Author: Jerry

I’d read that the section of the trail just beyond South Prairie had opened and that the connection to the Buckley section would be open by year-end, so on a misty cold Sunday in the middle of December Odette and I took a ride.

The idea was to go as far as the pavement was in and then to turn around, and Odette was only up for 30 miles, so we started at the McMillan trailhead instead of our normal put-in at Pioneer.  As it turned out the trail was paved all the way to Buckley so we rode 15 miles to the totem pole and then rode back.  The grade is really gentle, the forest is beautiful, the view of the the bridge on the lower switchback (on the way back) deserves a photo.  The bridge with the laminated wooden arches is really impressive.

I got on the the web when we got back and found that King and Pierce counties have put together almost enough money for a bridge over the White River to extend the trail to Enumclaw.  Construction is supposed to start in 2018.  Their map shows the trail continuing in basically a straight line from Enumclaw to the Cedar River – but I’m not holding my breath.

The design of the King County section involves using a 100 year-old arch bridge that originally carried the predecessor to SR 410 and which now is not accessible except by bush-whacking.  The tricky part of the design takes the trail across Mud Mountain Road uphill from the highway (and not on the original railroad right of way.)

Here’s a link to an article saying that Sultan is going to put in a pedestrian / bike bridge next to SR 2 where you come into town (in the park on the north-west side of the road.)  It will be nice not to have to jockey with cars on that narrow highway bridge but it will be interesting to see how they make it work – I can imagine coming down Old Owen, crossing SR 2, having to cross back to get to the bridge, and crossing again to continue east on SR 2 to get to Mann road…

Aren’t greenways supposed to go somewhere?

My understanding is that we imported the concept from Portland and that the idea is that bike routes on residential streets are identified and prioritized for bikes by putting stop signs on all of the cross streets and speed bumps on the route.  Naturally Seattle implements it half-way:  we forget many of the stop signs and we are content with shadows and a few signs.

This fall stop signs and speed bumps appeared on 1st Ave. NW.  As a resident I wasn’t consulted, but it didn’t seem to extend as far as may place so that wasn’t a surprise.  I assumed that it was the lady at 70th who made a fuss demanding no parking signs for several years  – but it doesn’t seem to go that far,  either.  The painting on the street suggest that eventually it will continue north of 85th, but for now we have a greenway between 85th and 73rd – really useful, no?

The ironic thing is that two blocks over is Greenwood with a good bike land all way from 100th to 50th.  It sure would have been nice to use the money spent on paint and signs to improve that bike lane…

I assumed that the Seattle Greenways organization was behind this – and they might be but it isn’t obvious from their website.  They appear to be a sock-puppet for SDOT, lots of photos of volunteers with those City=produced yard signs that Seattle likes to substitute for enforcement.  They list neighborhood groups, but don’t have a list or map of greenways.  Their page for Phinney Ridge shows 1st NW as an aspirational goal starting up at Carkeek and running to Woodland Park.  I don’t know why this is a good idea, I don’t know if anybody in the neighborhood got asked about it, I don’t know why this is a better used of money than something like completing the Interurban, but evidently it made their list.

Now that it’s been built somebody needs to update things.

I was on the narrow, divided, stretch the BG today and a guy with 6-inch tires on his e-bike pulled up behind me.  He tinkled his bell and yelled “on your left” at me all the way until the divided parts join up again.  The pavement was wet and is really uneven in that stretch so I felt justified staying a little more to the left than I would have for a faster rider on a human-powered bike.  A couple of thoughts”

1. “on your left” is a peloton call-out to let you know that someone is in your blind spot – similar to “on your wheel”.  It doesn’t create an obligation to move over.  You are an asshole if you think that you are entitled to have everyone else on the trail get out of your way. The rules of the road put it on you to pass safely and if you can’t pass safely you need to wait until you can.
2. the concept that  “moving pedals mean it’s a bicycle”  is fallacious.  A vehicle that goes 20+ mph with motorcycle sized tires doesn’t belong on the trail – whether or not the rider can move his feet.  The thing that kills is the speed differential.  If you can go 20 without working hard then you want to go that fast all of the time and you end up passing everybody else and believing that you are entitled to pass everybody and eventually you have conflict and injury.

Here’s a one-mile radius circle drawn from our place:

If you stay up on the ridge in this circle you’ll find half-a-dozen pubs, at least that many coffee shops, a bunch of restaurants, a grocery store and a hardware store, the library, the post office, a dry cleaner, several dentists – basically the essentials of urban living without having to climb.  There are also more churches than you can count.  If you accept that you have to get back up to the crest of the ridge the circle includes 45th and Fremont, the west side of green lake including PCC, Greenwood almost all the way to 85th, 8th up to 80th, 65th and market over to 15th – including Ballard Market and Safeway and Walgreens.

Expanding that circle to 2 mile looks like this:

Now you’ve got all of Ballard, All of Fremont, Nickerson and fisherman’s terminal, all of Wallingford, all of Greenlake, all of Greenwood, and most of Crown Hill / Loyal Heights.  A 2-mile ride takes maybe 10 minutes.  Even with the climb back up to the crest of the ridge I do it on a single speed without special bike clothes or shoes.