Venturing on the Burke-Gilman Extension

We spend a lot of time here at Seattlest bemoaning the fate of bicycle riders in Seattle. It's a hard-knock life for us, we like to say, living in a city that likes to tout itself as green to the nth degree while also putting forward a Master Bike Plan that leaves something to be desired in almost every neck of the woods.

Well, on Saturday, when the weather was spectacular, we took a nice, long walk out to Golden Gardens with the wife and used the new Burke-Gilman Trail extension for the last couple of miles of the trip.

The mile-long trail extension is a great and needed route. The trail is basically parallel with Seaview Ave. NW from where NW 54 St. turns into Seaview (just west of the Locks). At that point, users cross the street and the train tracks (at a crosswalk). A few hundred yards on, the trail makes a hard left across the tracks again and then drops down to street level, leaving the tracks on the hillside above to the right. From there, the trail runs straight to the entrance of Golden Gardens Park and, unfortunately, ends at a four-way intersection with a crosswalk that sends walkers and riders over to the parking lots and then onto the sidewalk on the water.

Admittedly, there is still a lot to be done to make biking safer in this city (the giant hole in the trail between The Locks and Fred Meyer being a major problem), but this extension is a great boon. Golden Gardens, as we all know, is a favorite destination on sunny days, which can make traffic out there god-awful--not to mention parking--since walking along Seaview on the sidewalk is really not all that fun. We're hoping the trail will be a nice option for neighborhood residents and others who can now take the 44 to the end of the line at the Locks, where they can pick up an uninterrupted trail all the way to Golden Gardens.