degnaw

I'm moving to Bellevue in about a week and will be frequently commuting between downtown, the crossroads mall area, and the MS campus. Are riding on NE 8th St (between downtown and crossroads), and 156th Ave NE (between crossroads and MS) feasible prospects? Do these roads see any regular cycling traffic? And are traffic speeds reasonable or does everyone speed? I consider myself a reasonably confident cyclist, but the roads still look quite sketchy from streetview alone.

If not, are there good alternatives that any of you locals are aware of? I was looking at Lake Hills/Main and 164th respectively, which add 1-1.5 miles to each leg.

Medic Zero

Although I worked in that area nearly a decade ago, I haven't really ridden in that area. What I can offer in the way of help is recommend you post something similar in the PNW sub-forum. Folks have been helpful to me there, and I know there are a few folks that live and ride east of Lake Washington on Bike Forums generally...

https://www.bikeforums.net/pacific-northwest/

physdl

I typically commute from Kirkland (next town north of Bellevue) to downtown Bellevue (sometimes to the MS campus) and have biked around the area. I think Bellevue is the least bike-friendly city in the area. Very few streets have bike lanes or decent shoulders, and there seems to be less support overall for biking than in the other cities north of Bellevue. Downtown Bellevue has some bike lanes, but very few on the East-West streets. I deal with it only because it's small and during rush hour speeds are slow anyway. The MS campus is great (a lot of bike commuters), but a very small area. The only good news is that drivers here are typically friendly and don't do anything too crazy. But I still breathe a sigh of relief every time I enter Kirkland or Redmond from Bellevue.

Personally, I avoid NE 8th street. It's probably fine during non-rush hour, but with no bike lane, and two lanes of traffic each way going 30-40 mph, it's really not the best route although it may be your best option. I definitely would not cross the 405 on it during rush hour - way too much traffic and too many lanes - you'd need to ride in the left lane to get across. Crossing at NE 10th or 12th st is much safer (no ramps to the 405). Lake Hills I've driven on plenty of times - similar to 8th street but with turns and probably faster speeds. I'd probably pick NE 8th over Lake Hills Connector. I've never driven/biked on 156th Street near Crossroads. By MS it's high volume but pretty safe. I've biked there a bunch of times and have had no problems.

The only good route east to west that I know of is the 520 trail, which is very good, but is more of a connection between downtown and the MS campus (extending to Redmond). It's a bit of a pain to get to from downtown Bellevue (cross on 10th St, then take 116th Ave, then Northrup, and then 24th street to the trail). Until 24th street none of them are great, but there are a lot of commuters on them and it's not a very long distance. The trail runs straight through the campus, which is great for commuting to it.

Also, if you're not used to hills, get ready to deal with them. They're everywhere here, which really makes bike lanes essential unless you're a great climber.

Feel free to PM me. If you're working for MS, there are good facilities here for bike commuters, which really makes it much easier.