10/26/rapidride-j-line-design-complete/
          The 15,130 feet of repaired sidewalks might not sound like a lot 2.8 ish miles but that’s probably still at least 10 million dollars of the budget right there.

       4. Woo hoo! Several new modernized transit stops! Yeah that’s somewhat related to what I’m talking about!

          But let’s face it. $18M for stops is not a huge investment. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to Move Seattle as a whole, which is mainly loaded with funding for a multitude of linear improvements.

          As far as money for sidewalks on Rainier or Delridge, weren’t the sidewalks already there? If so, it’s just maintaining the current sidewalk network. And the sidewalk investments appear to be linear along these streets and not adding new pedestrian connections to these streets.

          More importantly, the only way that point improvements are getting made generally is if they supplement a larger linear “RapidRide” labeling strategy. Rainier RapidRide is still on hold, while many heavily-used stops still feature nothing more than a pole and often (but not always) a decades-old narrow bus shelter often with missing glass today — and sometimes a small arrival sign that is now a decade old.

          Consider that SDOT recently created the bus lane on several segments of Rainier without needing the RapidRide label — but left the adjacent stops alone (bureaucratically waiting for RapidRide status). That’s a pretty clear illustration of institutionally focusing more on linear rather than point projects. It’s clearly a “lanes now; stops later” principle at work to me.

       5. They moved forwarded with some partial lanes because it’s pretty cheap to paint for now.

          Also they did improve the sidewalk and intersections

          https://www.seattle.gov/visionzero/projects/rainier-ave-s

          > That’s a pretty clear illustration of institutionally focusing more on linear rather than point projects. It’s clearly a “lanes now; stops later” principle at work to me.

          The 23rd avenue improvement project literally only improved the sidewalks and road, no bus lanes were added (I guess besides outside of the Montclair triangle)

          Large portions of the rapidride h budget was rebuilding the sidewalks as well.

          I’m not exactly sure what is your goal here? Block bus lanes contingent on sidewalk improvements? Or lower the percentage of transit money spent on speed and reliability below 10%?

          > $18M for stops is not a huge investment. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to Move Seattle as a whole

          This is for one project, most of the other rapid rides spent that much money as well. Move seattle does not have infinite budget either.

17. I was wondering what y’all thought about alternative implementation of bike lanes + transit lanes that can squeeze in or if they aren’t worth it versus both way protected one way bike lanes. (I think we’ve talked most of the topics about the priority of busses vs bike items already)

    Most of these avenue’s we’re discussing are around 5 lanes, 50ish feet.
    (I did an informal survey on google maps, Dearborn 60 feet, Boren 45 feet, Broadway E 50 feet, Fremont 52 feet, Greenwood 54 feet, Eastlake 50~feet)

    Currently some are: 2 way travel lane south, 1 center lane, 2 way travel lane north Or alternatively with outside lanes being parking. If really narrow some don’t have the center lane.

    Some alternatives:
    * Two-way cycle track on oneside, if one has the 1 travel lane south, 1 center lane 1 travel lane north, there left over for a parking/BAT lane. Kinda squeezes slightly more space by removing the second buffer zone, but also can be dangerous for the biker going the contraflow direction.
    * can be somewhat mitigated with expensive traffic signal reconfiguration
    * another alternative is an expensive sidewalk reconfiguration raising cycle track onto sidewalk (near amazon spheres and leary ave suggested)
    * One-way protected bike lane (uphill) and then “conventional” bike lane in other direction. Or diversion to greenway. This is kinda what rapidride H did. I guess it depends on car traffic in this case.

    Another complication I see sometimes is whether to use the BAT lane as the “designated” bike lane. For example in the suggested greenwood ave / 80th. This can be highly complicated if it’s a good idea or not depending on the amount of bus traffic frequency, and/or right turning car traffic.

