BengeBoy 

1. It's noisy. I want to hear the gentle lap of waves when I cross the bridge; instead I hear the roar of traffic.

2. The pavement on the bike lane is rough and wavy. It's not damaged; it seems to have been laid down badly. Was there an earthquake or something the day they laid the concrete?

3. At night, the lights on the bike lane make things worse. There isn't enough light to really be useful, but just enough to interrupt the beam of my bike lights.

4. There is always a headwind, no matter which way you are headed. Headed East, it's blowing from the East. Headed West, it's blowing from the West.

5. They keep changing the angle of the bridge. In the morning, when I take it to the West, there is a very short descent on the East side, and then a l-o-n-g steep climb up to the Mt. Baker tunnel. But by the evening, they have changed everything. There is a very short descent from the tunnel down to the lake surface, and then a l-o-n-g steep climb up to Mercer Island. This happens every day; I don't know how they do it.

6. When it's raining, I get the sensation that there is rain coming down from above; rain coming sideways from the cars, and even colder raining coming *up* from the lake.

7, It's there, so we have to use it. Folks along the 520 don't have a bike lane, so those of us who live along the I90 are *forced* to get out on our bikes and ride it to make a point. Which point, I don't know.



That's all.

EDIT: This thread was started in January 2008. In January 2009 I found a suitable photo of this crossing on a typical winter day:

aRoudy1

It was designed by the same folks who built the roads of my youth--4 miles uphill from home to school and 4 miles uphill from school to home.

unixpro

Buy one of these https://www.castlecraft.com/seacycle.htm and knock yourself out.

1. Tailwinds are a myth.
2. All hills are uphill both ways.

ken cummings

I looked at the bridge on a Google Maps application. Was that you going east, near the middle of the bridge, in a light colored outfit? The whole set up looks like the one on the Golden Gate Bridge. Do you get as many suicides as we do?

East Hill

No, you can't throw yourself off the I-90 bridge very easily--most of it is on the surface of the water.

BengeBoy, I sure do agree about the noise factor. I swear that it would be possible to have nobody on the bridge and still not be able to hear the water . It's disturbing to be in that nice marshy bit on the Bellevue side and hear cars instead of ducks and whatnot.

On the other hand, at least I-90 HAS a bike lane, unlike the 520 bridge .

East Hill

unixpro

This is true. If it weren't for the I-90 bike lane, you'd have to go around the lake to either the north or the south. A nice long pleasant ride for a Saturday in the summer, but not so much for a commute in the winter.

BengeBoy 

Yes, I know. Really, the I-90 bike lane is an essential part of the East-West biking corridor. The first time I rode it I thought it was amazing.

But I still wonder -- why is the pavement so rough? It's not rough because it's been damaged; it's like it was laid down in lumps.

squirl

Boo Hoo, alot of us have to ride on the shoulders of bike lanes that were designed by incompetent boobs that dont go anywhere and/or are covered with pot holes, large puddles, glass and gravel all the while dodging idiots pulling out of 7/11 half drunk who dont look where they are going. Get over yourself, I take that bridge twice a week and LOVE it. You are probably riding a road bike that was designed for smooth country roads and cant understand why roads and trails are rough in the city. I mean come on ' you cant hear the lap of wave' , ' the lights are to bright or to dim' , what are you from issaquah or somthing.
I know this sounds rough but geez, thats a great biking lane.

vrkelley

It's a bit windy but it's the only way across the lake. There was talk awhle back about giving the extra lane to cagers

markjenn

I think the proprosal was to narrow the lanes on the MI-Seattle floating bridge to the same width as the MI-Bellevue East Channel bridge to allow another lane to be added for traffic. During construction, the bike lane was to be closed and a van service would be provided to shuttle bikers across.

I haven't heard whether this proposal is dead or alive, but I think it got held up because it wouldn't qualify for federal matching funds unless the bike lanes were to safety spec and the East Channel bridge lane is too narrow (8' rather than 10', as I recall).

In all seriousness, the I90 trail is a marvel and we're lucky to have it. I just wish they'd get something built N-S through Bellevue and Kirkland which still doesn't have a decent bicycle corridor, even on-street. We may get the "Dinner Train" rail corridor eventually. This would connect the I90 trail to the Woodinville and hook up to the Marymoor trail. That would be a wonderful thing, although to be honest, this seems like an extravagent use of a precious right-of-way to a relatively small number of users - light rail would really serve a much bigger audience. Maybe both could be served.

- Mark

Jim-in-Kirkland

You forgot to mention the occasion 25+ mile an hour wind out of the south that kicks up the road grit to give you an unpleasant blast.

On the other hand, hang in there - soon there will be daylight and you can see a beautiful view of Mount Rainier. Now that my commute has shifted away from Seattle, I miss riding the I-90 bridge and parts of Mercer Island with a beautiful view of the lake.

BengeBoy 

Sorry to give you that impression -- maybe if you re-read the post you'd see I was (mostly) kidding.

As I said in my second post, it is an essential part of the East-West biking corridor. The *only* serious thing I (still) wonder about is the pavement quality. It *is* rough for undamaged concrete. It makes me think about how we build "bike lanes" in our country but then don't properly engineer them or maintain them -- two examples (1) the horrible root heaves all over the Burke-Gilman trail and (2) this concrete on the I-90 bridge. They just weren't thinking.

