1/

I ran my HM #76 today at the #Woodinville Half! Chip time matched my watch: 1:44:20 (7:57/mi). Finished 58/554 overall, 45/216 men, 5/29 AG. Felt like I still had gas left at the end.

Course surprise: the gravel section on the #Eastrail wasn’t where the map suggested. I expected it around mile ~2, but they changed the ordering so it ran from mile 8 to 11.

#running #halfMarathon #race #SundayLongRun

Whups, big eastrail closure down south from December 1-5.

Gonna drop a new map tomorrow, it'll have some other corrections too.

cc @seabikeblog

#seattle #SEAbikes #BikeTooter #BikeMap #EastRailTrail #EastRail #Renton

Feds OK rail-trail connecting the Centennial Trail and the Eastrail

Years after the final train rolled down the rails, a Federal agency has approved a nearly 12-mile section of abandoned railroad for use as a trail extending the reach of Snohomish County’s iconic Centennial Trail all the way to the King County line. Snohomish County has announced that they will resume planning work for the trail in 2025 with the vision of connecting it to King County’s in-development Eastrail and, therefore, the Sammamish River and Burke-Gilman Trails.

Once complete, the Centennial Trail would span the entire length of Snohomish County. Skagit County also owns sections of the same rail line with the potential to develop it further north. In Arlington, the Centennial Trail connects to the Whitehorse Trail, a rail-trail leading to Darrington and the beautiful Mountain Loop Highway (note that the section near Arlington is currently closed due to significant slide and washout issues, though the County is working on it and hopes for construction permits soon). Down south, the City of Woodinville has already been removing the rails from their two-mile stretch connecting from the county line and planned Centennial Trail South terminus to the Sammamish River Trail near NE 175th Street.

“As of August 2024, Snohomish County concluded abandonment and railbanking of the rail line from the City of Snohomish to the King County line,” Snohomish County Parks wrote in a project update last week. “With this milestone, the County will resume trail planning in 2025 for the phased development of the trail over the next decade.” They anticipate a phased build-out because “the proposed alignment traverses areas with steep cross slopes, bridges, trestles, sloughs, and other natural features which offer a beautiful trail experience but complicated construction.” The county estimates the cost to fully build out and pave the 12-mile trail section to be $100 million, according to the Snohomish County Tribune. They currently have $2 million budgeted for design work.

King County and municipalities like Kirkland have sped up the opening of their trail sections by building them first as mostly lower-budget gravel trails that use as much of the existing rail infrastructure as possible. The ultimate plan is to fully pave the trail, but that work will take a long time and is significantly more expensive. Perhaps Snohomish County could look into a similar strategy if funding for a paved trail is not found in the near-term.

Next we just need King County and the City of Renton to start work on connecting the Eastrail to the Green River, Interurban and Cedar River Trails in order to create a fully separated bike route from Skagit County to Pierce County.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here. As we know all too well in this region, trail projects often come with legal challenges from property owners. Multiple law firms (many based in Missouri) have been contacting property owners along the corridor to put together cases accusing the Federal government of allowing a change of use from rail to trail that goes against longstanding railroad easements. Hopefully these challenges stay between the Feds and the property owners and do not impact the building of the trail, but as with all these projects I won’t feel fully confident until the steamrollers are there.

For some background, the legal basis for turning an abandoned rail line into a trail, known in Federal statute as “railbanking,” was pioneered during the creation of the first section of the Burke-Gilman Trail between Matthews Beach in Seattle and Log Boom Park in Kenmore. Neighborhood advocates, the Sierra Club and, eventually, governments at the city, county and state levels all worked throughout the 1970s to convince the Interstate Commerce Commission (“ICC”) that the rail corridor should be preserved for public use rather than reverted to private ownership. The reasoning is that the corridor only has value as a complete corridor, and even one missing section will forever ruin the value of the entire corridor and prevent its future use for rail transportation or travel by any other mode. While the rail abandonment demonstrates that there is no current use case for the corridor as a railroad, who knows what the future holds? Therefore, it is in the best interests of both the public and the future of commerce if the corridors are preserved as corridors. The ICC eventually agreed with the Burke-Gilman Trail promoters, setting a precedent that was later clarified and codified in a 1980s Federal law as “railbanking.” The ICC was decommissioned in the 1990s, and most of its railroad regulation authority was transferred to the Surface Transportation Board. I wrote a whole section about the creation of the Burke-Gilman Trail in my book.

