A large tree fell over the weekend and has blocked the Burke-Gilman Trail in Bothell, and King County Parks says it cannot remove the tree until Tuesday.
The tree is blocking the trail at about 91st Ave NE, a tricky spot in the trail route with no easy detour route. And Parks says no detour will be marked, so you’re on your own if you end up here.
The intrepid and able-bodied may be able to find a way to climb through the branches, though I’m guessing Parks would frown on this. There is also a sidewalk on the north side of Bothell Way, but the closest crosswalks are at 83rd and 96th Avenues NE. And the sidewalk does sort of disappear in a couple spots, so be prepared for that. You can ride on the highway, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
King County Parks said that the blockage much wait until Tuesday because the necessary equipment won’t be available until then.
Comments
5 responses to “Trail Alert: Burke-Gilman blocked by downed tree in Bothell until Tuesday”
If that tree were downed over a street, firefighters would have cut it with their chainsaws already. But this is a “recreational path”, and cyclists are 2nd-class citizens…
Which is why separated bicycle infrastructure is recreation infrastructure, not transportation infrastructure.
Can someone with a chainsaw beat the county to the punch and leave the debris in the highway for them to pick up? (I haven’t decided yet if that was sarcastic or not)
More seriously, I would take this as an excuse to take a lane on 522, but obviously that’s not an option for everyone.
As you can see from the picture, the trail surface is still quite slick, so even if the tree is removed, the trail is still not ready for cycling. This makes is lower priority, that can wait for Tuesday.
Of course, ideally, the trail would have been plowed like a street, but that’s another issue.
Of course, ideally, the trail would have been plowed like a street, but that’s another issue.
Seattle (SDOT?) made a half-hearted, but valiant attempt to solve the bike infrastructure plowing problem. The one portion of my route they plowed was the Westlake Cycle Track from Galer Street north and it made the world of difference.
I wish they had attempted the BGT, but it’s a start and hopefully something that becomes regular, because our trails are a potential valuable resource to move people during snow that are effectively unusable.