One of the final things that safe cycling advocate Mike O’Brien did before exiting the Seattle City Council at the end of last year was to prioritize funding for a bike connection to the southeast quadrant of the city. The Move Seattle levy’s bicycle route program was set to run out of funds before adding that crucial connection, but the funds from the Mayor’s negotiated deal for the Mercer Megablock were allocated to fill the gap. On the council’s end, Councilmember O’Brien ensured that completing gaps in Southeast Seattle was codified by resolution.
This year, that work moves forward. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is moving forward with designs for a protected bike lane that will run the entirety of Beacon Avenue S in Beacon Hill, and with designs for a protected bike lane on Martin Luther King Jr Way S between the Judkins Park light rail station (set to open in 2023) and the Mount Baker light rail station. It is this MLK Way S bike lane that is the subject of a survey that SDOT is asking community members to complete by May 5th. SDOT plans to complete the connection by the time the new light rail station opens for service.
The 2014 bicycle master plan envisions a protected bike lane on MLK Jr Way S running all the way from E Union Street in the Central District south to the city’s limit. This segment, however, would start at S Judkins Street just north of I-90 and run to the intersection with Rainier Avenue S.
The primary connection to an existing bike facility will be to the Mountains-to-Sound (I-90) trail. This year SDOT will construct a protected bike lane between that trail and the S King Street “calmway” that connects to downtown’s north-south protected bike lane. The trail also almost completes the connection to the S Dearborn Street protected bike lanes.
North of S Judkins Street, SDOT’s official bike map indicates that there’s an existing paint-only bike lane running on MLK Way all the way to E Union Street, but it’s not evident to anyone who has tried to use this lane that it actually exist. It’s really just a slightly wider-than-normal parking lane. It’s not likely to get turned into a real bike facility for a long time.