In all seriousness (well, mostly seriousness) I wrote the post because when I first started biking in this area I was blown away by the bike lane on the I90 bridge. I thought it was great that the Eastside was connected to Seattle -- making the whole area much more transit-able by bike (is transit-able a word?). But lately, I've noticed that it's a *bit* of a pain, and a part of my rides I don't necessarily look forward to. I think I have this *ideal* about being able to cruise over a beautiful spot like that in a very relaxed way, but actually when you're crossing the I90 bridge it's just a little hard to relax -- you can't go to "sleep" like on some bike lanes I've been on; you do gotta focus.

And so I began to think about the difficulty of providing services to bikers -- first we (well, me) complain about lack of accommodations for bikes. Then, we get them, and we complain. What if you were the bureaucrat who was assigned to build the bike lane and the contractor produced the sub-standard concrete surface that we got...what do you do? What if you were in charge of the parks budget for the city of Seattle -- how much could you afford to resurface/maintain the surface of the Burke Gilman trail, when you have so many priorities to provide for? The challenge of providing bike-friendly accommodations goes beyond just providing the lane; it has to be done and maintained properly. and public officials have lots of other needs to meet.

So - I am (sort of) criticizing myself. We get this great bike lane, and then, I complain?

BTW, I ride all 3 bikes in my sig line across the bridge regularly; my daily commuter is the Trek (a very rugged touring bike), which has 32c tires. I used to commute on a road bike but as you point out the tires on a road bike aren't really suited for rough pavement. The roughest pavement on my commute is in downtown Seattle -- which is still 10x times smoother than some of the other (bad) places I've biked (Mexico City, where I lived for 3 years, for starters).

East Hill

BB was just joking for the most part!

I would love to get out on the bridge when there's no car traffic, just to see if there's still noise. I swear there would be ghostly automobiles rumbling by...

I often wonder about the planning around here. Like that nice new road that goes East/West from the Kent Valley up to I-5. No bike lane!!!!! How many East/West corridors do we have, for crying out loud? And yet, it's a perfect connection to the Interurban/GRT. Guys, what WERE you thinking? Oh yeah, it would have cost a few more bucks .

East Hill

heavyMetal

There is another Interurban trail that runs parallel to Interstate 5 between Lynnwood and Everett, sometimes on surface streets and sometimes just off the freeway. I've only biked it once, because of the noise and pollution - every time a truck went by (which was frequent) you could taste the diesel. Makes me wonder about the Eastside Rails-to-trails deal. I agree that the county should buy the corridor, but question ripping out the rails and converting it to a bike trail if it is going to be another fume-fest.

rnorris

OK, I appreciate the I-90 bridge bike lane and I'm from Issaquah too

Maybe I'm weird, but I think it's fun! At night, the views of the lights all around are really striking. And when the thing is clear of pedestrians (as it often is), it's one of only two stretches of road between Issaquah and Seattle where you can mash along at full speed for 3 miles without any interruptions. Try it under a full moon sometime on a summer night. Yeah, it's noisy and a bit rough, but sure beats having to ride all the way around the lake as people did before it was available.

randya

I remember when Issaquah was still an undeveloped little town

squirl

Sorry, I didnt read the sarcasm in your message, guess I had had alot of traffic to fight that day and wasnt paying close enough attention. Cheers. By the way, I always thought the rough concrete was intentional to prevent slipping during freezing tempetures since the bridge has no ground insulation.

rnorris

The other contributing factor to the rough bike lane is all the expansion joints in the bridge. Remember, that thing has to flex to accommodate wind and wave action, as well as thermal expansion. One engineer described the I-90 and 520 floating bridges as "basically a bunch of boats strung together".

Long floating bridges like these are actually pretty rare and work well in certain environments. We've only lost two in this state so far.

swc7916

From a satellite, the I-90 bridge may look like the Golden Gate bridge, but they are nothing alike (excepct that they cross water.) The I-90 bridge (also known as the Mercer Island Floating Bridge) is a FLOATING bridge and, except for the approaches, is at water level. I have never heard of a suicide on the Mercer Island Floating Bridge, though it does happen on the Aurora Bridge.

BengeBoy 

No problem.

Anyway, back to my obsession with the concrete on the lane (I really am picky, aren't I).

It's not the expansion joints. They're not too bad. And it's not the "roughness"...there is just enough scruffiness on the concrete to prevent slipping.

What I'm sort of mystified about is the sort of bumpy/lumpy/wavy feeling of the concrete...if you're moving along at a pretty good clip it feels to me like the concrete has waves in it; almost like a junior version of the root heaves that we see on the Burke-Gilman trail. Again, the concrete isn't damaged...just lumpy.

I've found that when you are headed West on the bridge, if you ride w/your elbow almost on the northern guard rail, you can find much smoother concrete. I haven't tried that driving toward the East because it always seems there is a lot of road debris/trash along the southern edge of the lane and thus I don't want to ride over there.

More importantly, I probably need to find something else to complain about....

East Hill

How about the fact that it's started snowing again here on the East Hill? Oh, I know, when I ride on the Lake Washington trail from Bellevue to Renton, I want those miserable bottlenecks removed. You all know which ones I'm talking about. And why is it that as soon as the trail reaches the Renton city border, the asphalt is wonderfully smooth without root heaves?



East Hill

mattm

what kinda tire-pressure are you running? maybe let out a few PSI and see how it feels.. =]

markjenn

I'd guess because in Renton the "trail" is part of the street and doesn't have trees growing 3' away from the pavement edge.

- Mark

East Hill

hehe, that's partially true, but I'm talking about the part that runs parallel to 405 that was repaved maybe a couple of years ago.

East Hill

BengeBoy 

Clearly, I lack all credibility here!

Meanwhile, back on the bridge, this happened yesterday...

https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...abbing02e.html