People who bike, walk and skate south of the University of Washington can cross Highway 520 on their own new bridge, surrounded by plants instead of cars, starting Saturday.
The 14-foot-wide paved trail is nestled within a 73-foot-wide overpass, separate from the nearby Montlake lid and nine-lane interchange.
It’s a human refuge above a freeway moat, that comes some five years after the Washington State Department of Transportation’s celebrated I-90 wildlife bridge was built near Keechelus Lake .
Opening ceremonies start at 11 a.m. Saturday, followed by a free group ride and guided tours.
“This is a new generation of DOT. We are building multimodal solutions that incorporate land, to give the users a feeling of being away from roads,” project spokesperson Steve Peer said. “We’ve changed as an agency.”
WSDOT’s 3-acre Montlake lid also opens to pedestrians Saturday. Its lawn is suitable for sack lunches or hacky sack , but flying Frisbees might drift into the roadways.
King County Metro installed steel rain shelters for a flyer station on the lid, where buses already use the new high-occupancy ramps to skip traffic clogs. Metro aims to start picking up passengers there by late January, on Routes 255, 271, 982, 986, 542 and 556 crossing Lake Washington, along with local Routes 43 and 48 between Capitol Hill and UW, spokesperson Al Sanders said.The walk-bike bridge, along with a brief tunnel extension of the main 520 trail, connect to the Bill Dawson Trail, which b ends south under 520 toward Montlake Playfield, north Capitol Hill and […]
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