Shoreline resident and volunteer bike lane sweeper Ellie Miner poses with Meryl Sweep, a bike trailer sweeper that Urbanist Shoreline has deployed to clean up bike paths around the city. (David Mendez/The Osprey)
by David Mendez
She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’s sweeping up the place.
Everywhere she goes, people come up to take pictures, ask questions, or practically fall over themselves to admire her. And she’s surprisingly loud.
“It’s quieter than a leaf blower,” said Katie Lorah, founder of Urbanist Shoreline, laughing.
She’s Meryl Sweep, and she — a bike lane sweeper designed to be towed behind a bicycle — is working to make bike paths safer across the city.
“My favorite part is when they walk past me and they turn around to look, and I see them in the rear view mirror,” said Ellie Miner, one of the volunteers who regularly signs up to tow Meryl up and down bike paths and trails.
The bike sweeper is part of a pilot program operated by Urbanist Shoreline, who purchased the cleaning tool — built by California-based, British Columbia-built company Bike Lane Sweeper — with the help of an environmental mini-grant provided by the City of Shoreline.
“So, Urbanist Shoreline basically does not raise money, intentionally. We want to stay away from an official structure of fundraising. Most of what we do is totally free, and that has always been the case,” Lorah told The Osprey.
Urbanist Shoreline works to build community around bikes and bike infrastructure. The group holds regular meetups in the Ridgecrest neighborhood, leads “bike valet” pop-ups at public events to encourage transit by bike, sponsors speaker events and is a driving force behind Shoreline’s “neighborhood greenways” initiative. Meryl Sweep is just the newest tool in their kit.
“It’s such a great conversation starter. People just smile when they see it, and I think that’s the effect we were going for,” Lorah said.
The excitement kicked off with a naming contest, including standout suggestions like “Sweepy McSweeperface,” “The Grim Sweeper,” “Barbara Brush” and “A Sweep At The Wheel.” Training sessions for folks to learn how to properly use the sweeper were also hugely successful, drawing well more than Urbanist Shoreline’s usual crowd.
“I thought that was really interesting, tapping into a new community of folks that, for them, the bike sweeper is going to be the thing getting them out of the house,” Lorah said. “It’s exciting to be part of something new like that, something that you know is volunteerism but…you can do it while you’re doing something fun.”
That’s what drew Miner to the project. She and her partner are still fairly new to Shoreline, and when she got the email calling for volunteers to learn how to use Meryl Sweep, she jumped in with both feet.
Ellie Miner demonstrates Meryl Sweep’s capabilities during a close-street block party on Wallingford Avenue on Aug. 30. (David Mendez/The Osprey)
“I wanted to help, honestly. I wanted to be a bigger part of the community and I wanted to get to know people,” Miner said. Plus, dirty trails are a big issue for cyclists. She rattled off a list of things the sweeper has picked up into its dustbins: dirt, rocks, nails, cigarettes, snapped-off branches. Thing that don’t fit are brushed off of the trail by the sweeper. “It’s just a net positive, and all you have to do is ride your bike,” Miner said.
It’s easier, of course, if you’ve got an e-bike, like Miner’s sturdy cargo e-bike that she uses as her daily driver — though it can be towed by both electric and human-powered “acoustic” bikes, as Lorah jokingly calls them.
Meryl Sweep has become a conversation piece, Miner said. People are excited to talk about it when she’s stopped or slowed down on the Interurban Trail, which she focuses on. The path is Miner’s own daily commute, and it just makes sense to make the things you touch better, she suggested. “Cleaning it up for other people makes me happy,” she said.
It also provides a happy distraction for folks. A video Miner posted to TikTok — she mounts a 360 camera to provide the sweeper’s point of view — showed plenty of excited riders chatting her up on the trail, as well as one Lime scooter rider who nearly veered off of the Interurban as they watched Meryl Sweep pass by.
@miniminereth Thank you to the Shoreline Tool Library and Urbanist Shoreline for the opportunity to clean our trails up! If you’d like to get involved,... See more
The sweeper isn’t perfect. It takes about three or four passes over an area before the path is completely clear. Miner will typically ride up and down the Interurban Trail, starting at the Shoreline Tool Library — where the sweeper is stored — then heading north to Aurora Village or south to 145th Street.
“We love the machine,” Lorah said, adding that “we’ve definitely noticed a couple of quirks about it.” It’s not the most nimble creature — it can feel more like driving a vehicle than riding a bike, and its turning radius is massive, requiring riders to take their turns at intersections. "It definitely feels like something that like two Canadian guys made in a light industrial park as like a sort of a beta,” Lorah said.
“Bike infrastructure can be fun! It can be something that brings people together, it can be something that makes people smile.
Quirks aside, there’s one big catch: Meryl Sweep can only be used on a small handful of routes throughout Shoreline, owing to the terms of the grant provided by the city.
Shoreline offers up to $5,000 for projects approved for its environmental mini-grant program. But the city has required that Meryl Sweep be kept off of streets that are typically maintained by the city’s street sweepers, to avoid duplicating existing employee work. Shoreline’s Public Works Department rolls street sweepers across the city’s major arterial and collector streets once a month, while residential streets are swept one to three times a year.
Meryl Sweep has thus been limited to a few bike-friendly spots, like the Interurban Trail, the paths winding around Ballinger Commons, a stretch of Perkins Way and a few stretches near South Woods Park and along 15th Avenue.
Per the terms of the grant, Shoreline’s association with the sweeper program ends after Dec. 31, 2026. After that, Lorah hopes to take Meryl Sweep’s show out on the road.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to expand our sweeping route because, as any cyclist in the Shoreline can tell, the current sweeping schedule often leaves debris in the unprotected bike lanes. That leads to less-than-optimal cycling conditions, especially after a windy day or a storm,” she said.
The extent of any expansion hasn’t yet been determined. Eidan Silver, Shoreline’s Environmental Program Specialist, told The Osprey that the route limitations will stay in place after the sweeper pilot program ends, through the end of the city-funded sweeping equipment’s life.
“That said, I plan on meeting with volunteers following the conclusion of this Environmental Mini-Grant to reevaluate existing route maps,” Silver said in an email.
A map showing the routes approved by the city of Shoreline for Urbanist Shoreline’s bike path sweeper program. Paths in orange are approved for volunteers to sweep, paths in red or otherwise unmarked are not eligible. (Courtesy City of Shoreline)
The city has left the door open for Urbanist Shoreline to apply for another grant to buy another sweeper during the next round of applications. But they’re not a group that sits around, pushing carbon copies of their successes. Previously, Urbanist Shoreline used a mini grant to install bike racks in areas across Shoreline.
“By the time the next round of mini grants comes around, we’ll probably have another crazy idea,” Lorah said. “I can’t speak to what that will be right now, because it tends to come out of nowhere.”
Crazy ideas are near and dear to her group’s heart, and one should never underestimate how much a bit of whimsy can brighten up someone’s day.
“Bike infrastructure can be fun! It can be something that brings people together, it can be something that makes people smile, like giving someone a crazy, unexpected thing on their commute home to look at,” Lorah said. “That was sort of the goal, as much as cleaning the bike lanes themselves.”