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Shoreline plans some key bike connections in 2017, open house Tuesday

bpi_publicopenhouse_flyer-2The City of Shoreline is set to make significant connections in its piecemeal bike network next year, and you can get a look at the changes and weigh in at an open house 5 p.m. Tuesday at Shoreline City Hall, Room 301.

Seattle’s northern neighbor has a lot of challenges for biking, many caused by an inconsistent street grid cut off by two major highways and some serious hills. But it also has some major assets, including the Interurban Trail that connects the south end to the north end of the city limits.

But too many homes and destinations remain disconnected from this major bike route and from each other. So it is great that the city is looking to make some significant changes in 2017. Let’s hope they keep this momentum going in coming years, as well.


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More details from the open house flyer (PDF):

In 2008, the City of Shoreline completed the Interurban Trail that runs north and south through the City. While this provides a valuable connection for users traveling north/south through Shoreline, it is missing connections to local neighborhoods, parks, city amenities and schools. The Bike Plan Implementation project will complete the majority of the City of Shoreline’s adopted Bicycle System Plan and Wayfinding Program. The Bicycle Master Plan contained within the 2011 Shoreline Transportation Master Plan includes these routes. See map for route alignments.

The Bike Plan Implementation Project will include work in all regions of the City. This work includes:

Bike Lanes on:

  • Dayton Ave N between Westminster Wy N and Carlyle Hal Rd N.
  • 25th Ave NE between NE 150th Ave NE and NE 168th St.
  • 1st Ave NE between 185th St and N 193rd St
  • Fremont Ave N between Kings Garden Dr N and N 195th St

Sharrow Facilities on:

  • NE 195th St between 8th Ave NW and Fremont Ave N
  • 1st Ave NE between N 193rd St and N 195th St
  • 25th Ave NE between NE 168th St and NE 171st St

Signed Routes on:

  • N Innis Arden Wy, NW 167 St, Greenwood Ave N, Carlyle Hall Rd NW, NW 175th St, 14th Ave NW, Springdale Ct NW, NW 118th St, Ridgefield Rd NW NW, Innis Arden Dr NW, 15th Ave NW, N 193rd St, N 192nd St, N 149th St

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13 responses to “Shoreline plans some key bike connections in 2017, open house Tuesday”

  1. The Rest of the World

    It’s 2016, stop listing sharrows as key parts of your bike network.

    1. Clark in Vancouver

      They even have them as thicker lines than painted bike lanes on this map. They seem to be out of touch with current attitudes on these things.

  2. Gary

    A well signed route to connect up with the Burke Gillman trail please! I spent an hour wandering around without a map one time (pre GPS Phone) trying to get back down to it without riding on fast 4 lane road.

  3. owen

    Yeah, I live in Shoreline and the routes are joke. No actual connections, and those “signed routes” mean nothing and involve massive hills that dump you out on very unfriendly streets. Part of it is poor layout to begin with, but if Shoreline would actually put some effort in, grow a spine, and enact some road diets, the city might actually become tolerable to ride.

  4. Gary Yngve

    Looks like gummy worms randomly dropped on a map. Why no real east-west connections to Interurban? Why not BMUFL and “Change lanes to pass” on Richmond Beach Drive (it is 4 lanes and 25 mph iirc)?

    1. owen

      Richmond Beach Road is 4 lane, 35 mph and is the only true East West route from the Richmond Beach area to the Interurban and beyond. I live(d) at the bottom and it was by far the scariest and most harrowing part of my commute. Numerous close calls culminating in being hit from behind chugging uphill on my way to work in August. I asked Shoreline planners why they don’t do anything to help make this 4 lane highway safer and they replied “it’s too dangerous so we don’t want to encourage cycling on it.” Pedestrian and driver safety is also very low along RB road due mainly to high speeds and the width.

      1. Gary Yngve

        Ah, you’re right — the 25 mph signs around the curves are yellow advisory signs — only enforceable as a “too fast for conditions” or if there were a collision.
        Sorry that you got hit! Do you care to share the circumstances surrounding your collision? (lane position, relative speeds, hit from behind, insufficient lane change by car, weather, etc.?)
        My experiences there have been fair-weather weekends, e.g., https://youtu.be/kwSZjAZSWuM , not rush hours, when drivers are more aggro.
        They really should make RB Road more bikeable — it’s silly to force everyone to the big hills by Shoreline Community College or to a circuitous 195th St route.

  5. R

    It’s also silly to stop the routes through Innis Arden at Richmond Beach Rd. rather than running the signs up 20th on the Route through Woodway to Edmonds that everybody uses and is well signed once you cross the county line. A minute or two on the Strava Heatmap would show that is very popular with the lycra clad road bike crowd.

