solarbird | Entries tagged with northshore

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.8.0 – 8 June 2025 – is now available on github, along with MEGAMAP 1.7.1. This version is mostly, but not entirely, about Seattle.

Seattle DOT have dropped a new bike map for 2025/2026, but have chosen to show several incomplete and/or entirely unstarted projects as completed. We respectfully disagree with this decision, as it will direct map users to infrastructure which is not actually present for most or all of this year.

Therefore, we have chosen to stay with Seattle 2023 as our Seattle-area base map. We will take on the additional work of updating it over the next year, continuing work we have already been doing. In addition to not showing incomplete/nonexistent infrastructure, this means we will continue to group “Neighbourhood Greenway” and “Healthy Street” under the same common green colour, rather than separating them into green and blue markings.

(Seattle 2025 breaks them out into greens and blues, but unfortunately at the same intensity, meaning there’s no difference for those with colour vision limitations.)

As additional Seattle projects are completed, we will add them to our maps. Once all projects shown on Seattle 2025 are completed, we will most likely transition to Seattle 2025 as our Seattle base map.

There’s only one change since 1.7.1 for outside Seattle, but it’s big:

Juanita Drive bike lanes are finally open (again) in Juanita! There’s still a little construction on sidewalks, but functionally, they’re done

I’ve been looking forward to that finally being finished since they started work! The bike lane standard is meaningfully higher than it was before. It’s not consistently up to Kenmore’s standard, but it’s a significant and welcome improvement.

Note that sidewalk construction isn’t quite complete, but there’s very, very little left and should not interfere with biking the route.

Updates since 1.7.1 in Seattle include:

1st Ave NW neighbourhood greenway north of Greenwood to Broadview added
S. Walden/Della neighbourhood greenway added
Ashworth Ave mix of neighbourhood greenway and ped/bike shared path added
N. 120th St. neighbourhood greenway from Ashworth Ave to Corliss Ave added
N. 130th St. bike lanes north of Haller Lake added
W. Marginal Way SW bike lanes extended north to 17th Ave SW
6th Ave NW steepness indicator in Fremont corrected
6th Ave NW Neighbourhood Greenway corrected (was marked as bike lane)
Alki Drive/Beach Drive SW Healthy Street in West Seattle added
Maple Leaf Reservoir Neighbourhood Greenway and related ped/bike path added
Pike Street bike lane hillclimb over I-5 updated to reflect upgraded status
21st Ave Greenway/Health Street from Columbia to Yesler added
Greenway/Healthy Street connection between 30th Ave S east of MLK to Mountains-to-Sound Trail added
39th Ave South Greenway/Healthy Street from south of Othello to Kenyon added
One block of Neighbourhood Greenway on 27th Ave NE north of Lake City REMOVED
Several small corrections/adjustments, carrying forward Seattle map corrections/adjustments

Rather than the usual MEGAMAP preview, here’s a comparison between on section of Seattle across the two maps.

The same area of map from Seattle 2025 and Greater Northshore/MEGAMAP 2025 June 8. The Seattle map shows a Neighbourhood Greenway which does not yet actually exist. It also inaccurately describes on-the-ground conditions of the Ashworth Ave N Greenway in ways which cause confusion on the ground. The Greater Northshore/MEGAMAP corrects both of those, but fails to distinguish between "Neighbourhood Greenway" and "Healthy Street."

All permalinks continue to work.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

2 Line Eastside Bike Connector updated their map to include the new train stations opening today! If you’re seeing this on May 10th, you can go to the opening events!

Naturally, we’ve picked up the new version, and Greater Northshore Bike Connector and MEGAMAP 1.7 – 10 May 2025 – are now available to download.

Move Redmond have also expanded their core area further north. Online, they’ve started doing the Seattle thing where they have some infrastructure information outside their region.

I’m not including their extended area at all, and I’ve also only extended their core map very slightly further north. There are a few reasons, the biggest of which being that we have features they don’t, and I think those features are important in lower-density infrastructure areas like north Kirkland and north Redmond. Without them, Briar wouldn’t have any markings at all.

They’ve also left me with a bit of a quandary: they’ve changed their map key on me. The markings are different, now. Fortunately, only a little, but it’s still a change.

In their area, fully separate bike paths are now dark green, rather than red. Given that I specifically used their key system – before expanding upon it – for consistency, I should probably go along. But to be honest, I don’t like the change. I think it adds confusion, because before, all bike infrastructure was red. Now most is red, but some is dark green, instead.

All one colour was simpler and easier.

On the other hand, having now three different systems – two of which are only very slightly different to each other – is more confusing than having two, and I could fix that.

Any thoughts on what I should do? Should I move to theirs, despite not liking the change? I’m genuinely uncertain.

