Padden Parkway

Padden Parkway Bike Path

This is a beautiful bike path that parallels Padden Parkway in Vancouver, Washington from near 162nd Avenue in the east, continuing west over I-205 and beyond.

When we ride from Oregon, we cross the river on the I-205 bridge. We head up the hill to 10th. (see our route here.) We cross over I-205 on 10th, which becomes McGillivray. We travel north on 164th / 162nd, to catch the Padden pathway. On the other end, you can take 78th to St. Johns; then west on 63rd to Hazel Dell Ave; and south to catch the Burn Bridge Creek Greenway to head back east. That loop (see map) is about 30 miles. (more details below)

crossing I-205 on 10th

east on McGillivray Blvd.

north along 162nd

west along Padden Parkway path

west along Padden Parkway

approaching I-205

up the steep pedestrian / bike bridge

looking down on I-205

down the ramp

nearing the intersection of Padden & Andresen

path ends at 78th

This is very nice bike path, both in design and maintenance! Most of Padden has a planted center median in the roadway. There is a second planted median of sorts between the traffic lanes and the bike path. The pavement is of good quality, both wide and smooth. The intersections are either underpasses or good crosswalks. One challenge is the overpass over I-205. It is rather high and steep, so hit your low gear and keep cranking! In our opinion, this pathway is a good model of how to design and construct a good bike path!

Now a word on getting there. We cross the river on Interstate 205 and work our way up onto the plateau at 10th. We have a "pdf" version of our connection route between I-205, the top of the hill, and the Burnt Bridge Greenway here. We head east on 10th which becomes McGillivray after you cross over I-205. This street is really great for riding! It is pretty with a nice planted center divider, low traffic volume, well marked bike lane, and a speed limit is only 25mph. We suggest turning north through back streets before you get to 164th since that street doesn't have bike lanes south of Mill Plain (see left map below). Once you hit 164th (which shortly turns and becomes 162nd) it will take you nearly all the way to the Padden Parkway path. We found that if you turn left on 81st you can cut through a neighborhood and end up right at the beginning of the bike path (see right map below).

At the west end of the Padden Parkway trial we took 78th west; then St. Johns Road south; then 63rd west; then Hazel Dell south. From Hazel Dell we connected up with the Burnt Bridge Creek Greenway and took it back east. We then took our route mentioned earlier (map here) to get us back up the hill crossing Mill Plain and back down over Highway 14 and on to I-205. Naturally if you are making this a local ride in the Vancouver area, you can just eliminate going up and down the hill south of 10th and make a great circular route of about 30 miles. Unless of course you really like hills, then you can ride down to Highway 14 and back up again just for fun! :)