Seattle Bike Blog

Seattle Parks announces 2024 Bicycle Weekends on Lake Washington Blvd.

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 7, 2024

After a brief moment of excitement when Seattle Parks announced what appeared to be an expanded schedule for Bicycle Weekends this summer, the department corrected itself and confirmed that they are repeating the reduced schedule from 2023. The events previously known as Bicycle Sunday will still be a great time as they have been since 1968, but it was a bummer to get good news only to have the city take it back. There is so much demand for more community time and space on this street!
Below is the updated announcement with the 2024 dates:
On scheduled weekends from May to September, a portion of Lake Washington Boulevard will be closed to motorized vehicles from 10 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday.

“Seattle Parks and Recreation invites everyone in the community to bike, jog or stroll along the boulevard between the Seward Park entrance and Mount Baker Park’s beach during these times and to opt outside for health, recreation and fun!” said AP Diaz, Superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation, “and ask that drivers be cautious of pedestrians and obey all signage during the closures.”  

Local access: People driving to homes along the boulevard because they live there, are visiting, or making deliveries are allowed from the nearest cross street. 

Parking lots are open and will be accessible from the nearest cross street (see parking details and map below). 

The 2024 event dates are:

Saturday, May 18 – Sunday, May 19 

Saturday, May 25 – Sunday, May 26

Saturday, June 15 – Sunday, June 16 

Saturday, June 22 – Sunday, June 23  

Saturday, July 13– Sunday, July 14 

Saturday, July 27 – Sunday, July 28 

Saturday, August 10 – Sunday, August 11 

Saturday, August 24– Sunday, August 25 

Saturday, August 31 – Sunday, Sept 1

Saturday, September 21– Sunday, September 22 
(more…)

tags: bicycle sunday, bicycle weekends, bicycle weekends 2024, parks and recreation

— Advertisement —
Biking on the high bridge to West Seattle

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 6, 2024

It’s been 30 years in the making, but people were finally allowed to bike on the upper West Seattle Bridge. For a few hours, anyway.
The 2024 Emerald City Ride on Sunday routes people south on the SR-99 viaduct through SoDo and then up onto the West Seattle Bridge, a limited access freeway typical reserved only for motor vehicles. Well, when it isn’t on the verge of falling into the Duwamish River that is. Luckily, it did not fall down while I and about 3,000 others were biking across it.
It was the first Emerald City Ride since 2019, and it was great to see one of Cascade Bicycle Club’s most exciting annual traditions return. The riders generally feature sections of major car infrastructure that are otherwise off-limits to biking, creating unique ways to experience the city and region. Past rides have used the I-5 Express Lanes, the old Alaskan Way Viaduct, the new SR-99 tunnel, the 520 Bridge and the old I-90 Express Lanes (before they were dedicated to light rail).
(more…)

tags: cascade bicycle club, emerald city bike ride, emerald city ride 2024, upper west seattle bridge, west seattle

— Advertisement —
Alert 5/4: Montlake Bridge will be closed 10am to 4pm for Yacht Club season opening + Where’s the Seattle Times editorial against this?!?

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 3, 2024

Promo image from the Seattle Yacht Club.
The Montlake Bridge will be held in the open-to-boats position for the Seattle Yacht Club’s annual boating season opening day celebration Saturday (May 4) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Depending on your destination, detouring to the University Bridge can be rough if you’ve never done it before. Boyer Avenue E is the only direct and reasonably flat option, but it does not have bike lanes and is extra busy when one of the two bridges is closed. If that is not appealing to you, I suggest detouring via Interlaken Blvd if possible. It is much slower and requires more climbing, but it is also a lot more pleasant. Alternatively, you can get between Montlake and Roanoke Park via E Lynn Street and Delmar Drive E, which still requires climbing but is shorter than the Interlaken route if you are using the 520 Trail.
What’s really odd is that I just checked the Seattle Times editorial page, and they must have somehow forgotten to write their screed against yet another case of the city and state “renting out a vital piece of public infrastructure to a special interest at a time when residents will be asked to debate transportation priorities and vote on a massive property tax proposal.”* The Seattle Yacht Club “is incorporated for the purpose of encouraging yachting and boating of all kinds, and the development of the recreational marine advantages of the Pacific Northwest,” and only boats registered with the club are allowed to participate. There is no meaningful difference between this boating event and Sunday’s Emerald City Ride on the West Seattle Bridge that had left the Editorial Board so aghast. The Yacht Club is even—cover your children’s ears—selling merchandise. For money.
Either the Editorial Board forgot to write another piece against this event or the Board’s March 26 editorial was a nonsense argument made in bad faith to encourage government action against a bicycling organization they don’t like. But surely our city’s premiere champions of free speech would never write something like that.
*(To be clear, I am not actually against Saturday’s boating season opening event, which is fun to watch every year. Special community events on public transportation facilities are great. While I wish there were a better bike detour, the joy and community-building that special events can provide are usually worth the temporary disruption to usual travel.)