    * intersection-only BAT lane as “bike lane” (not rainier ave, I’ll discuss later) but like proposed fremont ave where it has a south BAT lane, south general lane, two north bound general lanes, and then a north PBL. Ne 130th kinda had a compromise like that as well.
    * it can be kinda alright with “low” ish bus frequency since it’s basically a very wide buffered bike lane. But on the other if there’s lots of right turning cars kinda defeats the purpose.

    https://route40.infocommunity.org/fremont-neighborhood/
    https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transportation-planning/ne-130th-and-125th-mobility-and-safety-project

    * Then there’s just bikers using BAT lanes. For a smaller example of this would be Alaskan street at the junction https://maps.app.goo.gl/Tw9JCxvWdyZQ9qni9 there’s some partial westbound bike lanes but the rest are using the BAT lanes. I honestly haven’t used this specific intersection so don’t know how well it works to bike on. Rainier Avenue is kinda okayish on the southern portions of it where the road is not 5 general lanes of traffic and just 1 general lane in each direction.

    Anyways I’ll just post this for now before I ramble on more.

    1. Mixing BAT lanes with bikes sounds unsafe for bikes and would slow down buses. Bikes would have to worry about a full-speed bus barreling down the lane. Buses would have to veer into the second lane to pass the bike, potentially slowing down to wait for a break in traffic, or they may have to crawl behind the bike for several blocks.

    2. I think in general shared bike/bus lanes should be avoided. It’s dangerous for bikes and slows down busses. The proposed one on Fremont between 34th/35th is fine though; there’s no where else to put a bike lane, it’s very short, it’s downhill, and traffic there is already slow

       I’d like to see the northbound PBL extended up to woodland park area (it’s a very steep climb) but that would need to be a separate project

       1. Right, one block is no big deal. I’m thinking of proper BAT lanes that go on for a mile or more.

    3. Going through busy business districts and residential areas, buses SHOULD be slowed down.

       I know that’s probably an unpopular idea here, but top speed should be 15 or 20. Top speed is only a minor issue regarding actual transit time, where signal priority, dedicated lanes and boarding streamlining make the most difference.

       1. > I know that’s probably an unpopular idea here, but top speed should be 15 or 20

          Besides Aurora with Rapidride E and 15th Ave W with Rapidride D the seattle busses generally aren’t going that fast already? The default speed limit in seattle arterials is ‘technically’ 25 mph (though I doubt many adhere to it)

          The average overall speed is already much lower since they stop at bus stops frequently (like 10~15 mph)

       2. @Cam,

          It’s interesting that you bring this up, because over the last few days I’ve noticed at least 2 buses that seemed to be going way to fast for the roadway they were operating on. I assume they were going the speed limit, but it still struck me as too fast.

          I assume the influence of bus speed on safety really depends on the roadway and the built environment of the individual route, but I think it would be at least worthy of a study to understand the trade offs.

          As Seattle continues its “go for zero” push, that safety concept should at least consider the impact of buses and bus speed on safety.

       3. That’s a lot of mass, and not great sightlines, especially when making turns through busy business districts. Yeah, in order to have any hope of achieving vision zero, everything needs to be slowed down. That includes buses.

          I recall stepping over a blood stain in a crosswalk when I lived in Fremont, and learned later than it was a bus turning onto Fremont Ave from 35th right into the setting sun, that squashed an elderly woman dead.

          Bus drivers are professionals, but they are also human, and prone to human errors.

18. Wow. lots of comments here. Apologies if someone already made this point.

    I do not support adding a painted bike lane on North Fremont. I do agree with it being a designated bike corridor, which it sounds like it already is (i don’t get up there too often)

    Having a bike lane is not necessary if something is a designated bike corridor. If you have a quiet residential road with parking on both sides, where bikes are clearly favored and cars are discouraged, I don’t think adding paint to the road is needed to make it more bike-friendly. As there is really only one car’s worth of space on the road already, I assume that in order to make room for bike lanes, you’d favor removing parking from one side? I think that would be superfluous, and would just make enemies in the car-dependent community where it’s not needed.

