The Logan Avenue bike lanes were finished 10 years ago but the stupidity of their design still makes me mad. This is a section of the Lake Washington Loop trail from the Cedar River to “near” Coulon park. Renton isn’t really building much bike infrastructure and it shows. This was about the only trail built from their 2009 ten year bike master plan. I attended the Renton meetings to help brainstorm ideas for their 2018 master bike plan update. The cyclists in attendance were all feeling the reality that this is an exercise in futility based on the cities past inaction and terrible bike lane designs. The city is now (10 years later) building their next bike lane that extends the trail South of the Cedar River trail. I wrote about that here.
I want you to show the crazy design on the first section on Logan. Going South from Renton the trail is a great 2 way cycle track from the river on the West side of Logan along the Renton Stadium and Boeing parking lots. But when the trail meets 6th avenue, you run into a dangerous slip lane.
From here you need to get across the slip lane, across 6th St., and across Logan Ave. Lots of waiting at lights and pressing beg buttons. This would be a great place for some green paint diagonally across the intersection. This slip lane is also very dangerous bikes going North and South as well as the large amounts of Boeing workers walking to the parking lot at shift change.
The unprotected bike lane continues North on the East side of Logan avenue and gets rather squeezed in places because cars like to float into the bike lane on this curve.
The trail crosses a couple of sketchy inlets to the Renton Landing shopping area. Then the trail ends at Garden Avenue/Lake Washington Blvd. You can either cross 4 lanes of traffic to get in the left turn lane… or you chance another slip lane and get on the sidewalk and wait for the pedestrian crosswalk to cross Logan and then wait to cross Lake Washington Blvd to get on the bike lane going North on the East side of the street. Coulon park is nearby which does NOT allow bikes but I will tell that story in another blogpost next week.
If you are going South on the Loop trail it is another story. It is still dangerous and frustrating, but in different ways. The trail is easy turning right from Lake Washington Blvd to Logan Avenue because you stay on the right side of the road. It is an unprotected bike lane but at 8th street it disappears. A sign tells you the Bike lane ends and then you end up on the sidewalk with a pole in the middle of the bike lane.
The most dangerous parts of bike riding is the intersections. Why make a bike lane if it disappears when things get tough? You have to get on the sidewalk with the pedestrians and press the beg button. Then you have to avoid cars turning in and out of the Boeing main parking lot. After this intersection the bike lane returns for another couple of blocks. Then it ends again on the 8th Street.
This time, after a bus stop, you end up on a sidewalk with a yellow fire hydrant in the middle of the path. At shift changes, this corner is filled with pedestrians. You then have to avoid cars turning right on 8th and then a slip lane from cars turning South on Logan from 8th Street. Very stressful.
After passing 8th, you end up on the 2 way cycle track and it is now an “all ages and abilities” bike lane. But there is no way you can call it that if you expect people to ride on those other bike lanes. Eventually the Lake Washington trail will be extended around the airport and then up Rainier Avenue towards Seattle. I have zero faith in those sections being any better that this disaster. I believe we are again going to end up with bike lanes that end at intersections. Thanks Renton.