King County wants to repave and widen the popular Burke-Gilman Trail as it passes through Lake Forest Park. More than 130 people showed up to a public meeting Oct. 8 where county officials introduced some ideas on how this redevelopment might occur. The discussion quickly degenerated into a debate between adjacent property owners and trail users.
According to county officials, the trail was originally built in 1974 by King County as a part of the county’s Urban Trail Plan. Over the years the trail has been used as a recreational facility but has also developed into an alternative transportation system and become a way to get around the county by bike.
The portion of trail that runs through Lake Forest Park is the oldest, most heavily used and in most need of repair and maintenance work, county officials said. It is also the most densely populated area the trail cuts through, cutting right by homes and driveways. Speed limit signs, stop signs and other mitigation have been installed over the years to regulate trail users in Lake Forest Park’s portion of the trail.
“The most common complaint I have received over the years is the complaint of trail-user conflict – pedestrians feeling intimidated with speeding bicyclists,” said Tom Exton, trails coordinator with King County Parks and Recreation.
The county wants to address this problem by widening the trail and better separating the users. At the meeting, county officials proposed several design alternatives to do this.
“At a minimum we’d like to have a 12-foot wide paved surface, which is the federal recommended standards for minimum width multi-purpose trails. This would give more room for passing safely,” Exton said. Currently the width of the Lake Forest Park section of trail ranges from eight feet to nine feet.
In addition to widening the paved trail, the county proposes gravel shoulders that would range from two feet to five feet wide on both sides of the trail. In some places the county wants to look at separating the gravel shoulders from the paved trail by landscaping, to better isolate the different users safely.
A major issue to contend with, however, is abutment.
“There are encroachments affecting trail safety like fencing, walls, hedges, trees and rights-of-way that are not clearly identified,” said Larry Smart, a consultant for the county working on the trail redevelopment project. There are also drainage swales, ditches and embankments that are a safety hazard and would affect the county’s ability to widen the trail, he said.
“In areas where encroachment, slopes or bottlenecks occur, we will need to work around those areas, and we want to have the trail reflect the circumstances of adjacent landowners,” McLean added.
Finally, there’s the stop signs on the trail and the conflict they represent between trail users and vehicles crossing over the trail.
Property owners adjacent to the trail argue that stop signs to halt trail users are necessary because when vehicles pull out of driveways or streets, they cannot see the cyclists. Cyclists say the stop signs are ineffective and ignored.
“I don’t see why we have stop signs for cyclists, who use the trail much more than cars cross over the trail,” one cyclist said.
One property owner said “The stop signs are there to save the biker’s life, not mine. I could hit a biker a week, as I creep out, honking my horn.”
One cyclist recommended the property owners install mirrors to tell them when cyclists are coming.
One property owner said the problem “is bicyclists who think they own the trail.” Rather than widening the trail, he said the county should address trail-user behavior. “We have to have enforcement, arrests, imprisonment and confiscations.”
This summer Lake Forest Park police increased enforcement along the trail, issuing warnings and citations to cyclists who don’t stop or are speeding.
County officials say an engineering study will be conducted to evaluate the regulatory signs, as a part of the redevelopment project.
Lake Forest Park City Council member Mary Jane Goss asked the county to provide accident history and data to prove why the trail is unsafe and in need of redevelopment.
“More often than not, accidents on the trail go unreported to us, so we do not have the means to collect accident data,” Exton replied.
When asked how such a project would be funded by a county stricken with a deficit, county officials said because the trail qualified as an alternative transportation route, the county can apply for funding from the Federal Highway Administration and from the state Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation for grants. Grants are expected to provide for up to 85 percent of the cost of the project.
The county currently has $300,000 to create the schematic plan for redevelopment, McLean said. A preliminary budget for this project has not yet been developed because final design decisions have not yet been made.
Another public meeting is scheduled for mid-January, when the county will present a preliminary design for the redevelopment project.
The county is collecting public comment on its plans for redeveloping the Burke-Gilman Trail through Lake Forest Park. To give comment, send e-mail to leslie.mclean@metrock.gov or send it by mail to Leslie McLean, project manager, King County FMD, Parks CIP, 500 4th Ave. Rm 320, Seattle, WA 98104. For more information, call 206-296-0968.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
