Seattle to move forward with preferred designs for Green Lake outer loop

After receiving community feedback, the Green Lake Outer Loop project will be moving forward with the preferred designs, which includes adding new path along Aurora Avenue North and removing the northbound vehicle travel lane along West Green Lake Drive North.

5-year project around Green Lake finishes with new bike lanes, paved roads

Green Lake, a popular park in Seattle, has a 2.8 mile path around the lake. Based on community feedback to add more travel options, and to be in line with the city’s Vision Zero safety goals, the new outer loop project will build off two recently completed projects — the Green Lake and Wallingford Multimodal Paving Project, and the new path for West Green Lake Way North.

Once complete, there will be an outer loop for people to walk, bike, and roll safely around the lake.

The first segment of the outer loop project will be a new path between North 63rd Street and West Green Lake Drive North along the on-ramp and Aurora Avenue North. Vehicle access will be maintained along the on-ramp.

The second segment will maintain the existing street parking along West Green Lake Drive North, but will remove the northbound vehicle travel lane and add a two-way walking and biking path on the lake side of the street.

More than 300 people participated in the online open house and neighborhood community meetings for this project. The presentation from the open house can be viewed here. Additionally, there were 4,345 respondents for a November 2021 survey about the project, and the summary is available here.

Should Seattle take a traffic lane for an outer loop at Green Lake?

As the city explains, the construction and design funding for this project comes from the Vision Zero Program, “which prioritized the project due to its safety benefits and potential to address recent collisions in this area.” The final cost is not yet determined.

View a map of the proposed walk and bike facilities and the two project segments here.