Anyway, additions and changes since 1.6.1:

MAJOR EASTSIDE UPGRADE with the freshly dropped 2 Line Eastide Bike Connector Map. There are several updates, but the biggest are the two light rail stations opening today, 10 May 2025. If you’re reading this on the 10th, there are opening day celebrations and you can go join them.
Notes about infrastructure continuance off-map now appear on both Greater Northshore and MEGAMAP, with the notes and arrows relocating as appropriate.
Same for the two major directional notices to Alderwood Mall and City of Snohomish, both of which are too far north for this map.
Addition (with reservations) of a short section of what are technically bike lanes in Woodinville. I don’t like them and have marked them as undermarked, because they are.
Construction on NE 132nd has extended bike lanes! And made the crossing of I-405 more confusing and probably slower! But also maybe safer despite that. It’s a tradeoff, and it’s on the maps now.
NE 116th in Redmond has extended bike lanes now, but without the added complexity of 132nd.

Screen-resolution preview of MEGAMAP 1.7, a large-area Greater Northshore and Seattle-area bike map, updated with 2 Line Eastside Bike Connector Map, released 10 May 2025.

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t. If you have an iPhone, please use the website interface and not the app, because Apple takes 30% if you use the app. I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. Thank you! ^_^

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Pretty good turnout in Bothell, counter had over 600 which is a good number given the rain in the morning and the unavoidable timing against Easter. It’s not what we had two weeks ago, but again, conflicts and worse conditions. Still a bit larger than the 2018-era protests, so I’d call that another win.

There were still people on the far downtown bridge, too. There were just gaps in the crowd between us and them.

I’d post pics but I totally forgot my phone, oops. And I actually did, not “lol no phone oops” did.

There was one (1) counter-protestor/heckler on the ground; he didn’t like my “NO KINGS” signs at all and started ranting about how Biden was the real “king” they got rid of. He didn’t have a sign himself and stayed pretty far back; I came across him accidentally while walking around testing our FRS radio range.

(As an aside: FRS handheld radios are f’real, team. Consider getting some and getting practice with them. No license needed, they’re channelised so can’t be used against you as “police scanners,” the range is shockingly good, and even with prices going up they’re super affordable. Ignore the only review on that Best Buy link; those are the exact model we bought. If you want to spend a little more you can get the T30 version, which has a headset and I think is rechargeable, but is otherwise pretty much the same radio and only comes in black. We specifically wanted replaceable batteries for extended-blackout reasons. Just remember: they are NOT private. Just relatively obscure.)

As with every other protest here, we had overwhelming support from the vehicle crowd. Hundreds to one in favour, easily, just like in person. I even got support from a presumably embarrassed Tesla driver.

I don’t know if there were more Bothell PD out this time, or if it just felt like there were. Might’ve been a difference in crowd to cop ratio, might’ve just been the escalating situation, might’ve just been where they were standing. But I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Keep on your toes. Even here, the cops are Trump’s friends.

Anyway, that’s it for this week’s report, I hope your protests went well. Remember to save the date for May 1st, and to turn out at your local Tesla Takedown or similar before then, too. Momentum is everything, and we need to keep it.

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Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.4.6 – 28 January 2025 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 1.4.6, a pasteup of Greater Northshore, City of Seattle, 2 Line Eastside Bike Connector, and a little bit of King County Regional Trails to get us all the way to the south end of Lake Washington.

A screen-resolution preview of the Megamap, since most of this release's changes are MEGAMAP-specific.

Changes since 1.4.4:

Addition of a “Difficult” label on Power Line Trail
Removal of a bike store icon in Roosevelt and 84th
Addition of fully-separated bike lane on 11th Ave NE from 47th to Ravenna, and on 12th Ave NE from Ravenna to NE 69th
Waterfront Trail: Yesler to Union section now open
Eastlake from Fairview to John now has separated bike lanes, with more to come

All permalinks continue to work.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

UPDATE RELEASE NOTICE for:

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map (now version 1.2.1, dataset 1.1 rev 5)
Northwest King County MEGAMAP (also version 1.2.1, dataset 1.1 rev 5)

The bike part of the bike and sidewalk improvements on 73rd Ave NE in Kenmore are complete! There’s still a little sidewalk work to be done – the elevated sections have railings, but they’re extremely temporary. However, with the bike parts done, that’s good enough for me to show.

Also, both maps have updates to bike shop locations (deleting some in Seattle; adding some in Greater Northshore) and there’s also word correction in the MEGAMAP box.

