So it looks like the city is finally doing something about the curb cut—for bikes—on southbound side of the Ballard Bridge. Eli Sanders described riding over the Ballard Bridge and using the old curb cut in a feature published back in April of 2005:

This curb cut that Hiller and I are now staring at is meant to integrate riders back into traffic after they have ridden the gangplank south across the bridge. It forces bikers to merge almost perpendicularly into traffic that is going 40 miles per hour. Much of this traffic wants to turn right a few feet beyond the curb cut, directly across the biker's path. If a biker makes it past this merge and turn alive, he or she is on 15th Avenue West, a howling road with no bike lane that connects to Elliott Avenue West, another howling road with no bike lane that leads into downtown.

The new curb cut will deliver cyclists more directly and efficiently into the paths of speeding cars turning right on to W. Emerson St. at the south end of the Ballard Bridge—which most do without signaling—and that's some improvement, I suppose. Here's a picture of the already-in-progress curb cut:

newballardcurbcut.jpg

Hooray.

But you know what? The curb cut is least the Ballard Bridge's shortcomings. If the city were serious about making the Ballard Bridge safe for cyclists it would do something about the insanely narrow, insanely dangerous sidewalks/bikepaths/gangplanks that line either side of the bridge. Two cyclists can't pass each other going in opposite directions; a pedestrian walking across the bridge has to squeeze against the railing to let cyclists pass. Those sidewalks are a huge disincentive for the experienced cyclists and they probably keep hundreds of people who live in Ballard and work in downtown Seattle from even considering commuting by bike.

And a city that was serious about encouraging bike commuting would do something—something like dedicated bike paths—about 15th Avenue West too.

It's straight shot from Ballard to downtown Seattle; there are no hills, it's nice and flat the whole way. If someone was thinking about moving to Seattle from, say, Tacoma because their offices were relocating to downtown Seattle, and that person wanted to bike to work but wasn't a hard-core cyclist—he didn't want to climb Capitol Hill or Queen Anne every day on the way home from work—Ballard would be the obvious choice... if Ballard Bridge was safe to bike and if there was a dedicated bike lane along 15th Avenue West all the way to downtown Seattle.

Build it, Seattle, and more folks will ride.