Said in a deep, bass-booming voice:
From the creators of comedy blockbuster “The Hangover” comes a multi-use trail closure that will make you laugh until you vomit.
Coming to a Burke-Gilman Trail near you (if you are on UW campus), a crew will be filming near Rainier Vista (AKA, that part of the trail nearest to Husky Stadium) September 26 – 30. The trail will be closed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and a detour will be in place.
From UW:
Beginning Monday, September 26 and extending through Friday, September 30, the production crew for the movie “21 and Over” will be filming on the Burke Gilman Trail at Rainier Vista. Between 7am – 7pm, a small section of the Trail will be closed due to filming. During those times, UW Transportation Services recommends using the bicycle and ADA/pedestrian detours. See maps here.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact UW Commuter Services at [email protected].
Comments
22 responses to “Burke-Gilman Trail detour in place this week for “21 and Over” filming”
Yeah, OK Tom, I’m with you. This is “puke-ily” ridiculous. Looks like I’m riding through the university this week. It better be a damn good film!
Actually, I don’t care. Maybe I get to ride a little bit longer and explore new areas I don’t normally get to see?
Haha. Yeah. I didn’t mean for that to come off too snarky. More of a bad joke about being hungover than a comment on the detour. I’m excited the Burke will be featured in a major-budget film. That’s cool!
If these people wanted to shut down one of the major streets in the U District from 7AM to 7PM for a week they’d never get a permit. But shut down the most important bike trail in Seattle (crappy as it in in places, it’s the best way for a lot of people to make a lot of trips)? Sure, go right ahead. I bet they aren’t even paying for it. It isn’t that inconvenient to go around, but it’s symbolic as much as anything. I’m tired of the disregard and disrespect. Let’s be honest about two things. First, if they’re making a film for a national audience, they can shoot it any old place and call it UW, nobody will know the difference. Second, it doesn’t sound like anything of value would be lost to our film canon were this movie simply not made, so it’s not like I’m suffering this inconvenience for art.
Tomorrow I’m going to ask whatever flunky they have blocking off the trail for the phone number of the person that gave them permission to block it during these hours to lodge a complaint.
Ah we make a ton of money off these film productions. They rent hotels, eat our food, rent our photo shoot equipment, hire local extras, sound guys, light guys, construction workers and then they leave. Renting the city for a film is a pretty good business.
And yeah, it would be better if all this money was spent on cancer research or whatever other than another turkey film. But given that it’s going to be made somewhere. Might as well get a piece of the action.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for posting this. For folks who are interested, there’s also a signed pedestrian and ADA detour route at the map link posted above.
Al – For questions, comments, or to learn more about the film’s impacts you can contact [email protected] or just email me directly with your inquiry ([email protected]).
David
I got surprised by this on my commute yesterday. The person at the blocked off area was polite, but not particularly helpful – just said “you can’t go through here” but couldn’t tell me what the detour route was, and I didn’t see any signs routing me around. It’s only a minor inconvenience, not a big deal at all.
Maybe all the person blocking you had was this map. I’ve been staring at it for a while, and I think it’s starting to make sense, but I know the area pretty well (and without a map, I could pretty easily just route myself around).
I think if going eastbound, I follow the orange line until… it meets with the blue line? And then I can rejoin the orange line again and I’m back on the trail? I think?
I think someone replaced the Burke-Gilman detour map with those Death Star plans the Rebels stole…
1. Block off most important bike route in city
2. Have a child draw a bunch of lines on a map
3. ???
4. Profit!
+1 Morgan Wick
This is an opportunity to show bicycles’ agility/flexibility as transport by cooperatively using the detours.
However, it does seem to require explaining… why does it have to be RIGHT on the BGT? As opposed to 20 feet away? To appease us, they should be required to do product placement, that is, protray bike commuting as cool (unlike movie 40 Year Old Virgin).
This cost me 5 minutes this morning. I struggled to figure a way over the Montlake bridge, and I fear my choice was sub-optimal. Almost just jumped into traffic in frustration.
I think the least they could do is donate .1% of the take to bike infrastructure in Seattle. If it grosses 100 million, lesseee….
That would fund a road diet!
At least with the BG closure between the Matthews beach and Log boom park there was plenty of notice and I had some opportunity to anticipate it and devise my rerouting strategy. This smaller (in distance and duration) BG closure came with no advance warning and no forethought as to helping those caught by the closure to successfully navigate the detour. Their signage is essentially “Blocked. Sorry.” No indication it was coming. No indication when it would start and stop during the day. And no indication when it would be finished. (This report on seattlebikeblog is the first mention I’ve seen.) And there was at least one surprise closure last week. In ignorance someone figured, “Oh, this is just a college pathway,” not realizing it’s a major commuting corridor. (I’ll survive, albeit slightly grumpier.)
