City breaks ground on Interurban Trail

When Shoreline resident Helen Cox Oltman, 77, was a young girl, she remembers riding the Interurban train from Shoreline to Seattle.

“I remember the sound – clickity clack, clickity clack – and hearing the train whistle,” Oltman said. “I remember I rode on it once, when I was 4 or 5 years old we lived in Richmond Highlands and when my grandfather came to visit, we rode the Interurban to Playland,” an amusement park at Bitter Lake.

M.L. Burke, 78, also remembers riding the Interurban.

“We’d always get dressed up to go, and had to walk up the brick road, Firland Way, and caught it up there, going down town to Seattle,” Burke said.

“We’d go as far as 85th and Greenwood, to a wonderful shopping area. I remember the conductor being so friendly and nice, it was a little adventure. I remember there were three or four steps, and it was high up and hard to get on and off, but there were always plenty of seats, and we had these little paper tickets that we put up for the conductor to see.”

The single track rail line was built from Ballard to Everett, meandering through what was then a forested semi-wilderness. It transported lumber and hauled passengers. Land in Shoreline along the Interurban route was often the first to be subdivided and sold for residential development, according to historian Clo Compass.

The line paralleled the North Trunk Road which became Aurora Avenue N., crossing the road at the Pershing Bridge at what is today N. 155th Street where a concrete abutment still stands.

The Interurban was a daily part of life in those days, Burke added.

“I used to swim at Echo Lake and across the street we could see the Interurban going back and forth all the time, and we knew it was time to go home when the 4 p.m. trolley came by,” Burke said.

“I remember we would ride it back from Greenwood and get off at Womer’s Grocery store, where the piano shop is now, and I’d have three cents and a nickel tied in a handkerchief, enough for milk money and penny candy.”

In 1939, the Interurban was dismantled. Automobile and buses were more convenient. The rails were sent to Japan, sold as scrap metal.

“I remember my folks said those rails will come back as bullets and bombs, and they were right,” Oltman said.

The former rail line land is now owned by Seattle City Light and used as an electrical power transmission corridor. The city of Shoreline has worked with City Light to turn a portion of the rail line that runs through the city into a 12-foot wide paved trail, similar to Seattle’s Burke-Gilman trail. A pedestrian bridge will be built where the Pershing abutment is, at 155th St. to carry trail users across busy Aurora Avenue N, to begin in 2005.

Construction will begin this month on the south section of the trail that runs from 145th to 155th streets and the north section from N. 192nd to 205th streets will begin later this autumn. These two portions plus the pedestrian bridge is expected to cost $8.8 million, said Kirk McKinley, the project manager with the city. The city has received $6.7 million in federal, state and county grants.

The section of trail that will run in the central area of Aurora, between 175th and 192nd has not been finalized yet, but is expected to run parallel to Aurora there and cost about $2.4 million. Top Foods at 175th has already built a portion of the trail in front of its property.

This project, in conjunction with the city’s plans to widen Aurora, will displace several businesses in this section.

“I have mixed emotions about it because I feel empathy for the people who will be losing their businesses,” Oltman said.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Burke said. “A nice trail like the Burke-Gilman will be a real enhancement to this area, and it would be very sentimental to walk on it, I would like to do that.”