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Seventh Ave. Gets Buffered Bike Lanes

News   June 15, 2010 at 3:29 pm Josh Cohen

If you’ve been on Seventh Ave. downtown in the past few days, you’ve no doubt noticed white spray paint all over the road. The Seattle Department of Transportation painted preliminary mock-ups of the new Seventh Ave buffered bike lanes—so called because they’re buffered by about two feet of additional lane space on either side of the lane itself, protecting cyclists from auto traffic.

According to SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan, the department plans to install the lanes, which will require the removal of two lanes for auto traffic, sometime in the next two weeks.


7th Ave design drawing between Blanchard and Lenora Streets.

The six-foot-wide bike lanes will run in both directions between the travel and parking lanes from Denny Way to Virginia St., with a two-to-three-foot-wide painted buffer next to traffic. In order to accommodate the new bike lanes, Seventh Ave. will be restriped—from two 9.5-foot travel lanes with a 10-foot parking lane in either direction to one 11-foot travel lane with an eight-foot parking lane in each direction.

SDOT says about 8,000 vehicles per day use that stretch of Seventh Ave.  With one lane in each direction, the road will still have enough capacity to carry as many as 20,000 vehicles a day.

According to Sheridan, the bike lanes will cost the city about  $25,000, which includes planning, design, outreach, removing the old lanes, and installing the new lanes.  The funding will come from the city’s bicycle master plan.

As a bicyclist, I’m excited about the new buffered lanes. Ideally, the lanes would be parking-protected (like the ones proposed for the Dexter Ave cycletrack), since cycletracks offer better protection from cars and the risk of being “doored.” But buffered lanes are an improvement over traditional lanes, which don’t offer any separation from cars.

There’s still an equal risk of being doored by people getting out of parked cars, but in theory, the fact that drivers will have to cross a large, obvious bike lane to park will make them more aware of cyclists.

The Seventh Ave. buffered lanes are short, stretching just half a mile between Denny Way and Virginia St., but they’re still a wise use of SDOT’s scant (and soon to be reduced) funding. According to SDOT’s 2009 SDOT downtown bicycle count, Seventh Ave. had the highest bicycle volume downtown, and funnels much of the bicycle traffic from north Seattle into the center city.




  • http://www.joeszilagyi.com/ Joe Szilagyi

    Hey, cool. Maybe the downtown bicyclists will stay in the bike lanes and not weave all over the road in and out of slower or red-light stopped cars like they were sperm eternally chasing an elusive egg.

  • Edog

    glad that figure makes it so clear?

  • biliruben

    Unless there are other tallies, it's odd they didn't bother counting any bikes coming from the east side of Lake Union.

  • Mike

    Hey Joe. Maybe drivers will put down their damn cell phones and pay attention to where their 2000 pound weapon is going.

  • joshuadf

    Some would be in the Eastlake and Denny or Stewart and Yale counts. Actually those two points are odd since they're within 1 block of each other.

  • joshuadf

    Incidentally, the 2008 SDOT Traffic Flow Data shows 4400 vehicles/day on 7th Ave:
    http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/tfdmaps.htm

    Why would it nearly double to 8000 in the past year?

  • biliruben

    Yeah, but wouldn't anywhere along Eastlake before the bikes disperse when they hit Fairview make a lot more sense? I'm sure it would rival Dexter (probably a distant 2nd) if it were measured. Now this corridor appears to be completely ignored, when Eastlake is in fact a nasty mess which I avoid like the plague by climbing an extra hundred feet.

  • alexjonlin

    I wonder why they decided not to make them parking protected. I don't see any reason not to. If you're already going to take up that amount of the width of the street for a buffered bike lane, it seems like the best thing to do would be to make it the safest possible.

  • morning

    SDOT made another “mistake” just like they did on Nickerson by claiming 19,300 car when it's really more like 23,000 -

  • Gomez

    Funny no one's calling this project a road diet even though it's pretty much the same thing.

  • crash_test_dummy

    In my experience the “door as verb” issue will be far less of a problem in this arrangement. You will be able to ride on the left side of the bike lane and pass on the right. Just remember to signal your approach. Ding, ding!

  • http://www.dougunderground.com DOUG.

    Joe Szilagyi is the one driver in Seattle who always uses his turn signal, never exceeds the speed limit and never uses his cell phone or eats while driving.

