Bike group appeals decision to support driveways over trail

Where is it that a main thoroughfare has stop signs, but private driveways have none? At car crossings for the Burke-Gilman trail in Lake Forest Park near Seattle.

For years, bicyclists on the heavily used paved trail have had to stop at numerous driveways and minor street crossings that access waterfront properties on Lake Washington. At times, police have even issued tickets to cyclists who didn't come to a full stop.

Now that Lake Forest Park has upheld this law in Ordinance 951, the Cascade Bicycle Club is appealing that decision to the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board. Says CBC at its web page on the Lake Forest Park situation:

“In its effort to prioritize private driveways over the rights of trail users, the ordinance departs from Federal, State, and County traffic safety standards. It is also contradicts three professional engineering reports that suggest ways to improve the trail. …

“We contend that the Burke-Gilman Trail is an “essential public facility” under the 1990 State Growth Management Act and is thus exempt from the types of conditions set forth in Ordinance 951.”

On busy days, some 1,500 use the Burke-Gilman — a former rail line that stretches 27 miles from the Ballard Locks on the Puget Sound to downtown Redmond over its connection with the Sammamish River Trail.

Ordinance 951 (.pdf file) does more than legalize stop signs on Burke-Gilman. It also requires landscaping and set-backs that would make it impossible for King County to make improvements to widen the trail from 10 to 12 feet and add gravel shoulders.

This makes Ordinance 951 worse than one of the typical annoyance that bicyclists have to put up with every day in their battle to exist in a automobile-centered life. The inability to make trail improvements would prompt the county to spend the money elsewhere, damaging future prospects for the trail that was been named one of the top 10 city bike rides in the West last October by Sunset Magazine.

For more info, see the Cascade Bicycle Club and consider donating the legal defense fund. Also, check out the article “Cyclists, Lake Forest Park at odds over trail” in the Seattle Times.