Pike-Pine Center City Bike Network
What's Happening Now?
This project has concluded.
Project overview
Protected bike lanes and signal upgrades in downtown Seattle can improve safety for everyone and connect pieces of a center city bike network.
We’ve made a commitment to make biking a real choice and calm traffic as more people compete for limited street space.
This project included new bike lane markings, plastic posts, planter boxes, signs, and bike signals on Pike St and Pine St between 2nd Ave and 8th Ave.
In general, this project improves street organization on Pike St and Pine St as people biking are now on the left-hand side, separated from people driving and transit. Some traffic signals have been upgraded with bike signals and some left-hand turns have been restricted to reduce conflicts at key intersections.
On-street loading zones are maintained on most blocks. Access to alleys, off-street parking garages, and loading bays are maintained.
Project map – Center City Bike Network Options
Improving safety for all
Our #1 goal is to make streets safer for everyone. On Pine St, 1 in 4 crashes involve people walking or biking. We can make strides to reduce these numbers by better organizing our streets.
Transportation options for the center city
Protected bike lanes on 2nd Ave quadrupled the number of people biking there. Employers located near paths and protected lanes have higher bike to work numbers. Making biking a real choice means building out a network in our region’s densest jobs center.
Transit priority
Separate bus lanes, bus zones, and bus accommodations at signals will be made where possible to keep people moving. We’re coordinating with our partner transit agencies to increase transit efficiency downtown.
Project design
Our project design includes bike facilities, signal upgrades, and transit accommodations on Pike St and Pine St between 2nd Ave and 8th Ave in downtown Seattle. The project area connects to the wider bike network in the center city. This is an initial design using interim materials that we expect to be updated and evolve over the next few years.
Initial design elements:
- New paint-and-post protected bike lanes with planter boxes on most blocks. And on blocks without protected lanes, we've install a mix of new buffered bike lanes and new sharrow pavement markings – this includes Pike St between 6th Ave and 8th Ave.
- No lane or pavement markings on the Westlake Park pavers on Pine St between 4th Ave and 5th Ave to maintain their iconic appearance.
- All bike facilities are on the left-hand side of the street to reduce conflicts with transit and general traffic.
- On Pike St, in general, there is now one transit lane and one general purpose lane to keep traffic moving.
- On Pine St, in general, there are now two general purpose lanes with transit accommodations.
- Bus zones along the corridor will continue to be maintained.
- Signal upgrades at 6th Ave & Pike St and 5th Ave & Pine St create new left-turn phases for people driving and a new bike signal phase will reduce conflicts between people biking straight and people in cars turning left.
- No left turns – except for people biking and transit – from Pike St onto 4th Ave and 3rd Ave, and from Pine St onto 3rd Ave.
- On-street loading zones will continue be maintained on most blocks. Access to alleys, off-street parking garages, and loading bays will continue to be maintained.
Design elements map
*Note: this map represents the project design. During September 2017 installation, new bike facilities were installed on Pine St between 3rd Ave and 6th Ave, and on Pike St between 2nd and 8th Ave.
What are protected bike lanes?
A protected bike lane is an exclusive bike facility that combines the user experience of a separated path with the on-street infrastructure of a conventional bike lane. A protected bike lane is physically separated from motor traffic and distinct from the sidewalk.
These lanes have different forms but all share common elements—they provide space that is intended to be exclusively or primarily used for bicycles, and are separated from motor vehicle travel lanes, parking lanes, and sidewalks. Learn more at our protected bike lane page.
Funding
The city stopped operating Pronto Cycle Share earlier this year. Some of that funding was reallocated to this project and other transportation safety efforts citywide.
Schedule
New bike facilities were installed on Pine St and Pike St between 2nd Ave and 8th Ave in September of this year.
Planter boxes with established plants were installed in late October 2018. Planter boxes will be maintained on an ongoing basis.
Materials
- Factsheet (August 2017)
- Mailer (August 2017)
- Noise Variance Letter (September 2017)
- Construction Mailer (September 2017)
- Poster (September 2017)
Resources
The Green Lane Project – Helping cities build better bike lanes
Bike Lanes, On-Street Parking and Business – A study of Toronto merchants and patrons
Protected Bike Lanes Mean Business – Case studies on how 21st century transportation networks help new urban economies boom