    The City of Lake Forest Park (known for anti-cycling sinage and police patrols on the BG Trail) put up route-finding signs to connect to the Interurban 2-3 years ago and as far as I know they still dump you in Shoreline where they haven’t signed the route. A few wayfinding signs isn’t a multi-year process like planning/building a complete network of protected bike lanes, no idea why Shoreline couldn’t go for the easy win with this.

    I’d really like to see more successful bike infrastructure projects a less planning to appear to care about bicycle infrastructure. If paint/signs are what is possible do paint/signs while planning something better.

    1. Gary Yngve

      Yeah, it feels like each of the cities (Seattle, LFP, Shoreline, Edmonds, Burien, Seatac, etc.) are not talking to each other regarding bike routes, and unincorporated KC doesn’t seem to be collaborating either. Just look how hard it is to get a county-wide map of bike routes.

  6. I’m way more positive on Shoreline than a lot of other people. They only incorporated in the ’90s, right? So they’ve basically inherited all their infrastructure and planning from the Bad Old Days. But they’ve done better with their stretches of 99 (considering coverage of non-terrible sidewalks and bus lanes) and the (north) Interurban than just about any other city (their situation is similar to late-incorporated parts of Seattle, where these things have been a struggle). They have made a few concrete steps toward BGT-Interurban connectors, and every I-5 crossing in town that isn’t a giant interchange is a decent bike street.

    East-west routes west of the Interurban are legitimately disappointing, though. 160th and 185th look like great road-diet candidates to me… or maybe 165th is the route. Hopefully with the work they’re doing on Dayton the Dayton/Carlyle Hall intersection can be cleaned up…

    1. Gary Yngve

      Yeah, it appears that a big oversight in the historical Shoreline road planning is that they made windy neighborhoods without car cutthroughs but they did not put in a sidewalk for peds/cyclists to cut through, e.g., near 15th Ave NW and 192nd St.
      Regarding the partial segments, my question for Shoreline is how do they intend to measure success. If they don’t make a common route’s worst part safer, will they increase ridership or decrease collisions or injuries? I don’t consider miles of bike lanes to be a useful metric.

  7. RossB

    I think the change on 25th is a really good one. It has been a while since I rode that area, but my recollection is that it is pretty much the only way to go north (not northeast) from Lake City. It is a fairly flat, quiet street that connects well with a bike route on the Seattle side. In contrast, 15th is a lot busier (and involves more ups and downs). Adding a bike lane is a great addition.

    Connecting from the north end of 15th (where it fades out) to 15th is pretty good as well. That’s where this breaks down in my opinion. There is no clear route from 175th and 15th to the Interurban. 175th looks terrible, and it is tough to do something about it (it is a major cross street that feeds the freeway). Someone who knows the area better than me can comment, but from what I can tell the best way to get to the Interurban is to head over on 175th for a very short distance to Serpentine Place, then follow that to 8th, head north then take a left on 185th.

    Which means it could really use a couple of small additions. Extend the bike lanes on 185th to the other side of the freeway (8th, if not 10th). It is a wide street and not a major throughway, so that doesn’t look that hard.

    The tough work would be to fix that little section on 175th, between 15th and 12th. Since it is fairly urban and a pretty good slope heading west, I think bikes would have no trouble keeping up with traffic there — all you really need is a reduced speed limit sign and some sharrows (I know sharrows aren’t great , but they are better than nothing, and the key is visibility here). Going uphill you need the bike lanes, along with a pedestrian signal on 12th. That might mean making the street wider, which is expensive, but it would tie together much of the north end (Lake City, North City and the Interurban).

  8. Thomas

    I attended the open house and was encouraged about the future of bicycle infrastructure in Shoreline beyond the projects to be implemented in 2017. Prior to this meeting my impression of the to be bicycle infrastructure in Shoreline was wayfinding signs and some sharrows along 40mph busy arterials and I would still be stuck biking through strip mall parking lots and narrow side walks. I was able to meet some of the team working and managing the projects (whom were mostly in their 20’s and 30’s) and the vibe I got was that they want to bring Shoreline out of the 60’s car age and make it a city that is pedestrian and bicycle friendly. A future BMP was shared that included road diets and separated bike paths which is currently not funded but gave me hope. According to the person I talked with, there is no funding for future projects unless a federal or state grant is awarded, however the team is actively pursing multiple grants to make these project happen. Looking forward to see how things come together, hopefully sooner than later.

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