I was very disappointed with this shut down last week if not the week before that as well. Being called a boogey and told not to pass by someone with no authority is pretty annoying when you work right across the street at the hospital. Let me make this clear: You could not access The University of Washington Medical Center from the BG. This was extremely messed up and wrong. The people they have shutting down the path are pretty adament that their jobs are the hardest in the world (direct quote from the bleached blonde one with curly hair), maybe a little planning ahead would have made their jobs not as difficult.
Unless the closure was significantly larger than indicated on this map, there was very much access to UWMC from the BGT. If you’re headed to/from the NE, this is the route. To/from Fremont, this is the route. These (especially the latter) are very similar if not identical to how one would access UWMC from the BGT even when it’s completely open. All crossings are marked and/or signalized crosswalks.
It does sound like the signage and help from those manning the detour was abominable, but it would behoove BGT users to know some of the alternative routes to/from their regular destinations, if not for closures like this, then for the entirely unplanned and unannounced closures that come with mudslides or downed trees.
Yes, you are wrong. I have already recieved an email from UW apologizing. Last week they were closing down much more than what the map shows (specifically the left brown mark on the map was not accessible) without any signs. Your linked maps would not have worked at that time, now that things have been corrected there is no problem.
Thanks for the update! Can you copy-and-paste that email here?
One of the problems we have is that the point where we need to detour varies so much depending on where you’re going. I usually turn toward the Montlake Bridge right in the middle of where they’re filming, and this week I need to turn off before where the trail is blocked. But I’m not used to turning off there, and it’s not a very conspicuous turn. I haven’t caught it on the first try yet.
If the only problem we had in this area was the film makers I probably wouldn’t care. But the whole Montlake Bridge area totally sucks for cyclists. Because we’re flexible we make it work, but we’re almost forced (certainly encouraged) to ride in ways that are awkward, uncomfortable, invisible to drivers — and that impose upon pedestrians (I mean, you can take a lane across the bridge if it’s dry and traffic is moving, or if it’s wet and you trust the drivers not to force you to turn or break). Adding more confusion to the mess of paths, sidewalks, and roads we have to navigate to get across that bridge is like spitting in my soup after delivering it cold (when they get rid of the Montlake Flyer Stop will that be taking the cold spit-soup away before I’m finished eating it?).
What am I missing here? This looks like a 100-foot trail closure with the detour route consisting of using marked crosswalks very nearby on either side of the closure to cross Pacific Place, where there is a wide sidewalk (part of which actually doubles as the signed Lake Washington Loop). Moreover, in addition to the “official” detours depicted on this map, there are quite a few little paths through the verges on either side of the trail, and the Rainier Vista triangle can be traversed in a straight line if one is willing to hop off one’s bike for 20 seconds. I just clicked out the E-W detour. It’s 1/40 miles longer than the regular route. One-fortieth! 135 feet!
I can understand bitching about lack of signage along the detour. But by the same token, the whole detour is pretty much visible from the point of closure. It’s not like closing the I-90 trail and saying, “Figure it out!”. There’s a rather bike- and ped-friendly road that runs about 100 ft parallel to the trail. Not that hard.
Can’t wait to see how folks (don’t) deal with the actually significant closures that are bound to accompany the Montlake Triangle project in not too long.
Here the reply from the guy that posted earlier in the thread
Thanks for contacting UW Commuter Services and for your feedback on this project.
Having a large production crew on campus has been a unique challenge, both for University students and staff, as well as for the general public who rely on the Burke Gilman Trail to travel safely by foot and by bike. As you’ve noted, the agreed upon detour was not properly in place at the start of the week. Commuter Services has worked extensively with the film’s Site Manager over the past two days to ensure that the posted detours are properly marked and signed for the duration of the filming. The production crew has also temporarily hired Seattle Police Department officers to assist in rerouting people on foot and on bike, and to provide the additional authority you referenced in your email.
I apologize for any inconvenience this week’s Trail disruption may have caused you, and hope that the remaining detour is incident-free. Please do let me know if you continue to experience unexpected delays or reroutes today or tomorrow, and thank you for your patience.
Best,
David Amiton
Transportation Analyst | MURP
Commuter Services | Transportation Services
University of Washington
The biggest thing for me is having police there, or some kind of security. I will not and did not listen 18 year olds telling me the trail was inaccessible and would not expect anyone else to listen to them.
[…] had forgotten about the filming detour so we took a side trip by the UW husky statue while trying to find our way back to the Burke-Gilman […]