The Westlake bikeway lawsuit is over, and construction will begin soon on a two-way protected bike lane from the Fremont Bridge to Lake Union Park. If all goes according to schedule, the bikeway will open in the summer.

Mayor Ed Murray has once again brokered a deal to keep the project moving forward and out of the courts. A project that once appeared headed to the legal hell of the Ballard Missing Link is moving forward. It will be the first flat, direct and (hopefully) safe bike route between the city center and neighborhoods north of the Ship Canal.

But the settlement comes with a significant design change that will create a bikeway pinch point only eight feet wide, far below recommended standards and even further below best practices.

But first, some background

Already a popular bike route, the existing sprawling parking lot along the western edge of Lake Union does not work well for anyone. There is no clear route for people biking, so everyone chooses their own path. This makes walking, driving and biking in the area unpredictable and unnecessarily stressful. And, worse, people biking keep getting injured, often by people who pull out of a parking space into their paths.

The $3.6 million project is funded by a regional grant and local funds, but it encountered some fairly strong backlash from some businesses and residents along the lake. A group calling itself the Westlake Stakeholders sued to delay the entire citywide Bicycle Master Plan in late 2013, but later agreed to drop the suit on the condition that the city create a community design process. And they did. (more…)