The Seattle Department of Transportation announced today that it will comply with a recent court ruling to assess the environmental impacts of completing the “Missing Link” section of the Burke Gilman Trail, which stretches from 11th Avenue NW to the Ballard Locks.
The environmental assessment is estimated to take six months to complete. SDOT previously reviewed the environmental impact of an alignment along Ballard Avenue NW, however, the court ruled that the department also needed to study the future alignment from 17th Avenue NW to NW Vernon Place.
Currently, there’s no time line for constructing the $14 million Missing Link trail segment.
Once constructed, the Burke Gilman Trail will run unobstructed through Seattle, to Issaquah via the Sammamish River Trail and the East Lake Sammamish Trail. It’s the city’s top trail priority as identified by the Bicycle Master Plan, and supports the plan’s goals of tripling the amount of cycling and reducing the rate of bicycle collisions by a third.
“Liberals need to wash their dreads so they can get a job and buy a car.”
Seriously though this whole debate over the missing link is ridiculous. Once this gets completed it will take a ton of cars off the road leaving safer routes for cyclists and less traffic jams for motorists. Where is the downside to this?
Assess environmental impact for more bikes.
Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
Speaking of missing links, what morons put all the graffiti on the wall of the Burke-Gilman between the garbage dump and Gas Works Park?
It may or may not be a good thing, but it’s certainly not going to “take a ton of cars off the road” or “reduce traffic jams”. It’s going to marginally increase the amount of recreational cycling.
The downside is making life more difficult for marine businesses along that stretch. I think that’s probably a losing battle, more as a result of things like the Fred Meyer and various condo projects down there than cyclists, but it’s not nothing.
As for collisions, it may actually increase the number of bike-ped collisions. The Burke-Gilman IS NOT A CYCLING TRAIL, it’s a multi-use trail, and cyclists on it already ride more recklessly than any motorists anywhere.
I would really miss Ballard’s very own railroad if they had to go under because bicyclists can’t stand to be rerouted. And rail transport does so much more to reduce greenhouse emissions than recreational bicycling — I guess with fewer rail options we will see more trucking and air shipping.
Or the industries that use the Ballard Terminal Railroad could also go under and get moved to China. Where they really don’t give a shit about the planet. Happy Earth day.
Ridiculous. Sometimes I feel like I live in Alabama and the Ballard Chamber of Commerce is George Wallace.
Fnarf: First placing reckless cyclists and reckless cars as somehow equivalent or comparable misses the obvious impacts of getting hit by a 25 pound bike vs 2500 pound car. And saying that cyclists are more reckless anyway is just plain wrong. Are you oblivious to all the cars speeding, running red lights, and killing people all the time.
Second, where did you pull your conclusion that cycling infrastructure linking major neighborhoods won’t affect ridership or the amount of traffic? Out of your ass. There is a lot of information from around the world on this topic, and you’ve got no basis for your claims.
@7 – do you ever commute to work or school on the Burke-Gilman?
Cause many tens of thousands of people already DO.
Hint: Most of us have cars too – wonder what would happen if we all DROVE THEM instead?
(source – Seattle stats showing traffic congestion drop due to increase in walking/biking to work)
Hello! I look forward to joining the ranks of know-it-alls who post hyperbolic statements that sound authoritative because I’ve lived in Seattle for oh-so-long and I know everything!!!
Fnarf, elenchos, Mr X, I’m looking at you. Keep up the good work!
@11: your anecdotes are spin. There is a huge difference between drawing conclusions from anecdotes vs research. You are like FOX News making claims based on stories that suit your purpose.
FYI, a 2 second search yields things like: http://nexus.umn.edu/Courses/pa8202/Dill…. A study looking at over 35 major cities and the impacts from cycling infrastructure.
The result: increased cycling infrastructure = increased commuting. There are plenty more where that came from.
Yeah, well, what are y’all gonna do about the PIT BULLS RIDING BICYCLES ALONG THE BGT?! HUH?! HUH?!?!
The hills in Seattle don’t keep people off bicycles. The hills are just an excuse for lazy motorists to explain they don’t live in a bike friendly city. Why do Seattle and Portland have such high bicycle ridership despite the rainy weather? Seattle has some hills but Portland doesn’t.
Also even though bicyclists may be 2.5% of the transportation used it is mostly for before and after work commuting. Most cyclists ride to and from work and then use their car in the evenings when traffic is low. If you work on trails for safety of cyclists you will find more than a 1% decrease in car usage during the hours where it matters most.
@15 – that’s measured in each segment. A trail that is more than 10 miles long is not used by one cyclist or pedestrian to commute to work along the entire length.
At most I’m on it for 2 miles on a 4 mile trip.
Hence, you can have a trail with thousands of users PER SEGMENT and have a total commute trip usage in the TENS OF THOUSANDS.