    Signage, bike priority at intersections, and a nice narrow road that cars can’t / don’t drive fast on should be enough. Maybe add in some speed humps here and there to make it even more unpleasant for cars? If it’s not there already, I would favor adding signage that encourages car drivers to seek another avenue for their commutes (“local traffic only”, etc.) It feels like removing parking for a bike lane would create more problems than it solves.

    I think this is something that Vancouver has done well. They have several bike corridors that are clearly bike-favored, and have stuff like easy access signal buttons for crossing major intersections, but those bike corridors don’t have bike lanes painted on the road.

    1. Much better than speed bumps are physically required right turns every couple of blocks. That’s as simple as a “median strip” that runs down the middle of the street crossing the bike corridor that extends past the curbs on both sides with a six-foot slot in the middle to let the bikes go straight. If you do this every two blocks, people living along the street can go in the “left” direction by using the street between the two treated intersections.

       And maybe every two blocks isn’t essential; every four might work, too. Just make sure that the street doesn’t become a mini-arterial because of the preference given it over the crossing streets.

       A foot wide “median” strip thirty feet long can’t cost very much, though making it aesthetic might.

       1. At what point does forced right turns contradict the benefits of a street grid? Cars have to turn, turn, turn, or remember where the forced turns are to avoid them. Isn’t that like creating cul-de-sacs, which are supposed to be evil? If it’s most efficient for buses and bikes to only have to make one turn maximum (one avenue and one street), isn’t it the same for cars too?

       2. One big concern is getting fire trucks down the street. They may have a hard time making a right turn on a narrow residential street.

       3. > Isn’t that like creating cul-de-sacs, which are supposed to be evil?

          The problem with cul-de-sacs is that they also banned pedestrians and bikes from going down that path.

       4. Anyways I think speed bumps would work as well, if diverters aren’t desired.

       5. Al’s point about fire trucks is certainly an important one to consider. So I went a looked more closely.

          And found that Fremont is already a Greenway with squished roundabouts from 65th all the way up to 85th with the exception of 80th (of course) and 81st for some reason. The “squishing” means that cars aren’t slowe a lot so I think that at least two of those “forced right turn” extensions should be added, probably at the “divisible by five” streets.

          In any case it’s already fairly well-calmed already, so any big remediation should happen north of 85th up to 92nd or if City Light would agree, 90th. Unfortunately, Fremont north of 85th is a neighborhood arterial, replacing Linden, so barriers won’t do. Fortunately, there are almost no full cross-streets in that stretch. If there’s a place to put speed bumps, that’s it.

          Also, if the leg can be made amenable, an intersection monitoring camera is appropriate there to enforce the “don’t go straight” sign for “through” traffic on Fremont.

          North of 90th or 92nd the alleyway / City Light right of way between Fremont and Evanston should be paved up to 101st, wiggle to go between the pea patch and private properties (it’s wide enough) then run along the east side of Evanston to 105th. Add a light co-ordinated with the one at Fremont to get across 105th. There is a large City Light substation north of 110th with an alley that was the Interurban trackway west of it. That could be used as a bikeway to get to the north side of the substation where the Interurban Train begins.

          That means the only place that would require a real "taking" is between 92nd (or 90th) and 85th. Since there's a park in the block north of 87th, the City can underground the transmission line for its half of the block to 90th and put the bikeway between the (moved slightly) sidewalk and the street. That leaves the single block between 85th and 87th where bikes would have to ride in semi-arterial mixed traffic. That's not too bad.

          [Ed: Fixed italics.]

