I was out of town when WSDOT cut the ribbon on the walk/bike bridge over SR 520 in Montlake earlier this month. Luckily, Best Side Cycling was there to capture it all.

It’s always cool to see how many people show up even when it is pouring rain. But it stopped long enough to get some cool drone shots.

The new trail bridge connects to a new bike route nexus where the 520 Bridge Trail and the Bill Dawson Trail to Montlake Playfield meet up with the Shelby/Hamlin connection to the Montlake Bridge. The parts that are connected work great, and the new bridge makes navigating the area much easier for many trips after years of ever-changing construction detours.

Enjoy the Bill Dawson Trail connection while you can, however, because it is due to close in the spring as crews begin work on the next major phase of the 520 project across Portage Bay.

However, there are two major complaints I have been seeing consistently:

No more Bill Dawson Trail on the west side of Montlake Boulevard

For NOAA workers and anyone else with easy access to the west sidewalk of Montlake Boulevard, the removal of the old connection to the Bill Dawson Trail forces them to now cross the widened boulevard only to then pass under the Boulevard again using the new trail tunnel. The east-side access point is a huge upgrade for most users, but it is a clear downgrade for some. I was a bit surprised myself that there was no connection from the west side of the street. The boulevard is not only very wide, but there are also several missing crosswalks that leave a gap from Hamlin Street to Lake Washington Boulevard where people cannot cross.

The south terminus is not good enough

The new bridge is glorious for crossing the freeway, but it doesn’t actually connect to the Arboretum. Instead, it ends at a flashing beacon crosswalk across Lake Washington Boulevard at E Roanoke Street. From there, people on bikes can catch the popular Lake Washington Loop bike route at 25th Ave E and then lake the old stone bridge at E Lynn Street to get to the Arboretum Trail (the west sidewalk on Lake Washington Boulevard also connects to paths leading to the stone bridge). This is fine though out-of-the-way route for those who know it, but there are going to be a lot of people who assume they will be able to take the new trail directly to the Arboretum since it gets so close. It is disappointing that with as long as this freeway project has taken, there is still very little movement on the project to develop the old construction staging site into a park as is the plan. The 22-acre North Entrance Project remains unfunded, so it’s going to be a long time before it is constructed. A trail was shown in the environmental review documents for the Montlake part of the SR 520 Bridge project, so this is a known issue.

Perhaps the city/state can at least build out a temporary trail in the meantime since planning for the full site has not even begun, and that process will likely take some time since there will be a lot of public interest in what will feel like an expansion (or reclaiming) of the beloved Arboretum. The park is not something that should be rushed because quality is more important than speed, but the trail connection is needed now.