The city of Bellevue is hooking up with local bike and hike advocacy groups for a bicycle ride on Tuesday to shed light onto how to make the city's busiest bicycle corridor more bike-friendly.
The city is studying future land use and transportation changes in the so-called Eastgate Corridor that runs roughly east-west between Factoria Boulevard and Lakemont Boulevard interchange.
Participants can learn more about the city's plans for the Mountains to Sound Greenway Corridor and provide input on how to make it safer in light of ongoing commercial and employment growth in the area.
The advocacy bike ride is being sponsored by the City of Bellevue in conjuction with the Cascade Bicycle Club and the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust.
It starts at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Enatai Beach Park and rolls up to the Eastgate area intersection. The 9-mile ride is expected to end about 6:45 p.m. The ride is free and there's no registration, but RSVPs are appreciated.
City planners and transportation officials will be on hand to answer questions.
While the corridor through the area has bike trails and wide shoulders in places, there are choke-points on the roads and intersections can be dangerous areas of conflict between bicyclists and car traffic.
The Factoria Boulevard intersection, at top, between the I-90 offramp and SE 36th Street is one of the worst. Eastbound cyclists arrive via a bike trail and must cross right-turning traffic by merging onto the road or using the crosswalk.
Other intersections at Factoria and Eastgate Way or in the 150th Street intercharge don't provide clear routes for cyclists, forcing them either to use sidewalks or to cross multiple lanes of traffic.
This bicycle-pedestrian bridge, at right, over I-90 near the 150th Street interchange also will probably come under review.
More information regarding the corridor study:
Cascade bike ride announcement;
City of Bellevue bike ride announcement;
City of Bellevue information page about the Eastgate / I-90 Land Use and Transportation Project;
Bellevue study area map;
MayMyRide route map for Tuesday ride.
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