crossing I-5 at 117th?

Tonight the three of us (D. is with bio-Dad for the week) went to Chipotle's at Northgate Mall, a place that's become our favorite Mexican food destination lately. We went there about two weeks ago on foot, and I used my knowledge of the area to show T. we can get from our house to Northgate Mall without spending time on any of the major streets. 'Major' in this case meaning 125th, Roosevelt, Northgate Way, and 5th. This time we went on bikes, me on mine, and T. towing I. on the trail-a-bike.

On the way back, we returned by the same route, north on 3rd Ave. NE from the mall, and then east on 117th over to 8th Ave. NE. I was looking down the sidestreets as we went, mostly out of curiosity, and noticed the end of an asphalted path at 116th. I thought that was odd, but such things usually turn out to provide interesting routes, if not great shortcuts. I signaled to T. to hold on a second and followed the path. It came out on a curving bit of road that went into a bridge crossing I-5! I'd never even known such a thing existed, and had assumed all this time that the only places to get across I-5 up here were Northgate Way and 130th.

We took this as an opportunity for a little exploration. The curving bit of road took us to the intersection of 1st Ave. NE and NE 117th. It's very quiet since there's no place to go racing through to; 1st Ave. NE dead-ends a block to the south of that intersection, presumably at the point where the freeway on-ramps are. We continued west to Meridian, then north to 120th, back to 1st, and then returned by way of the path. Discovering that totally made my day. We now have a way to get across the freeway on foot or by bike that doesn't involve the Dance o' Death with the local car-possessing populace. They may be nice people, but they don't afford non-car folk much consideration as a rule.