Best Side Cycling was on hand for the grand opening of the pedestrian bridge over SR 520, which now links the SR 520 Trail with the Washington Arboretum, with connections to a new Montlake Lid park. Enjoy their bike tour to get a feel for the new bridge, which will make walking, rolling, and biking much easier at this crossroads at the tip of Montlake. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) held the opening ceremony on December 14.
The Urbanist’s Ryan Packer took a sneak peek at the lid and pedestrian bridge progress back in August, but the final product is a sight to see. It’s a great feature for navigating an area otherwise made pretty miserable by the presence of a freeway and several busy arterial roads feeding it. You’re not going to get caught biking on the car-centric Montlake Boulevard overpass when better alternatives exists.
While the Montlake Lid and pedestrian bridge will improve mobility for many decades to come, another lid park and trail connection planned to the west in Portage Bay is in jeopardy due to WSDOT’s budget woes.
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.
