Lake Forest Park
The final chapter in an almost five-year debate over the redevelopment of the Burke-Gilman Trail may come to a conclusion in February.
If all goes according to plan, construction on a 2.3-mile stretch of the trail inside city limits could begin in September and be finished by March 2010, officials said.
Hearing examiner John Galt set a schedule for the submittal of closing comments from the city of Lake Forest Park and King County during the second part of a consolidated public hearing on Jan. 26.
Written closing comments from Lake Forest Park are due by 5 p.m. on Feb. 9 and closing comments from King County are due by 5 p.m. on Feb. 17. Galt said he will not need more than the allotted ten days to make a final decision.
The hearing began on Jan. 21, as the next step in the county’s efforts to obtain a conditional use permit from the city for the redevelopment of 2.3 miles of the Burke-Gilman Trail. The section from Northeast 147th Street to Log Boom Park is located within Lake Forest Park. The city requires the county to apply for the permit before commencing construction to widen and resurface the trail, replace vegetation loss to construction with native species and redesign traffic controls among other changes to the trail.
While neither party has denied the need to improve the heavily-used and deteriorating section of the regional facility, past discussion between the parties have centered around exactly what changes should be made. During the hearing, both sides brought witnesses forward to testify on changes and challenges to conditions in the county’s permit request.
One of the contentious issues surrounding the redevelopment of the trail is the placement of traffic and stop signs. Plans include alerts such as pavement markings and yellow warning signs, according to Terry Reckord, who is part of the firm designing the project. Although signs may ask trail users to yield, having to yield when vehicles rarely cross the trail makes little sense to cyclists, he said.
A 10 mph speed limit along the Lake Forest Park stretch of the trail when other sections have a posted speed limit of 15 mph lacks continuity and consistency with the entire trail, Reckord added.
“(Trail) users are telling us in a de facto way that these things do not make sense,” he said.
For every one vehicle crossing there were 10 bike crossings at Northeast 165th Street, traffic engineer and sub consultant for the county Michael Read said.
“Even though there wasn’t a stop sign present, vehicles were yielding to pedestrians on 165th Street,” Read said. “The majority of the time bicyclists cross (intersections) they know they are not going to see a vehicle or they rarely see a vehicle so there’s no compliance.”
A condition that stop signs for both trail users and vehicles be put up at Northeast 165th Street near Beach Drive was included in the city’s staff report for King County’s permit request.
Also included in the report and discussed during the hearing were plans for tree removal during the redevelopment project.
“We think we did our due diligence in documenting trees,” Reckord said.
The county will remove up to and not more than 101 trees during the project, according to Bob Sterbank, attorney for Lake Forest Park. The trees will be replaced at a one-to-one ratio in accordance with the city’s tree removal plan. Once the city and county jointly verify the trees that will be affected by the project, the applicant shall hand draw their locations on the planning map.
Trees will not be removed directly from the wetlands and no net habitat loss will occur in the wetland areas, Jennifer Creveling of the Watershed Company said in her testimony.
“The wetland habitat will still be there,” she said. “It will be altered but it will not be gone.”
Lake Forest Park resident and biologist Melanie Paquin spoke in favor of a tree census and said there appears to be “a general lack of understanding regarding the adverse impacts that the proposed Burke-Gilman Trail redevelopment plan will have on wildlife.”
“…The quality of the applicant’s scientific findings are dubious at best,” she said.
Sterbank began the city’s testimony by addressing the issue of drainage stemming from a wider trail. He asked that the county agree to slope the trail to the west instead of to the east to mitigate possible drainage problems caused by additional surface water. The county should solve any problems caused by additional sheet flow from the trail, he said.
“If the analysis indicates the sheet flow from the trail is likely to aggravate an existing drainage problem or create a new one, then the applicant shall identify a reasonable solution to the system and subject to city’s review and approval, implement them as part of the trail,” Sterbank said.
Before the end of the hearing, Andrew Marcuse, attorney for the county, questioned whether the city has official records regarding accidents at trail intersections.
Residents living near the trail have wanted to know that answer for years, according to resident Tim Walsh, who has seen ambulances respond to accidents along the trail. The main goal is a safer trail, he said and mentioned speed limits should be reduced.
“I think everyone agrees that this section of the trail is not a standard design trail,” Walsh said. “I think there are a lot of great designs on the table but it’s not a standard trail and cannot have a standard design.”
Galt submitted his own list of 48 questions as an exhibit and asked for answers at the close of the hearing on Jan. 21. County and city attorneys said they would submit the answers to his questions prior to closing statements.
“I’m a hearing examiner who likes to ask questions,” Galt said. “If there are things I don’t understand I want to know…I do want answers.”
City staff reports regarding the redevelopment project are available at www.cityoflfp.com.
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