Go Ride the MLK Protected Bike Lanes–and Keep Seattle Moving by Bike

  • Cascade has joined the coalition to Keep Seattle Moving, which seeks to win voter support for Proposition 1 and its $133.5 million in critical bike infrastructure funding.
  • Keep Seattle Moving is the new name for the Seattle Transportation Levy that will appear as Proposition 1 on November ballots.
  • Join us as we bike from downtown to the new MLK Jr. Way protected bike lanes to Columbia City to learn how Seattle Transportation Levy dollars create safer bike routes.  
Riding my electric cargo bike is my favorite thing

Paul Tolmé

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MLK Jr. Way is now safe to bike

Cascade has joined Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, City Council members, and active transportation allies in the Keep Seattle Moving campaign to win voter support for Proposition 1 on the November ballot. 

Join the effort to pass Proposition 1 and help us secure $133.5 million for essential bike infrastructure improvements. Volunteer today to spread the word about Keep Seattle Moving and make a real impact on our city’s future!

Volunteer with Keep Seattle Moving 

“Voters face a lot of big issues on the November ballot, and we want to make sure that everyone who supports better biking, rolling, and walking in Seattle votes YES for Prop 1 to Keep Seattle Moving,” says Tyler Vasquez, Cascade’s Seattle policy manager.

“Seattle’s bike network is only as safe as its weakest link,” Vasquez says. “There are too many gaps and weak links in our bike network that prevent people from bicycling. Keep Seattle Moving would fill many of those gaps, especially in South Seattle.” 

Keep Seattle Moving is the new name for the Seattle Transportation Levy, which has funded many of the protected bike lanes we benefit from today. However, the current levy expires at the end of 2024. Failing to pass Proposition 1 to renew the levy for another eight years would bring progress to a standstill.

Learn more in our previous post, “Top Five Wins for Safer Bicycling in the Seattle Transportation Levy.”

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Tyler Vasquez talks about biking to the light rail at the future Judkins Park Station during Cascade's policy team ride
Seattle Policy Manager Tyler Vasquez talks about future opportunities to integrate biking with Link light rail at the site of the future Judkins Park Station now under construction.

Keep Seattle Moving Policy Ride

To understand the importance of Seattle Transportation Levy dollars, Vasquez recently led a policy ride from the downtown waterfront to Columbia City. We started at the western end of Yesler Way, where the city is designing a two-way protected bike lane to fill a two-block gap in the bike network.

Once completed, the Yesler Way Protected Bike Lane will allow people biking on the 4th Avenue and 2nd Avenue bike lanes to safely reach the ferry terminals and the Elliot Bay bike path along the Alaskan Way waterfront. Funding for this project is an example of what we lose if we let the Seattle Transportation Levy expire.

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Yesler PBL project
The two-block gap on Yesler that will be filled with a protected bike lane is shown in RED 

“This is an example of how filling a short gap in the bike network can transform the experience for people biking,” Vasquez says. 

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Turning onto the new protected bike lanes on MLK Jr. Way
Turning onto MLK Jr. Way at the start of the new 1.5-mile protected bike lane

Our next stop was the new protected bike lanes on MLK Jr. Way, which turned a dangerous 1.5-mile stretch of high-traffic roadway into a safe and protected corridor for people walking and biking from Judkins Park to the Mount Baker Link light rail station.

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MLK Jr. Way PBL
Turning off the MLK Jr. Way protected bike lane at its southern end at Mount Baker Station. The northbound lane of MLK Jr. Way also has a protected bike lane now thanks to Levy funding.

Watch Cascade Board Member Hanoch Yeung’s video of the MLK Jr. Way Safety Project. 

We boarded the Link light rail train at Mount Baker Station and disembarked one stop later at the Beacon Hill station. 

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Waiting for the train at Mount Baker Station

Beacon Hill is the site of another big project funded by Seattle Transportation Levy dollars: the long-awaited Beacon Avenue South and 15th Avenue South Safety Project.

This project includes new protected bike lanes on both sides of 15th Avenue South and Beacon Avenue South, as well as new bike signals, sidewalk improvements, and bus stop islands. As one of the most dangerous corridors in Seattle, these improvements to biking in Beacon Hill have been needed for decades.

The next leg of our policy ride took us down Beacon Avenue South, which has no bike lanes. Google Maps designates this route as bike-friendly, but in its current state, it is far from “bike friendly” due to high-speed car traffic, making it a road best avoided by people biking.

Good news: Keep Seattle Moving will transform this section of Beacon Avenue South if approved by voters. Keep Seattle Moving includes money to create an approximately seven-mile protected bike lane from Capitol Hill to South Beacon Hill.

Turning off Beacon Avenue South onto South Columbian Way, we got a glimpse of the Even Better Bike Lanes project underway by the Seattle Department of Transportation. This Levy-funded program improves separation between people biking and driving by updating flexible plastic posts to concrete barriers.

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The so-called Toronto barriers installed on Columbian Way South by the Seattle Department of Transportation

Prop 1 includes money to update approximately 30 percent of flexible plastic posts and painted lines with concrete barriers by 2032. 

Learn more about Keep Seattle Moving and volunteer to build support for Prop 1 by talking to your neighbors, tabling at community events, and continuing the progress to make Seattle the most bike-friendly city in the nation.

Volunteer to Keep Seattle Moving

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