Following on the heels of the completion, earlier this year, of the bike path along East Green Lake Way, the city is now making plans to finish this “outer loop” by adding a path along the west side of the lake. The vision is for separated lanes for walking and biking to be added to Aurora Avenue and West Green Lake Way. While funds have been allocated for the planning phase of this project, money for the actual construction has yet to be identified.
The Plan
The multi-use path around Green Lake immediately near the water (the “inner loop”) is, to say the least, heavily used. This has pushed the city to construct an outer loop, utilizing existing roadways, to offload some of the traffic from the inner loop. SDOT is still in the early stages of planning and citizen engagement, so a final design is far from determined at this point. Still, SDOT has a number of proposals up for discussion. Complete details are here, but a synopsis is below.
Bicyclists and other users traveling clockwise around Green Lake on the outer loop can currently head southbound in the separated bike lanes on East Green Lake Way then turn northbound (at the Pitch and Putt) onto West Green Lake Way on a short segment of separated path. SDOT plans to extend this path up the existing onramp to Aurora Avenue where cement barriers would keep cars and bikes apart (see illustration).
The outer loop would continue onto West Green Lake Drive to ultimately meet up with the existing path at the junction with East Green Lake Drive near Dukes, the wading pool, etc. SDOT is considering three options for what this segment would look like. All options call for two lanes of multi-use path either side-by-side on the lakeside of the roadway or with one lane on each side. Space would be made for the path by removing parking or a vehicle travel lane.
The Timeline
- Winter 2022: Collect traffic data, conduct traffic analysis, continue engagement, including participating in existing community group meetings; consider funding sources
- Winter/Spring 2022: Aurora Ave N Corridor Design Study Launches
- Spring 2022: Review community engagement feedback and traffic analysis results, work with WSDOT, draft a design
- Spring 2022: Community engagement to share proposed design and get additional feedback
- Summer/Fall 2022: Construction could begin as early as mid-2022
Citizen Feedback
While SDOT is still in the early stages of citizen engagement, the first opportunity to provide input has already happened. On November 9, SDOT held what it termed an “open house” to explain their plans and solicit comments.
Some residents understandably expressed concerns over loss of parking which they use to access the park. Others noted possible traffic snarls that could result from removing a travel lane. Many, of course, were supportive of completing the loop while others seemed to feel that existing infrastructure is sufficient to meet needs.
You can download SDOT’s two-page summary of the meeting here.
Who’s going to maintain this bike lane?
Is it going to be better than the recently added 2-way lane on West Greenlake? For me, that’s substantially worse than simply riding on the side of the road like we used to. There’s piles of wet leaves. There are pedestrians, and the path isn’t big enough to accommodate both uses; nor is it big enough to handle a lot of bicycle traffic, since bicycles travel at a wide range of speeds (relevant only if there’s a lot of traffic, which is unlikely.) To go from Linden to Stone Way, even if the trail isn’t covered in leaves and is 100% ridable, I have to cross over 2 lanes of motor vehicle traffic a couple of times.
Compared to the proposed route, we seem to me to be better served by the existing bicycle route via Linden.
The same people who maintain bike lanes now: nobody.
thank you. Next up– on streets which run north and south.. pedestrians must be on east side of street when going north and west side of street when going south. On streets which goeast and west.. people going west must be on north side of street and if going east must be on south side of street. For all streets going on an angle or a circle always walk on the sidewalk which has your right hand closest to lawn or building.
The cycle-track is worlds safer than what was available before, especially northbound. I can’t even count the number of times I was almost doored, hit by a driver in a parked car not checking the bike lane before veering into the driving lane, hit by a driver wanting to make a right turn across the bike lane without looking (especially at 65th), or hit by a driver wanting to make a left turn across traffic without checking the bike lane (especially at Stroud).
The south end of the cycle-track isn’t perfect (I would have preferred an all-way walk at the 5-way intersection at 50th/Stone/Green Lake) but I’ll take it given the other improvements.
We’re kind of talking about different things. You’re apparently talking about the path around East Green Lake Way N, which I think is reasonably successful.
The one on West Green Lake Way N is a turkey.
I’ll add Green Lake Way N to that (the stretch that might as well be called Stone Way, south of the lake), because behind-parking lanes like that are hazardous, as documented by a 2014 NITC report that looked at a couple in Chicago.
Whatever shakes out of this, having lanes that share both bike and foot traffic gives me pause. I’ve nearly had an arm taken off a couple times on the inner loop and along the Burke-Gilman by bikers. I’ve also seen moronic pedestrians walking in the bike-designated lane of the inner loop and get all indignant that they got a polite bell ding. Best to keep the two well apart since it’s so hard for people to behave.