If you plan on biking on Dexter Saturday, give yourself some extra time and be ready for a detour.
Workers will completely close Dexter between Aloha and Mercer starting 6 a.m. Saturday and lasting until 6 a.m. Sunday.
The street will also be closed nightly from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday through Thursday until mid-April.
There is no mention in outreach materials of any temporary bike lanes to help people biking on this major bike route get through the construction area. This seems like a great opportunity to build or test needed bike lanes on 9th Ave N between Aloha and Roy, which is a missing link between the Westlake parking lots and bike routes to downtown and South Lake Union.
Plans for the Westlake bikeway project include an improved connection to both 9th and Dexter, making the need for a complete and high quality bike connection on 9th even more needed:
Construction on the Westlake bikeway is scheduled to begin in September and be complete in early 2016. So just one more year…
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5 responses to “Alert: Dexter will be closed near Mercer all day Saturday and weekday nights”
Because of (a) the grade of Aloha between Dexter and 8th (b) the stupefying length of the signal cycle at Westlake/9th/Aloha (c) the tendency of drivers to get stuck in the middle of that enormous intersection and either block crosswalks or drive straight across them when the walk signal is active (d) heavy traffic, including lots of turns, on 9th Ave N…
… because of all these things, the best way to bike downtown from the Westlake parking lot is 8th/Roy/Dexter. To get to most of South Lake Union, it’s riding into the park and crossing Mercer somewhere east of Westlake. This will probably still be the case after the cycletrack is built. The connection to the 9th Ave bike lanes has enough distinct challenges, both necessary and self-imposed, that SDOT’s chances of getting it right approach zero.
Oof. What about the new green protected bike lane on Mercer that starts at Dexter heading west–will that be open by then? Is it open yet? I haven’t been by in a few days. Was planning to check on it on Friday because had planned no leading a Critical Lass ride along it on Saturday.
Don’t think it’s open yet.
Also the north sidewalk of Mercer is closed east of Dexter, which limits connections to the east end of the path.
FWIW, though there are lots of construction sites on these blocks, there are actually buildings with people living in them fronting a couple of them. They probably have to keep the sidewalks open all the time on the east side of Dexter between Aloha and Roy because of that. Hopefully they’ll keep the east-side temprorary sidewalk open between Mercer and Roy — if so, that provides a bike detour in a pinch. During Dexter closures south of Mercer they mostly kept sidewalks open and let people bike on them, so there’s reason for hope.
Update on Dexter sidewalks: tonight, at least, only the east sidewalk is open for the block from Mercer to Roy, then only the west sidewalk is open from Roy to Aloha. However, this might not be the full extent of closures, as only northbound Dexter was closed to traffic, and only from Roy to Aloha (the blocks where the east sidewalk was closed).
Now that the real closures are in effect, they appear to have closed both sides between Mercer and Roy. Puke.