So it’s interesting (although obvious, I guess) that the places where there are problems with navigation and with the quality of the trail are the places where for one reason or another it has been diverted from the old interurban railroad right-of-way. Rail roadbeds make good bike trails. When the roadbed gets cut by a freeway or when an electric substation gets plopped down on top of it the work-around is usually second-best.
Some of the departures from the railroad right-of-way are minor and really don’t matter much to cyclists. I consider the Sky Nursery detour to be in that category. While the road bed went parallel to highway 99 on the west of the nursery the City of Shoreline allowed the nursery to build the trail at the back of their facility, on midvale. In one sense that was a good choice (it got the bikes out of the way of the front-end loaders and the piles of bark and peat) but it is a compromise in terms of the jog to get over to Midvale, the climb that the railroad cut out, the driveways into the nursery, etc. All in all I don’t blame them for routing the trail this way and I don’t really complain about it. (just for grins, here’s a gallery of pictures from the year while that piece of trail was not yet built.) UPDATE – in June 2010 Shoreline has torn up the trail for a couple of blocks north of the Walgreens. It is sad to see the smooth new cement in rubble and this time there aren’t any detour signs or accomodations for trail users.
Similarly, the routing on the streets at the intersection with 52nd in Lynwood isn’t a big deal. The roadbed clearly cut across the triangle where the current trail exits onto the street and continued on the other side of the street in the overgrown alley. (A few years ago you could ride that alley but probably not any more.) The intersection is busy and you end up either making a left in traffic or crossing two streets as a pedestrian, but it’s not a big enough deal to complain about.
I think that there are seven major departures from the railroad grade that really represent the improvements that the trail needs:
1) Aurora Village as it should be
Aurora Village as it is
2) 212th Substation as it is
212th substation as it should be
3) Lynnwood Transit Center as it is
Lynnwood Transit Center as it should be
4) Swamp creek Interchange as it is
Swamp creek Interchange as it should be
5) Martha Lake (164th) Interchange as it is
Martha Lake (164th) Interchange as it should be
6) McCollum Park & Ride (128th) Interchange as it is
McCollum Park & Ride (128th) Interchange as it should be
7) Boeing Freeway (SR 526) as it is
Boeing Freeway (SR 526 as it should be
The effect of the detour is more obvious if you zoom out, but the accuracy of the route is based on a high magnification in the satellite view.
The detour at the Lynnwood transit center (#3 on my list) is being fixed by the City – they are building a bridge over 44th so it won’t be inexpensive but they’ve got funding and are committed. The detour around the 128th substation (#2 on my list) could be done inexpensively – it’s really just a matter of fencing and asphalt. I think that is in Montlake Terrace and we ought to lobby them to get it done. the detours at 164th and 128th (Numbers 5 & six on my list) will involve cuts under freeway ramps and/or arterial streets. They will need to wait until those interchanges get re-built and we need to make sure that the priority doesn’t get lost. (The way the trail was constructed at the 112th interchange is the model here – an inexpensive fix would be a whole lot better than what we have now.)
So the three big ones are Aurora Village (#1), Swamp Creek (#4) and SR 526 (#7).
Aurora Village: Edmonds seems to have decided to run the trail on 76th which is a bad decision. I think that the model ought to be the underpass on 220th – there and on the Burke Gillman in Kenmore they’ve shown that you don’t have to build Shoreline-type bridges to separate bikes and cars. The power lines still run in the old railroad right-of way so the curve up to SR-104 ought to be available for the trail. An underpass takes the trail past the highway (and keeps the bikes out of the intersection) and from there to the end of the Shoreline segment at 200th is all parking lots and/or tree lines. The trail should go under the powerlines!
Swamp Creek: This one is going to be expensive since there is no way around a bridge over I-5. Without walking the ground under the bridges I’ve got to believe that there is a way to sneak the trail under I-90 without expensive engineering. However, you have to get across I-5 and probably over the ramp on the east side of the interchange. Think about the Sammamish River trail under the I-405 interchange in Bothell. Think about the King County Interurban Trail crossing I-405 in Tukwilla. It can be done and it would be so much safer than the Maple St. bridge we’re routed over now.
Boeing Highway: The detour here is the most egregious of the whole trail – the freeway has no pedestrian crossings from I-5 up to Casino Rd. The best solution would be to put a super-sized culvert in with the bottom third dedicated to drainage and a trail surface over that. I expect that you could bore that passage without disrupting traffic on the freeway – alternatively you could shore it up and dig it out as you went. Think the cut in Lynnwood where the trail goes under Alderwood Mall Parkway. This is certainly not as expensive as the Swamp Creek problem but the City of Everett hasn’t shown a lot of inclination to invest in the trail.