tags: Bike Route Alert, seattle times editorial board, seattle yacht club

— Advertisement —
Amber Weilert to the Cascade lunch: ‘No mom can go through this again’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 2, 2024

Amber Weilert at the 2024 Cascade Bicycle Club Bike Everywhere Lunch.
When I saw Amber Weilert’s name on the speaker’s list for Cascade Bicycle Club’s Bike Everywhere Lunch Monday, I looked around at the large room full of people talking with old friends, networking, and glad-handing with local politicians and thought, A lot of these people don’t yet know who Amber is, and they don’t understand what’s coming.
When it was her turn to speak about the importance of safe streets work, she didn’t talk in hypotheticals or statistics. Instead, she talked about traveling to the event that morning, a trip that took her past the crosswalk on Pacific Ave S where her son Mikey was killed.
“He got his first bike when he was four, and he never got off it,” she told the silenced room. “He would have been part of this community.” Her 13-year-old son was biking in a crosswalk to get across the wide and fast Pacific Ave S (SR-7) in July 2022 when the person driving in one lane stopped to let him cross, but the person driving in the second lane did not, striking and killing him.
“He was one of those invisible people in a crosswalk,” Amber said. After the tragedy, Amber bravely took to the media to share her story and her pain in hopes she could influence governments to take action. One fairly immediate result was the inclusion of $3 million in state funding in the next state budget earmarked for safety improvements to SR-7.
That’s why Amber’s trip past Mikey’s crosswalk Tuesday morning was so horrifying. Someone had driven into a crosswalk sign, breaking it. “The flashing light, someone had hit it, and it’s down on the road,” she said through tears. “It’s down on the road so someone else can get hurt. The same crosswalk where my son died is unsafe again.” A few feet away is a sign reading, “Please Watch For Bicyclists. In Memory of Michael Weilert.” That sign had also been struck and was lying on the ground.
“We need safe roads, and we need them now. Michael has already died,” she told the room full of bicycling advocates and political leaders. “His friends use these crosswalks every day. […] No mom can go through this again.”
(more…)

tags: amber weilert, bike everywhere lunch 2024, bike everywhere month 2024, cascade bicycle club, michael weilert

— Advertisement —
Wilburton Station is destined to be a major bike/transit hub of the Eastside

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 30, 2024

Lots of people biked to Wilburton Station for the 2 Line opening celebration.
To celebrate Sound Transit’s 2 Line opening over the weekend, my kid and I biked across the 520 Bridge to a station that seems destined to play a special role in connecting biking and transit on Eastside. The newly-opened Wilburton Station is basically part of the EasTrail. The connection for trail users is seamless, easy and thoughtful. Planners clearly valued the synergy between the new light rail line and the under-construction trail. The result is a station that could be the 2 Line’s answer to UW Station on the 1 Line with its seamless connection to the Burke-Gilman Trail.
The way the 2 Line is designed, Wilburton Station is the only station with immediate access to the EasTrail, though Spring District Station is not too far. Access from the north of Wilburton Station is already in place, and a trail bridge over NE 8th Street is set to open in the coming months to connect to a short trail segment south of the station that ends at NE 4th Street.
The Wilburton Station area from the Move Redmond 2 Line station access map. Red lines=bike routes, blue lines=bus routes, black and white line=2 Line.
Trail users coming from Kirkland can continue on the trail past the giant colorful nails:
(more…)

tags: bellevue, eastrail, sound transit, wilburton station, wilburton trestle

— Advertisement —
RAMROD will happen in 2024, but in September instead of July

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

April 26, 2024

Concept map for a clockwise RAMROD route. Subject to change.
One of the most difficult one-day bike rides anywhere on earth just got a little more difficult. Riders will have two fewer hours of sunlight to complete their 150-mile ride around Mount Rainier this year. But I doubt riders will mind too much because after months of uncertainty, organizers announced this week that the iconic Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day (“RAMROD”) will happen in 2024.
After a couple months of butting heads with officials at Mount Rainier National Park and negotiating with the help of Rep. Kim Schrier, the Redmond Cycling Club announced this week that the ride is on for September 4, the Wednesday after Labor Day. This sets the ride date after the end of the park’s new timed entry program and peak visitor season, though it does introduce some new variables like late season weather and less daylight.
Due to the late start in getting the ride organized, they are not going to use their usual lottery system for doling out registrations this year. Instead, 2023 volunteers will have the chance to register first, then the remaining spots will be open on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration is “tentatively scheduled to open in May,” according to the club website.
Organizers and park officials are both considering the 2024 ride a “pilot program” to test both the later date and, for the first time, a clockwise route. The ride will be able to follow its traditional route via Stevens Canyon Road for the first time since 2019 (2020’s ride was cancelled, and road construction work forced unpopular detours in 2021, 2022 and 2023). Nobody seems ready to say this is the official plan for future years, but at least the event won’t miss a year for the second time in its 40 years of existence.
More details from the Redmond Cycling Club:
(more…)

tags: kim schrier, mount rainier, ramrod, ramrod 2024, redmond cycling club

— Advertisement —