Next you’ll tell me people drive the entire length of Aurora Ave from Snohomish County down to Pierce County and that measuring the cars that pass over the Aurora Bridge gives you a total count of commuters. Which it … doesn’t.
Frickin moron.
“Sometimes I feel like I live in Alabama and the Ballard Chamber of Commerce is George Wallace.”
You feel that because you’re an idiot with no sense of perspective.
Of course, if you feel this way, I guess that makes you Arthur Bremer.
@20, I’m glad you’re still plugging hard for this, because it makes all bike partisans look as stupid as you, which is funny.
Two thousand people use the B-G per day, ANYWHERE on it. Not twenty thousand. Two thousand. A third of whom are commuters. You’re just wrong on the facts. As always.
It doesn’t have anything to do with riders just using a part of the trail.
The increase from the link is going to be marginal, maybe another hundred. Most B-G riders don’t come near that stretch. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just that it’s not the panacea that advocates claim it is. The link alone sure as hell isn’t going to double bike commuters.
@8, I have the opportunity to closely watch B-G trail riders not far from the “missing link” twice a week. I would say that the percentage of riders who obey all traffic laws is very close to zero. I also know people who are afraid to walk on it — which is one of its charter uses — because of asshole cyclists blazing them at 20-25 MPH, hollering “on the left” when they get within six inches of their asses.
I ride the missing link every day. For experienced cyclists it’s not really an issue. For neophytes or kids (often one in the same), it can be terrifying and dangerous. There is currently no remotely safe bike route from Ballard to Fremont and beyond. Of the other two option out of Ballard – Ballard Bridge and Hiram Chittenden Locks -the former is more terrifying and dangerous and the latter is out of the way for almost anyone who doesn’t live on fancy Sunset Hill.
Nothing to do with various points of “data” that the skeptics like to selectively point to, but I think it’s odd that from Fred Meyer I can ride to Issaquah on the trail and from the Locks I can ride to Golden Gardens, but Ballard has the privilege of being the center of the bike advocacy firestorm (pro and con). Wouldn’t it be nice if this fight were happening in Bothel?
I’m sure no other businesses were ever displaced for the other parts of the trail. And if they were, they must have gone into the dust bin of history owing to immediate failure. Obviously. There are no thriving semi-industrial business districts next the trail. Anywhere. Except Frellard, Bothel, Kenmore, blah blah blah…
Do you know that model railroad buffs have made their own scale models of the Ballard Terminal Railroad? That’s how awesome it is for a neighborhood to have its own railroad. I’d make a model too if could stand to take on one more hobby. There are huge cities that don’t have their own railroads any more. But Ballard has one, just barely.
It’s great if bicycling is your hobby and you enjoy your hobby. I just don’t understand how your hobby is more important than anybody else’s. And why you can’t enjoy your rides on other streets than on the one street where the rail line runs. I thought bicycles were supposed to be able to share the road. Can’t they share some other road?
Not to mention the fact that the railroad drives the local economy, sustains high-paying jobs, and cuts pollution. Where do they make all that spandex? Not here.
Dumb argument. I ride my bike to commute to work. Just like most people drive their cars. Same thing. So by your definition, driving a car is a hobby as well. Your straw man falls apart.
Next!
We shouldn’t destroy a railroad for cars either. Car commuters can make sacrifices to keep a valuable industry that reduces pollution.
Of course cars can just drive around to some other road anyway if the one they want isn’t available. With bicycles it’s always can’t do this, can’t do that, can’t go there, only way is this, only way is that. So many limitations. It’s hard to believe anybody really depends on something so crippled to get to a job. It’s impossible to believe may more people would switch to something that can’t overcome obstacles and re-route if need be.
Obviously the rail road is stuck where it is — any child can see why rail lines are inflexible. It’s what makes this precious industrial resource so fragile.
One of the main industries that goes uses the Ballard rail line is sand and gravel for cement. Cement is that stuff you ride your bike on while knocking down 85 year old pedestrians on the sidewalk. Cement is necessary. Bicycling is optional.
The Ballard waterfront is PRIME industrial land, and the railroad has little to do with it. Salmon Bay is blessed to have such a rarity. Even if the trail shuts down the Ballard railroad, and Salmon bay with it, I guarantee that another company will snatch up the land and reopen within days. Which is to say, I’m calling Salmon Bay on their bluff here.
Well I’m calling the bike activists’ bluff. If bicycle commuting is so wonderful and is so practical, why can’t bicyclists find a way to commute without all kinds of special infrastructure? If bicyclists are incapable of sharing the roads with cars, then they should stop saying “share the road”. If you can’t have bicycle commuting without displacing industry, what good is bicycle commuting?
And why are the jobs the bicyclists are riding to so much more valuable than the jobs they are displacing?
And if the real problem is the Ballard Bridge, then upgrade the Ballard Bridge — if you can find the money for that — and run the bike lane someplace other than the train tracks.