Welcome to my new blog!
My plan for this is to be focusing on my experiences while biking. Where I go and how I get there. I hear from a lot of people that are surprised that is possible to get around King County on safe bike lanes. Of course, there are many missing links and I will also write about the efforts to get those connected. When I am riding, I have all of time to think and I just want a place to write down all my thoughts. I mostly just write for myself but if others are also interested, than that is great too.
First, where do I ride? For years I lived in the West Hill of Auburn and commuted to the Boeing Renton plant so I guess I will start there. It was a mostly flat ride on the Interurban trail and then through the crazy mess of Renton to get to my job on Lake Washington. I took the very dangerous SW 7th street and then went North on Shattuck Ave through downtown Renton. Shattuck is mostly a side street and is a great way to get through town even though the city doesn’t really consider it a Greenway.
Most of us cut through the Renton High School parking lot which works great. The city does have plans for a North South route through Renton but I am unsure if it will ever happen. Here is there connector plan which includes a North South cycle path on Burnett. I don’t see that it has any funding or schedule attached to it.
They are slowly working on an alternative to the 7th Avenue mess. There is plan improve intersections from Oakdale to Shattuck in 2024 but they only are going to put in a bike lane from Burnett to Shattuck. That wasn’t the dangerous part so I don’t see this as the solution. It is in the Renton 6 year TIP but those projects often tend to slide The best solution is the completion of the Lake to Sound trail by King County Parks.
A trail (Section C) was built last year from the Green River/Interurban trail at Fort Dent Park to Naches Avenue. It needs to be continued beyond Naches Avenue to eventually the Cedar River Trail. That is Section D and Section E. The County’s website hasn’t been updated for years so I have been getting my status information by emailing the project manager David Shaw david.shaw@kingcounty.gov. You would think he would rather update the website than respond to multiple people emailing but some project managers aren’t really into communication by websites. Feel free to email him for current status. He told me in February that Section D has a grant to purchase the property and they will have a preferred route by the end of the 2021. I think they have to purchase from BNSF so it might not be that easy to get an agreement and I am also not sure if they have money for actual construction. I expect this is still years away. He said Section E is in Design and should have concepts by the end of 2021. I think that also probably needs property purchase and construction funding.
Next post will be on my current route since I moved to Seattle and now work in Kent.