       6. @Mike Orr, Al S.: I think there’s a question of balance for stuff like that. We generally want cars (and fire trucks) using arterials for most of their trip because that’s where there’s infrastructure that allows them to operate efficiently and safely. That’s especially true if we’re going to put major bike routes on side streets, as in the Greenways program. We build some infrastructure on these streets that we might not otherwise put there to make the bike route work — in the case of Fremont Ave this includes traffic signals at 80th, 85th, and 105th, and stop signs facing cross-streets. These things also make the street a favorable route for cars, which would degrade it as a bike route (an example where this really happens is 17th Ave NW near Market Street in Ballard — that’s a more complicated situation and I’m talking Greenways 101 here), so it makes sense to break up through-travel for cars specifically with diverters. How much? That’s where the balance comes in.

          There’s a lot of recent history around the Fremont Ave Greenway and the Interurban Route that seems to have been missed in this discussion (it’s easy to miss if you don’t use the route regularly). To start with, the official Greenway route isn’t defined by mini-roundabouts, it’s defined by actual Greenway signage and mostly characterized by stop-sign priority over cross-streets. It doesn’t extend down to 65th, only from 77th to 110th. The Interurban Route officially is on Greenwood Ave (the arterial) south of 77th (I’ll save my editorializing on the Interurban Route for another day).

          This part of the Interurban Route (the trail north of 110th, the side-street route from 77th to 110th, and the traffic signals at 80th, 85th, and 105th) predates the Greenway program. One of the big problems with this route in its pre-Greenway days had to do with cross-traffic. This was a big through-route for people biking (if we’re being honest, some cyclists weren’t being as cautious as we should have been at uncontrolled side-street intersections). At the same time N 90th in particular was basically an informal arterial for cars, and people routinely took it pretty fast, as if they had priority over cross-traffic (they definitely weren’t being as cautious as they should have been). This created a pretty dangerous situation at Fremont/90th in particular. The Greenway program made a few really important changes. First, adding stop-sign priority for the Greenway route. Second, beefing up the mini-roundabouts along 90th — they had previously been really cut down to allow through-traffic to go faster, now they’re more of an obstacle. Third, SDOT went farther to break-up the informal arterial on 90th by putting diverters in… but not on the Greenway route itself, instead on Dayton and Linden Avenues. Some bikey people were skeptical of this at the time and preferred diversion on Fremont Ave itself, but I think it’s been really effective.

          I’m sure some people that used 90th as a through-route before are annoyed by this. And there are probably people that are new to the area that look at the diverters and wonder what they’re doing there — it’s never even occurred to them that 90th would be a big cut-through street. But I’m confident if we put all the infrastructure back like it was the usage of 90th would come right back in a few years. I think the tradeoff has been worth it… that’s coming from my own perspective, of course, but the truth is that the number of people bombing down 90th was really pretty small in proportion to the amount of danger they caused. Now they’re either using arterials, which have easily absorbed them, or picking across the side-streets more cautiously.

       7. @Al — For some reason drivers often assume that if a street is a multiple of five, it is an arterial. To be fair, part of 90th is an arterial. 92nd crosses the freeway (avoiding freeway traffic) but doesn’t go through. Drivers dogleg to 90th until it intersects Aurora. A sign stating it is a residential street from here on (https://maps.app.goo.gl/x3b37YGZ1kKUHw2v8) just doesn’t cut it. Diverters are far more effective (https://maps.app.goo.gl/dtaaq5L5uFMG2UVZA). The other factor with 90th is that it is straight across, from Meridian to Holman Road. Without that diverter, it is a straight shot. With the diverter, drivers have to make various doglegs to go across, discouraging drivers from going on the residential streets in the first place.

          There is a similar situation up north. 115th is an arterial from 35th NE to Lake City Way. At Lake City Way and 115th there is a traffic light. Thus drivers often continue on 115th and treat it as an arterial. There are islands to slow people down, but diverters would be far more effective.

       8. At what point does forced right turns contradict the benefits of a street grid? Cars have to turn, turn, turn, or remember where the forced turns are to avoid them. Isn’t that like creating cul-de-sacs, which are supposed to be evil?