Corridors that are mostly flat with only gradual slopes that are also complete and connected are rare and special. They connect our modern communities with their pasts and hold opportunities to imagine a different future. Where communities turned their backs to the loud and dangerous railroads, turning them into trails is an invitation to turn around and look at these places in a new way. They provide entirely new connections for walking and biking transportation and a chance for people to redraw their mental maps of how their communities function. These are exciting times for trail development in our region. Decades of work have gone into making these trails possible, and we are set for sections of trail to open regularly throughout the next decade that will have a lasting impact on their communities and the entire region.

More details on the Centennial Trail South project from the Seattle Times:

About a mile due west of Thomas’ Eddy in the Bob Heirman Wildlife Park, up an unofficial trail of loose dirt and overgrowth, the future Eastrail in Snohomish County looks like it has for nearly 140 years.

Steel tracks running through forest and farm on ties still dark with creosote.

But after a July decision by the federal Surface Transportation Board, things will look a lot different for the winding, 11.9-mile segment of the trail heading south from the city of Snohomish to the county line near Woodinville.

When complete, the trail will be part of a growing trail network spanning the region that connects to the urban bikeways in the Puget Sound area. The trails offer recreational users plenty of miles to cover, but also act as bicycle “super highways,” providing commuters an option to get from home or work to transit, without having to navigate a road system dominated by automobiles.

“The benefits of trails grows exponentially when they’re connected into networks,” said Eric Oberg, with the national Rails to Trails Conservancy, who called trails like Eastrail “utilitarian infrastructure to get around.”

“It’s all about connectivity and networks,” Oberg said. “That’s why people in Tacoma should give a damn about trail development in Everett. It’s all part of this regional vision.”

[Full story]

#SEAbikes #Seattle

$25M federal grant will help cross final major Eastrail hurdle: I-90

King County has secured a $25 million federal RAISE grant to rehab an old railroad bridge over I-90 that had been one of the few major pieces still missing from the Eastrail route. The funds will also build and pave 1.7 miles of the trail in the I-90 area and “create safe connections” to the I-90 Trail that passes underneath the rail bridge. $25 million is about half of the total project cost, and the grant application notes that there is still a $10 million funding gap.

With the NE 8th Street bridge open as of Sunday and the Wilburton Trestle and I-405 crossings already in construction, the I-90 crossing was the final remaining unfunded Eastrail gap between Renton and Woodinville. Once complete, this trail has the potential to rival the Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle. It will revolutionize the role of biking and walking on the Eastside and reorient neighborhoods.

Don’t expect to bike on the I-90 crossing in the near future, however. First, King County voters will need to approve the King County Parks levy renewal next year, which will provide necessary local funding. Then a nearby sewer project will use the trail right of way until 2027. After years of planning and dealing with encroachments, the grant application anticipated a 2031 opening. There’s gotta be a way to speed up that timeline.

For the years between the Wilburton Trestle opening in 2026 and the I-90 crossing opening (hopefully sooner than 2031), people will be able to get through the area via 118th Ave SE (AKA Lake Washington Blvd SE). So it’s not like the trail will be unusable in the meantime, but the route won’t be as seamless and separated from traffic.

The recent news that King County has officially allowed e-bikes on trails (a restriction many people did not know existed) is also pertinent because e-bike riders tend to ride longer distances more often. This trail will be coming online as more and more people buy e-bikes and are willing to bike longer distances for more trips. With connections to the Sammamish River and Burke-Gilman Trails to the north, the 520 and I-90 Trails in the middle, and the Lake Washington Loop, Cedar River Trail and Lake to Sound Trail to the south, the Eastrail will be the primary backbone of the region’s trail network.

This work also puts the onus on Seattle to invest in its part of the Lake Washington trail loop. The Seward Park Ave and Lake Washington Blvd sections in Seattle will be the only segments that are not friendly to riders of all ages and abilities.

In addition to the I-90 crossing funding, Woodinville won a $5 million federal RAISE grant to plan its section of the rail corridor trail that could someday connect the Eastrail to the Centennial Trail in Snohomish County.

