The Seattle Department of Transportation is laying down the city's first bike box tonight at the intersection of 12th Avenue and E Pine Street, as part of the city's Bicycle Master Plan to prevent collisions between cars and cyclists at heavily trafficked intersections*. A bike box is a giant green box painted onto roadways, roughly spanning the length of a hatchback Honda Civic, that gives bicyclists and motorists visual cues for where cyclists should line up at intersections. This makes the intersection safer for all road users: The bike box is at the head of the intersection (behind the crosswalk). Cars stop behind it, bikes pull into it, and theoretically, motorists see them and don't strike them. Motor vehicle right turns on red aren't allowed at intersections with bike boxes. (Though, as you can see below, there is no sign warning motorists of this.)

Once the light turns green, traffic moves as usual.

SDOT is planning to install additional bike boxes on E Madison Street and 12th Avenue (where both streets intersect with Union Street), and at Seventh Avenue S and S Dearborn Street. Bike boxes are already found in Portland and New York City, to name a few.

*All part of the bicyclist lobby's sweeping agenda to kill Seattle businesses at speeds no greater than 15 mph.