          Cul-de-sacs aren’t inherently evil. The only major flaw in them is they don’t allow pedestrian or bike access. Assuming you aren’t going to run buses on them, they are fine, if not close to ideal. It is the other problems (e. g. homogeneity of use) that are bigger issues. The idea of cul-de-sacs surrounded by arterials is quite similar to “Superblocks”, which tend to be applied in urban areas.

          If it’s most efficient for buses and bikes to only have to make one turn maximum (one avenue and one street), isn’t it the same for cars too?

          Right, but in the long run it is better if driving is less effecient, even for drivers. You have to have good alternatives (biking, walking and transit) but once you do that, the less direct the driving path, the better. To quote a section of this video . To quote some of the video:

          There’s no solution to traffic congestion except viable alternatives to driving and most dutch cities have viable alternatives to driving for many trips which reduces the number of cars on the road. In many dutch cities taking a bicycle is often the fastest way to get somewhere because cyclists can usually take the shortest and most direct route while drivers need to take the long way around. You might think that this is bad for drivers but it’s not because if cycling wasn’t faster many of these people would be in cars and the streets would be so clogged with traffic that the direct route would be even slower than the indirect route is today. In fact this was the case in Amsterdam in the 1970s. It may seem counter-intuitive but designing to prioritize walking cycling and public transit actually works out better for drivers and unsurprisingly the dutch cities that are the most car centric also have the worst traffic.

       9. Having a bike lane is not necessary if something is a designated bike corridor.

          Ha, that’s hilarious. That reminds me of sharrows. Just paint something on the ground, and drivers will automatically drive safer. It didn’t work: https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/we-were-wrong-about-sharrows. The idea that a Greenways sign is going to somehow make people drive slowly down a residential street is nonsense.

          By the way, Greenways are often misunderstood. They are basically a designation with no expectation. It is a street where the city has basically said “We will try and make this a better place to walk or ride a bike, but no promises — money is tight”. There is nothing wrong with this concept. It makes sense to focus on particular streets. But Greenways vary quite a bit as a result.

          Keep in mind, the bike community routinely complains about the existing bike lanes, because they lack adequate protections. The plastic barriers have been broken off. Think about that for a second. A hard post, smashed to bits by a car. That is some really bad driving. Do you really think that kind of driving is limited to the arterials? Do you really think people put little green plastic kids holding flags or “Twenty is Plenty” signs on their lawns for the hell of it? Of course not. They are trying to get drivers to slow down. This sort of thing happens on plenty of Greenways as well as other residential streets. Of course people drive to fast on the arterials, but they also drive to fast on the residential streets as well.

          The main reason that folks object to bike paths on residential streets is because they aren’t used to them. But the same thing was true with the first bike paths. Drivers don’t want to be inconvenienced. Tough. By the way, it is actually quite common for people to have to park on one side of the road. It isn’t the end of the world.

          The idea that something is “safe enough” is reminiscent of plastic posts on major arterials and Greenways. Sorry, no. All other things being equal, it is safer to bike on a residential street, rather than an arterial. Same goes for riding in bike lanes or outside them. Combining both would be even safer.

          We need to get rid of the assumption that bike lanes should be on arterials — especially arterials that conflict with buses. In some cases that is inevitable, but whenever possible it should be avoided.

          Consider what bike advocates are saying in Portland:

          
          “We propose something new, that could be the ‘next generation’ of infrastructure, that would be more attractive in a low-density city like Portland to the large ‘interested but concerned’ crowd that may be driving more,” Raggett shared. And Hodge added, “Most people in the ‘interested but concerned’ category might not be aware of the greenways, or if they were, they might have a hard time finding and navigating them due to the lack of intuitive wayfinding tools.”

          The network would create a backbone of residential streets with separated cycling facilities on them. Imagine the best elements of a multi-use path, mixed with the convenience and proximity to destinations of neighborhood greenways.

          I can definitely imagine it, for both Portland and Seattle.