  • http://www.joeszilagyi.com/ Joe Szilagyi

    Funny, but I don't own a car.

  • kurisu

    I think you're looking at 8th

  • Guest

    There is no reduction of lanes in this project.

  • Guest

    The reason here is the number of protected right turn movements to the one way streets that traverse Belltown/Regrade area. The route would have to wind around quite a bit, and visibility on the approaches to the intersections would be compromised. Parking protected lanes are coming, but in locations with a lot less side “friction”…

  • http://www.dougunderground.com DOUG.

    Oh, then that must be some other guy. Sorry.

  • joshuadf

    Hmm, I think I was, though 8th isn't even labeled.

  • joshuadf

    Depends where you're going whether Eastlake/Stewart or Eastlake/Westlake is a better path. I'd say that Eastlake between Fairview (Zymo) and Thomas (before I-5 ramps at REI) could also make a great place for a cycletrack. Yes it has a hill but it's no worse that Dexter, and it's pretty good access to Met Park and the new office buildings on Stewart and Virginia.

  • Gomez

    Let's test our reading and math skills:

    “In order to accommodate the new bike lanes, Seventh Ave. will be restriped—from two 9.5-foot travel lanes with a 10-foot parking lane in either direction to one 11-foot travel lane with an eight-foot parking lane in each direction.”

    2×2 = 4 lanes in current configuration

    1×2 = 2 lanes in new configuration

    Conclusion: Sounds like a lane reduction to me!

  • Guest

    This is indeed a road diet, no doubt.

  • biliruben

    Agreed.

    Right now, if I took the U bridge, I would take the hill up Eastlake behind Zymo, as I'm at Met Park.

    I hate Eastlake so much however, I cross Montlake Bridge, climb up to LakeView and ride above I-5. Fairly pleasant.

    I am about to move, going over close to Westlake and Denny, and as such, join the masses on Eastlake. I'm not about to climb the hill behind Zymo for no reason. I will be joining the battle with the SLUT and mercer mess, and would love for the city to give some thought to the many, many commuters in my shoes.

    Sure, McGinn will soon have paved himself a safe bike commute, but not everyone is fortunate enough to live in his hood.

  • guest

    Indeed it is – on a street operating NOWHERE near capacity. This one is easy.

  • joshuadf

    Well, you could keep your route and come down the Lakeview overpass and down Republican or Harrison over to 9th Ave. It's one block west of Westlake Ave, there's a bike lane for most of it, and there's a signal to cross at Denny. Avoids the Mercer construction altogether.

  • biliruben

    Certainly I could ride 200 feet up unnecessarily. I probably won't, however.

    That's the larger point. I, and most non-masochists, will choose the flattest route, or we will drive if there are barriers to that route.

  • doug_in_seattle

    I see some pretty crazy things downtown regardless of whether the nut is using two feet, two wheels, or four wheels.

    But for what it's worth, I frequently “weave all over the road” for the following reasons:

    1. The bike lane is unsafe (door zone, obstruction, right/left turning cars, poor pavement surface, etc.)

    2. I need to turn left or right; to do so legally and safely I often have to cross several lanes of traffic.

    3. Through lane is ending; in other words, the rightmost lane becomes a right turn only and I need to change lanes in order to continue safely and legally.

    5. I am moving faster than traffic and am passing a slower vehicle. This is legal.

    6. A car is stalled in the lane, disgorging passengers, talking on the phone, whatever. I need to go around it to keep moving.

    7. A bus is pulling over to a stop.

    There are, of course, many other reasons a cyclist might need to use any and all portions of the roadway in an urban environment. Sometimes people do this dangerously or rudely, others not so much. I have no idea what your experience is. Perhaps you can discern who knows what they are doing on a bike and who doesn't, but it's pretty easy for a layman to see something and think “Pyscho!” but if that person is, say, a messenger with tens of thousands of hours of hours riding in the city, that “crazy” move could have been the only safe, sane option available in that situation.

    Besides, the common enemy downtown is the TAXI CAB.

  • mnm

    I like the idea behind these lines… but they are horribly confusing for drivers and cyclists… I hope that the cyclists can still be predictable and safe

  • Steve Sauer

    As an enthusiastic urban cyclist, my only consistent gripe is with the big, smelly, stop-n-go, noisy buses.