More details from the King County press release:

King County Executive Dow Constantine today thanked U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell for securing a $25 million federal grant administrated by the U.S. Department of Transportation that will help King County Parks close the final gap of the southern segment of Eastrail by crossing Interstate 90.

King County Parks will use the funds to retrofit a steel bridge that spans 16 lanes of Interstate 90. It is the latest progress for Eastrail, an emerging 42-mile trail that will ultimately connect South and East King County communities to Snohomish County with a spur to Redmond. Executive Constantine and partners recently kicked off a project that will add the 1,000-foot-long Wilburton Trestle to the former rail corridor and on Sunday opened a new trail bridge that connects Eastrail to Sound Transit’s Wilburton Station.

“Senator Murray and Senator Cantwell have delivered a victory for regional trails, climate, mobility, and opportunity,” said Executive Constantine. “The Biden administration appreciates that investing in regional trails creates and connects sustainable, healthy communities with new access to high-capacity transit – and that’s what we will achieve with the RAISE Grant.”

The federal RAISE Grant, administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation, will cover nearly half the total project cost of $49 million, which will build 1.7 miles of new paved trail and create safe connections to the 20-mile Mountains to Sound Greenway trail. Closing the Eastrail gap will provide access to 16 miles of non-motorized trails north through Bellevue and 5 miles south to Renton.

“This major federal investment will help King County close the Eastrail I-90 gap while building out a shared use path that everyone can enjoy,” said Senator Murray. “Every inch of progress so far has been thanks to the partnership of so many: nonprofits, local government, local businesses, and — now — the federal government. Expanding these kinds of trails does so much good for our quality of life while also connecting and strengthening local economies—being able to support these important projects is exactly why I created the RAISE grant program in the first place.”

“The funds announced today are the final link connecting the north and south segments of this beautiful trail, giving Eastside residents a 42-mile pathway to walk and enjoy,” said Senator Cantwell.

U.S. Representatives Suzan DelBene and Adam Smith were also instrumental in advocating for this funding and delivering this grant for King County.

Eastrail will provide direct connections to four of Sound Transit’s 2 Line stations and will be the north-south spine of Leafline, a Central Puget Sound regional trail network that connects King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap counties.

“With the help of our federal partners, we’re making yet another stride in creating a region-wide, climate-friendly transportation network,” said King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci. “And the timing couldn’t be more fortuitous as we have just opened light rail on the Eastside and the Eastrail NE 8th Street Bridge, recently broken ground on the Wilburton Trestle and will now be able to start work to safely cross I-90, bringing our longtime vision for this 42-mile trail from Woodinville to Renton close to completion. Deepest thanks to the US Department of Transportation for seeing how valuable this trail is to our region and to Eastrail Partners for their help in securing this funding.”

“Throughout my tenure as Co-Chair of the Eastrail Regional Advisory Council we’ve been working hard to close the final gap in the trail network, and with this monumental funding award from USDOT, we are finally able to realize our vision of an uninterrupted 42-mile trail system,” said King County Councilmember Sarah Perry. “This will allow us to continue to connect our vibrant communities across East King County and expand access to our regional parks and open spaces, including King County Conservation Futures acquisitions and partnership on the Mountains to Sound Greenway corridor.”

The nonprofit group Eastrail Partners helps secure public and private funding for the regional trail, which is owned and managed by King County Parks, the cities of Kirkland, Redmond, and Woodinville, Snohomish County, Sound Transit, and Puget Sound Energy.

The City of Woodinville received $5 million in RAISE Grant funding to complete the design, planning, and permitting for its 2-mile segment of Eastrail.

“This exceptional trail requires exceptional community support and partnership to complete,” said Katherine Hollis, Eastrail Partners Executive Director. “This RAISE grant funding for two Eastrail projects – planning funding for the Woodinville section of trail, and capital funding for the I-90 gap project – reflects the exemplary partnerships, enthusiasm, and support that Eastrail Partners has been honored to help build.”

The Interstate 90 trail bridge project will be led by King County Parks, one of four divisions in the Department of Natural Resources and Parks.

Share

• Mastodon
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Email

#SEAbikes #Seattle