       10. Anyways I think speed bumps would work as well, if diverters aren’t desired.

           Speed bumps don’t work. It is quite common to see people go really fast, then slow down, right before the bumps. Or they just cruise right over them. This is 117th, a designated Greenway. The street view is a bit out of date, they added speed bumps. You might be able to pick them out from the air: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7EiK9LeZBeB22H9t5. I happen to walk this street quite often, as I have relatives that live around there. People still drive way too fast on the street. The signs didn’t slow them down. The speed bumps didn’t do much. Diverters would be far more effective.

           One big concern is getting fire trucks down the street. They may have a hard time making a right turn on a narrow residential street.

           We’ve had diverters for a long time. Basically the fire trucks either make the turn (up and over the curb) or find a different way to get there. That is the key. You can still get there — you just can’t go through. You go around (https://maps.app.goo.gl/htetKAcaC3hGTFBu8). If it really was an area that we want to block off for cars, but not emergency vehicles, retractable bollards are the answer. In this case though, that is overkill. By just about every angle you can access that street easily. It is only if you want to go straight across that it is a problem (which is the only approach we want to prevent).

           If anything, the big problem in terms of safety is congestion on the main streets. 85th is often full of cars. The answer there is not bike lanes, but BAT lanes. Put BAT lanes on both sides of the street and emergency vehicles can go through there much faster than if they tried to weave through the residential streets.

       11. > Speed bumps don’t work. It is quite common to see people go really fast, then slow down, right before the bumps

           They still enforce people to slow down. I find it actually funny (not specifically by you) but that a lot of the speed bumps people saying “it doesn’t work” are just car drivers not wanting speed bumps to be installed.

           I mean for example on lake washington car access proponents don’t want speed bumps installed — it’s not because they don’t work. Or one can install like 5 of them.

           Also if one is traveling at 40 mph then encounters a 20 mph speed bump spaced out it’s quite a lot to have to speed up again and slow down again.

           Lastly we can just check data, just doing a cursory search it’s proven to quite significantly lower accident rates.

           > Speed Humps. Generally located on residential streets or other low-speed roads, these raised pavement structures force motorists to slow down to a safe speed. Studies show speed humps can be effective at reducing speeds by nearly 10 mph.

           https://highways.dot.gov/safety/speed-management/speed-management-countermeasures-more-just-speed-humps

           Not to say there aren’t alternatives to speed bumps/humps but I’ve never seen any solid evidence saying they don’t work besides anecdotes.

19. > For example, consider Fremont Avenue in the north end of Seattle. At North 110th Street it connects to the Interurban Trail — a major bike route that extends all the way to Everett. From 110th to 77th, Fremont Avenue is a Greenway.

    Was browsing around interurbans for a bit and, I’m not quite sure why I didn’t realize this yet (was it obvious to others?) that the reason why we’re trying to put the busses and the bikes on the same corridor on Greenwood ave here is because this is where the Seattle-Everett Interurban Railway used to run and where they set the “street trail”. It’s also why Seattle wanted to add that northbound fremont ave protected bike lane. To put the bike lanes elsewhere is really to move where Seattle has designated as an “Interurban Route”.

    I was always kind of wondering why the “designed bike path” kind of zigzagged from fremont to greenwood, I thought it was because the park was there, or some bus priority but didn’t quite realize that is the route the interurban path took. Though anyways idk if it changes my opinion about the bus/bikes on the corridor either way, since while it is nice the bike follows the interurban route, well the interurban route being replaced by busses seems just as natural.

    https://snohomishcountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9686/Seattle-to-Everett-Map-Then-and-Now
    https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/BikeProgram/SeattleTrailsUpgrade_Fact%20Sheet.pdf#page=2

    https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/26b4c16e5df04456a588454b2b5bc0ee/page/Trails/?data_id=dataSource_16-1887db25965-layer-33-1887db25a2c-layer-38%3A32 (shows all king county bike trails)

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