Fall in the Seattle area means lots of leaves in bike lanes. Slippery, soggy leaves can be dangerous on two wheels. Now, volunteers in Kirkland have a clever, new tool to clean bike lanes from the seat of a bike.

When Charlie Liban rides his e-bike through Kirkland, he doesn’t avoid the hazards of leaf-covered bike lanes. He rides right through them, picking up slippery leaves as he goes.

Liban presses a button on his handlebars and whir-whir-whir: a circular, horizontal brush starts spinning behind him.

Magically, the path in his wake is cleared of those pesky, sometimes dangerous leaves.

Liban is part of Liveable Kirkland, an Eastside advocacy group, that this year purchased a bike lane sweeper that attaches to the back of bikes. Eastside Urbanism, another group, also contributed to buying the sweeper.

“You feel like a tugboat pulling around this giant barge behind you very slowly and just getting stuff done,” Liban told KUOW.

Cities have street sweepers, and a few, like Seattle and Kirkland, use smaller machines that can fit into narrow bike lanes.

But with so many trees in the Pacific Northwest, it’s impossible for any municipality to keep up with every little path in the area.

“This is more for side streets, sidewalks, places which are only accessible by bike,” Liban said, “which they sometimes can’t get to, they just miss, or it’s not done quick enough.”

RELATED: Rad Power Bikes speeds toward financial cliff

The fun, he said, is that if he sees a cluttered path while out riding, he can clean it immediately instead of waiting to report it to the city.

The sweeper is a big, circular brush that spins inside a box, feeding leaves into two plastic bins. After a few blocks, Liban empties the bins into yard waste bags that he carries in the front cargo area of his e-bike. The sweeper attaches to bikes with a metal arm and trailer hitch, and is powered with a standard e-bike battery.

Sullivan and Liban have learned that the device works really well for all sorts of road debris, from spark plugs to rocks.

“I got like, 35 pounds of gravel one time,” said Kyle Sullivan, another member of Liveable Kirkland.

Volunteers in the Seattle area have long gone out to clear bike paths with brooms and rakes. Cascade Bicycle Club hosts cleanup parties this time of year.

One bike commuter even tows around a bin full of yard tools to tackle messy paths on his way to work.

This bike-pulled sweeper, though, is the first of its kind in Washington state, Sullivan said.

RELATED: Why more parents are riding cargo bikes, skipping the minivan

They said they’ve seen them on social media in California and Portland, but they’re pretty sure this is new here.

The two hope the device will catch on and more people will be interested in borrowing the sweeper to attach to their own bikes.

Tool libraries could be the perfect spot to keep one, Sullivan said, though Kirkland currently doesn’t have one.

“This bike lane sweeper could end up at that tool library so that just anyone can borrow it,” he said, “but for now, we’re just handling it ourselves. And whoever hears about it and is interested, we can loan it to them and have them do it.”

This is their first autumn pulling the sweeper around but already, Liban said, it’s catching people’s attention.

He’s often stopped and asked how the thing works and people like taking photos of it in action, he said.

It takes a village, he said, to keep up with all of the fallen leaves around here.

“I can see other people changing how they’re walking from one side of the path to the other to go in this cleared walkway,” Liban said, “and it’s a good feeling.”

Casey Martin is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/29/seattle-eastside-leaf-cleaning-bikes/