Watch for bikes on Pacific Avenue

Those traveling Pacific Avenue have run into the one-lane restrictions as Thurston County constructs a bicycle bridge over the roadway.   When finished the new bridge will extend the Chehalis Western Train unbroken from Yelm to Woodard Bay on Puget Sound.

This is the last of the missing links to be constructed.   Within the last few years a bicycle bridge over Interstate Five and another over Martin Way have been finished.

The bridge over Pacific Avenue was held up over concerns of local property owners.

Foremost among those concerns is the actual design of the Pacific Avenue bridge.

Plans call for the bridge to have off-ramps, which not only take up considerable room, but funnel bike traffic onto Pacific Avenue which has no bike lanes at all.

Such a concern meant nothing to county designers.   A bicycle off-ramp exists just a few hundred yards north up the trail at Martin Way, but the county wanted off-ramps onto Pacific Avenue.

In addition, the county will be constructing a bicycle roundabout a few hundred yards south where the Woodland Trail meets up with the Chehalis Western Trail.   The cost to all of this construction is $3 million dollars.

Bicycle riders should be estatic.  They can ride their bicycles for miles and miles through the heart of Olympia and Lacey’s urban areas without having to worry about cars and traffic.

Until they come to Pacific Avenue.

Why planners and designers wanted an off-ramp onto Pacific Avenue seems to make no sense at all.   Unless, the City of Olympia plans to narrow Pacific to one lane each way and build bike lanes in the other traffic lane.

They’ve done that on other streets.