The new, wider trail connects most of the way from SW Andover Street to trail connections under the West Seattle Bridge that lead downtown, to Alki and down the Duwamish River. The changes also tightened up and raised a crossing at the low-traffic residential 23rd Ave SW.
West Seattle resident and West Seattle Greenways member Jake Vanderplas created a video showing the before-and-after:
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Before and after on the new Delridge/West Seattle Bridge bike path. Much improved – thanks @SeattleDOT! http://t.co/munrfYyXPP #SEAbikes
— Jake Vanderplas (@jakevdp) May 5, 2015
Comments
9 responses to “New Delridge trail connection now open (Video)”
So much better!
Really glad they’re done, that was a rough & hilly detour… & this is the perfect example of a street to transform in this way!
Gosh yes, so glad that that detour is over. This looks like a nice improvement.
Being infrastructure skeptic generally, I have to concede this and the Mercer lane in the previous posting are genuine improvements (though the Delridge route in the before/after footage remains pretty dodgy between 0:36 and 1:04…
But well done!
While the length of the strip and the connector to the low bridge is excellent the northbound approach from the west side of Andover to delridge is painful, you either bottleneck with people attempting to head west on Andover on the one wheelchair bib ( about two feet across ) into a pole, or you ride down Delridge until you hit a driveway.
So close, but then so far.
When the 26th greenway was being constructed, I begged them to do something other than signing the south sidewalk along Andover. The SDOT folks seemed to think that there was no other viable option because of all the steel mill truck traffic here.
hooray for this! Way way better. Still need to cut back foliage on the sidewalk north of the new section and repair the pavement so I stop being nervous I will hit a pine cone and jump my bike into oncoming freeway traffic while headed southbound.
I agree, this is nice improvement. Plenty of room for passing pedestrians and now we can take the path when headed north in addition to south.
I’m with Nate on that corner at the north end. That area of the trail needs cleanup/trimming and the pavement needs repair. I really wish there were a tall railing in between the sidewalk and Delridge on that corner. Especially in the fall when the sidewalk is covered in leaves. An accident there could throw a cyclist right into traffic on Delridge.
This is a step in the right direction. The missed opportunity to get it right however is puzzling. A wider sidewalk does little to define lane positions. The same thing occurs on the east side of the low bridge where we are sharing a glorified sidewalk on the way to Marginal. The simple solution is found in many other bicycle infrastructures around the world. Different pavement colors define the use such as in the Mercer underpass or here.
With the narrow sidewalk rounding the corner on the north edge I am not sure there is sufficient width here to have separated bike and walk markings on this path.