Josh's last name is Brower, not Brewer.

We will get our trail completed! To quote NOFX, "Dinosaurs Will Die!"

90% of people in Seattle rarely agree on anything, but somehow 90% of people polled on the Missing Link issue prefer the Shilshole route. Fuck Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel and Ballard Oil. What's their environmental impact?

Before the recent election, Mayor Durkan was asked: “As Mayor, will you support the Burke-Gilman Trail Missing Link compromise route SDOT is currently designing through a stakeholder process? The latest timeline shows ground-breaking in May 2018. Will you work to keep the project on schedule?”
Mayor Durkan stated: “I am committed to finishing up the missing link on the Burke Gilman – this is an essential transportation corridor. I also recognize that this conversation has been going for more than 15 years and there has been compromises made by many stakeholders and significant progress on finding an acceptable route. I want a route that is safe, supports local retail and industrial business and cycling. The hearing examiner is currently reviewing an appeal on the EIS and I await that decision.
I am committed to getting this piece of the trail built while I am mayor. I will have staff pay close attention the DAC process to ensure that this trail is safe, affordable and designed to function well. I want that process to work so we spend time and resources building this last link instead of in court. I am committed to working with biking advocates and stakeholders to finalize and implement the best design.” (Seattle Bike Blog, 11/08/17.)
Hopefully, now that the Hearings Examiner’s decision has been released, Mayor Durkan will express her support and commitment to complete the Trail.

I used to bike that route as a commuter when I lived in B'lard. And I just happened to need to take Shilshole this last weekend.... there've been some great improvements along that section of the Burke!
And yes, Shilshole is still rather sketchy biking, with thin margins and gravel. Especially at twilight & dawn, during commuting hours.

I'm totally in favor of making sure that trucks' insurance rates don't go up... and it seems like a separated bikeway would do that, no? As opposed to now, with bikes effectively sharing the lane with trucks, on a sketchy road surface. Nobody wants accidents.

To get more people on bikes (and out of cars..), the natural route is to funnel people down 24th Ave NW, and then on to Shilshole.

Ideally, we should retrofit the Ballard Bridge with proper bicycle access, which would then continue along 15th Ave W. into downtown. One can dream...

Before the recent election, Mayor Durkan was asked: “As Mayor, will you support the Burke-Gilman Trail Missing Link compromise route SDOT is currently designing through a stakeholder process? The latest timeline shows ground-breaking in May 2018. Will you work to keep the project on schedule?”
Mayor Durkan stated: “I am committed to finishing up the missing link on the Burke Gilman – this is an essential transportation corridor. I also recognize that this conversation has been going for more than 15 years and there has been compromises made by many stakeholders and significant progress on finding an acceptable route. I want a route that is safe, supports local retail and industrial business and cycling. The hearing examiner is currently reviewing an appeal on the EIS and I await that decision.
I am committed to getting this piece of the trail built while I am mayor. I will have staff pay close attention the DAC process to ensure that this trail is safe, affordable and designed to function well. I want that process to work so we spend time and resources building this last link instead of in court. I am committed to working with biking advocates and stakeholders to finalize and implement the best design.” (Seattle Bike Blog, 11/08/17.)
Hopefully, now that the Hearings Examiner’s decision has been released, Mayor Durkan will express her support and commitment to complete the Trail.

Per SDOT bikes account for 3.4% of Seattle's commuters yet get almost 50% of the infrastructure budget when coupled with sidewalk improvements. It's almost like Seattle is more interested than the image of a bike fantasyland than the utilitarian function of responsible fiscal management. 2nd Ave downtown is a clusterfuck for everyone but the 3 bike lawyers who use it. Fuck the delusional bike emphasis. Transit yes, bikes no.

I bicycle on Shilshole occasionally, and I have a question: where are all these trucks I keep hearing about? Sure, I see a few, but as Seattle industrial areas go, it's pretty mellow.

@7 half of the total road dollars spent within Seattle? Citation hella needed.

It is remarkable how the opponents can talk out of both sides of their mouths and not be called on it, even by The Stranger. Josh Brower says that "a handful of cyclists" will be benefited. But the Labor Council says the companies will go out of business due to increased insurance costs. Both those assertions cannot be true; if there is only a handful of cyclists, then the damn trucks should be able to avoid hitting them and the insurance costs should go down on a separated trail. If it's instead a significant number of cyclists, guess what?, they (I should say "we") deserve a safe ride and we deserved it several deaths ago.

The city council, and Mike O'Brien in particular, are doing everything they can to punish and push out small business and the jobs and tax base they provide. Their only concern and motivation seems to be for what I call the "4 B's:" billionaires, brogrammers, bums, and bike activists. The rest of us are simply viewed as an inconvenience, yet we're told to shuttup and pay ever increasing taxes to push agendas that harm us.

@14:

How precisely would this harm you? I mean personally? Do you work anywhere near Salmon Bay? Is your commute in any way impacted by this proposal? Are you a customer of SBS&G or any other business along the route?

As for being "told to shuttup (sic)", well, opponents have 15 solid years of study, public comment, review, revision, and litigation under their belt, so excuse me if I don't accept your hyperbole as fact.

Yes, I have actually been a customer of SBS&G. Losing them would mean a local increase in prices. But besides an inevitable tax increase to pay for a 1.4 mile link for weekend hobbyists that costs $20 million (WTF??!! for a bike path?), not much direct impact on me.

But that's the problem I have with bike activists. They either don't care or don't think about whether their projects hurt others. If it's not *your* job or *your* business being threatened by the BG link, what do you care, right?

@16: The link is for weekend hobbyists, weekday work commuters, and everyone in between. Bicyclists, joggers, rollerbladers, dog walkers, etc. It's a multi-use trail for use by people. Actually today I had to run an errand today in Ballard before work and rode Shilshole to connect with the BGT to Fremont Bridge and onward to work. No one died, no one honked. I don't get why all the FUD NIMBYers think that mixing cyclists and trucks is like throwing a bloody seal into a pool of sharks.

@16:

So, in truth, this would have negligible impact on you, yet you're opposed to it, because - why again? You might need some sand and gravel again someday, and by-golly if them selfish weekend hobbyist bicyclists get their greedy way, you might have to go to Wallingford, or Sand Point, or West Seattle, or *gasp!* Georgetown, to patronize any of the roughly dozen other sand-and-gravel purveyors scattered about the city? Oh, the humanity! And that's only assuming SBS&G were actually to go out of business because they no longer have exclusive, unfettered easement along a roughly 200 foot stretch of a public thoroughfare? If that's the case, then their business model must be fairly precarious to begin with.

Per @17, I too drive on or near this section of Shilshole Ave. nearly every day commuting to work, and I can assure you this is not an issue for "weekend hobbyists", but rather for other people who, more physically fit and willing to brave the elements (not to mention the potholes, vehicles, and construction impediments) than myself are also commuting to work. And the price tag would probably have been a lot less than $20mm, but I suspect at least part of that covers the incessant litigation and re-re-re-evaluation the project has undergone and continues to undergo to this day.