Direct “latest map” URLs have not changed since the 1.2 release; both maps can be download from github.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

new biking MEGAMAP, combing the Greater Northshore that I built and maintain with other maintained maps to make a map that gets all the way around Lake Washington

Housemate printed my map in tiles across eight sheets of 11×17 (roughly A3) paper and I cut them up and glued them together into a poster and got it hung. I’m really quite pleased with it. ^_^

I probably need a proper bike icon for Dreamwidth now – I write these in WordPress, it’s Federated so it goes to the Federation but it also cross-posts to Dreamwidth because that’s how I roll, and it still has per-post user icons which I kinda miss in general. ^_^

Anyway, you know where to find it if you want to grab the file and print your own. FedEx storefronts can print them all on one sheet so you don’t have to break it into tiles and glue it. I’m sure other places can do it too.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Okay, I’m calling it: RC1 is Release Version 1.2 of the MEGAMAP, the combined bike map including Greater Northshore, complete Seattle (the “complete” part of that is new), and 2 Link Eastside maps, with also a little chunk from King County Regional Trails to get us all of Lake Washington without leaving a big void presumably labelled “Here There Be Dragons, And Also Renton” as a warning.

The map be LORGE but it also be FAIRLY COMPLETE as bike maps go of Northwest King County, except ironically for the little KC-maintained section. But what that does buy you is the last section of the Lake Washington Loop. So I think it’s worth it.

Anyway, go download, hopefully this is the last update for a little bit. It should be. If I hear of new infrastructure I’ll probably slip in some quiet updates, but it’ll be less of a production – no Beta or RC releases or any of that. Just moar bieks. ^_^

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I know, I know, ANOTHER MAP POST but this is a release candidate! It’s RC1 (and probably only) for Version 1.1, Dataset 1.1 rev 4 of the Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map:

Release Candidate 1!

This is actually a significant revision, because it adds an entirely new data type: demand paths, in the form of roads which completely lack bike infrastructure and yet are still used regularly by people on bikes.

I think this is worth doing for a few reasons. First, it shows you where drivers are used to seeing bikes around. That’s helpful, because if you’re trying to get somewhere without support, it shows you how other people do it, and what’s probably the least bad idea.

Secondly, it connects a lot of apparently-island-like infrastructure together. It shows you that sometimes where infrastructure stops, bikes don’t, and how to get across those gaps if you have to.

How much heatmap intensity it takes to get onto this new layer is highly dependant upon context. In unincorporated King County, for example, it’s all really obvious. Lake Forest Park, by contrast, is an absolute nightmare – all the roads are kinda the same, because all of the options are kind of equally bad. But I did my best to tell them apart – in part by figuring out whether they went anywhere in particular – and from that make intelligent choices about what to show and not show.

As always, feedback is requested. I’ll be dropping the final before the end of the week, and then after that, I’ll get on making an updated MEGAMAP. It doesn’t seem like making a new megamap would be work? But… kinda actually is!

Oh yeah, one final amusing-to-me note: there’s a section of bike lane infrastructure that Kenmore says is there, but Google says absolutely isn’t. So I biked all the way up there – to SnoHOmish County – and SUCK IT, GOOGLE, MY MAP IS RIGHT AND YOURS IS LIES. It’s absolutely there.

Pretty good quality, too. I mean, for paint. Mostly buffered, always nice and wide. Not too bad, particularly given the low traffic road.

For paint, anyway.

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A lower, screen-resolution preview of the three combined bike maps that make up the latest Megamap.

What I hope is the FINAL major update for the Megamap:

I decided it was kind of rude to cut off discovery park so I widened the workspace to put it back on, and discovered that also gave me the space to add back the West Seattle bridge detail so I did that too, and a little cleanup because why not.

Anyway, it’s now wider, 722x656mm or roughly 28.5″x26″ now at intended print resolution of 300 dpi (because that’s a standard here).

I really think and hope I’m done with this version, now that I know this thing has legs I’m kinda like “whelp now time to do it over again with proper tools” so that maintenance will be easier and alignment won’t be such a bear and a half. Because it will be.

Here’s the project, and here’s the May 2024 Megamap directly. Enjoy!

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This is a link to my new Greater Northshore bike connector map, built to link the long-maintained Seattle and new Eastside 2 Line Rail connector bike maps. Since we haven’t had one and nobody else is going to connect the dots, I decided I would.

The partially-covered white map at the bottom left is Seattle’s; and the lower-down equivalent on the bottom right is the very top of the 2 Line Rail Eastside map. Everything else is this map.

If printed at 300dpi actual, the map is 24″x10.4″ or 608x264mm in size. It should fold down nicely if you’re into that sort of thing.

NEW IN RC1:

Steepness markings, measured using Google Maps data and trigonometry, with the single- and double-chevron steepness indicators pointing uphill and scaled as per the 2 Line Eastside map.
A couple of very small corrections

What’s not listed: trails on private property and some completely isolated islands of quasi-bike-lanes that go nowhere.

Corrections desired.

Finally, thanks to the other contributors to this map: