Seattle’s “basic bike network” is planned as a figure-eight of protected bike lanes that take people into and through downtown.

City officials have committed to building big pieces of the network by the end of 2019. As designs for the missing pieces take shape, stakeholders still have some opportunities to influence what a connected network should look like. One challenge with bike lanes in general is that they tend to get built or painted one small segment at a time, according to Clara Cantor of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. She said this piecemeal approach can actually be dangerous. As the Basic Bike Network takes shape, she and other bike advocates are doing what they can to make sure the network actually works for cyclists and isn’t just a line on a map.

Credit: Seattle Neighborhood Greenways



To demonstrate why protected bike lanes are necessary, Cantor took me to Pine Street and Boren. Just up the hill on Pine Street, 20 percent of the road's total traffic are bikes, Cantor said. It’s not safe, as bikes may be “doored” when unsuspecting drivers open their doors into the lane, but at least the bike lane provides some safety, Cantor said. Then, where Pine Street crosses over the freeway, the bike lane suddenly ends. “It dumps people on bikes into this high volume intersection, with a lot of cars doing a lot of crazy things,” Cantor said.

Credit: KUOW Photo/Joshua McNichols

The street design doesn’t help much, either, because a few blocks down, when Pine Street becomes one way, a protected bike lane finally offers cyclists some safety as they enter downtown – but it’s on the other side of the street. Bike riders must weave through lanes of traffic to reach it. If there’s a better way, cyclists, businesses and neighbors hope to find it on Thursday evening, when they gather to plan bike-related upgrades to the Pike-Pine corridor. The corridor will become part of the city’s network of protected bike lanes in 2019, and there’s still time to influence the route and how it’s built. Cantor wants as many people to be involved in planning Pike-Pine, in part because of what’s happening at the south end of the Basic Bike Network.

Credit: KUOW Photo/Joshua McNichols