Here’s a timeline of how the Outer Green Lake Loop got built.
In 2017, SDOT began planning the "Green Lake & Wallingford Paving & Multimodal Project." This project included repaving several miles of arterials in the middle of North Seattle, including East Green Lake Drive and East Green Lake Way, which are the streets that line the northeast and east sides of the park, from Starbucks to the Pitch & Putt.
SDOT was facing state enforcement on when it had to use in-house versus bidded-out labor. As a result, to make bidding and contracting more efficient, SDOT opted to merge several paving & bike lane projects into this mega project.
SDOT has both an excellent Bicycle Master Plan that maps out all of the planned protected bike lanes and a strong Complete Streets Ordinance that requires the agency to accommodate people walking and biking during
Also in 2017, the Green Lake Greenways and Wallingford Greenways groups were rejuvenated and combined as Green Lake & Wallingford Safe Streets (GLWstreets) when Brock Howell moved to the neighborhood and spearheaded convening monthly meetings.
The newly reconstituted group set our top priority as making sure the paving project was designed to include an all ages & abilities bike network. Our preferred design for the repaving of the streets on the eastside of Green Lake Park was a two-way protected bike lane along the park's edge. We wanted to give people biking that "park-like experience" by essentially expanding the park by an extra 13 feet.
A couple members of GLWstreets brought up the idea of completing a protected lane loop around the park, using Aurora Avenue on the westside of the park. However, these streets were not within the scope of the paving project, and therefore GLWstreets decided not to push the concept at that time.
Most of GLWstreets active community advocacy happened during 2017-2018 while SDOT was within the planning phase of the repaving project (0-10% design). For these two years, advocacy include building out our website to highlight our concept, mocking-up our own blueprints, getting local blog coverage, meeting internally with SDOT staff, petitioning people (both online and in-person), and setting-up information booths as part of PARK(ing) Day. Our major asks included:
Opting for a two-way bikeway facility along Green Lake Park rather than two one-way protected bike lanes on either side of the street.
“Squaring-up” the intersection of East Green Lake Drive, East Green Lake Way, NE 71st Street, and Ravenna Boulevard.
Several minor crosswalk and buffer enhancements along the route.
Implementing a “green man” crosswalk treatment for the intersections on the north end of the lake. Under this treatment, the pedestrian signal would be on by default, and would only cycle to a “don’t walk” phase if a car pulled up to the intersection.
An all-way stop sign treatment for the intersection near the Pitch & Putt (the intersection of East Green Lake Way, West Green Lake Way, and Green Lake Way).
South of Green Lake Park, routing a two-way protected bike lane on the western edge of the parking lot of the Lower Woodland Park Playfields.
Changing the signal timing of the intersection of Green Lake Way, Stone Way, and 50th Avenue to create a safe, protected phase for south-bound bicyclists to cross.
As part of the repaving of 40th Street, adding bike lanes, consistent with the city’s bicycle master plan.
In 2018-2019, SDOT shifted into its engineering (the 10-100% design) phases. This phase provided fewer opportunities for engaging GLWstreets’ membership and the broader community, but we remained in active conversation with core advocates and the city.
In 2019, SDOT picked GLWstreets’ preferred concept for a two-way protected bikeway along Green Lake Park on East Green Lake Drive and East Green Lake Way, with a “squaring-up” of the intersection with Ravenna Blvd & NE 71st Street. However, SDOT did not adopt any of our other ideas.
On September 16, 2019, a UW student running on the western outer path of Green Lake Park was struck and seriously injured by a driver who went off Aurora. Later in 2020, another drive drove off of Aurora and crashed on the Inner Path of Green Lake Park. If the path been physically protected by a concrete jersey barrier, these life-altering events could have been prevented.
In 2020, SDOT began its mega repaving project, starting with 80th, 50th, and 40th Streets. East Green Lake Drive and East Green Lake Way were last to get repaved — which didn’t happen until February-April 2021.
In March 2020, Governor Inslee's Stay-At-Home order for the COVID19 Pandemic went into effect.
In April 2020, SDOT created its "Stay Healthy Streets" and “Keep It Moving” programs to provide more open spaces for social distancing while getting outdoors. One Keep It Moving Street was West Green Lake Way (south side of Green Lake Park), which SDOT completely closed to motor vehicles and opened to pedestrians.
The full closure of West Green Lake Way made some people especially angry. As the pandemic continued, these individuals latched onto this one issue as their pet peeve, organizing against it.
In July 2020, Brock Howell tweeted to the state traffic engineer, parks department and SDOT about the lost opportunity to make a complete outer loop of protected bike lanes around Green Lake Park. These tweets includes a map of how the loop could be created, and an illustration of a jersey-barrier-protected path on Aurora Avenue. Brock follows this up with emails to SDOT, WSDOT, and the local city councilmember, who rapidly want to make this project a reality.
In late summer, early fall 2020, SDOT created engineering documents to implement a barrier-protected bike path on Aurora using water-filled plastic jersey barriers. WSDOT's chief traffic engineer (who used to be SDOT's chief traffic engineer), signed off on it. The challenge then became finding jersey barriers (of any sort), which ends up being too difficult or costly. The project essentially languishes.
In May 2021, GLWstreets held an on-site meeting with Councilmember Dan Strauss, Seattle Parks, SDOT, and WSDOT. Together there is support across all agencies.
On May 24, 2021: GLWSS and Aurora Reimagined Coalition held a "correspondents zoom" meeting with people stationed along the proposed loop, highlighting how the project could be completed.
In June 2021, the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board and Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board passed resolutions in support of completing the loop.
On August 21, 2021, SDOT held a community celebration to celebrate the completion of the two-way bikeway on East Green Lake Drive & Way. During the opening bike ride, protesters of the Keep It Moving Street are stationed on the corner of West & East Green Lake Way and chant against the closure to cars.
In October 2021, bowing to pressure, SDOT opened West Green Lake Way to one lane of motor vehicle traffic while keeping the other half coned off for people walking and biking.
During the fall of 2021, funding was secured for the Green Lake Outer Loop Project through agency and city council budgeting,
In November 2021, SDOT started community engagement on the Green Lake Outer Loop Project.
In February 2022, SDOT completed the engineering design of the Green Lake Outer Loop. The chosen design is a two-way protected bike lane for all segments around the park.
In November 2022, SDOT crews completed the Outer Loop. The concrete jersey barriers used along the Aurora segment came from the West Seattle Bridge, which had been closed for emergency repairs.
On November 19, 2022, GLWstreets held a community celebration for the completion of the Outer Loop.