B-G Trail "Unhealthy" Say Ballard Industrial Businesses

Last night the Cascade Bicycle Club learned that they and the City of Seattle are being sued by a coalition of willing Old Ballardeers: Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel Co., Ballard Oil Company, Seattle Marine Business Coalition, North Seattle Industrial Association, Ballard Interbay Northend Manufacturing & Industrial Center [BINMIC], and last but not least, the Ballard Chamber of Commerce.

The captains of Ballard industry just had their complaints against the Burke-Gilman trail's extension (it's in their way, it'd be a traffic hazard) tossed by Seattle's Hearing Examiner in June, so now they're filing an appeal.

There are two hilariously ironic things to mention here: One is that the appeal was filed by the legal firm of Foster Pepper, who have been moving heaven and earth to get a deep-bore tunnel dug beneath downtown Seattle: "Tayloe Washburn, chair of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and a land-use attorney at Seattle law firm Foster Pepper, played a central role in building consensus."

The second is that the appeal demands that the City do an environmental review first, because of each citizen's right to a healthful environment. (The unsafe-ness of a bicycle trail expansion makes a paved area with old train tracks running through it unhealthy, see.)

Seriously? You want an environmental review, Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel Co., Ballard Oil Company, Seattle Marine Business Coalition, North Seattle Industrial Association, Ballard Interbay Northend Manufacturing & Industrial Center?

Maybe you're right. Maybe the city should send a fucking raft of environmental inspectors to that corner of industrial-use Ballard. What might they find, while they're at it? Now that we think about it, this sounds like a terrific idea. Okay, you guys, you're on. Let's see what you've been doing to improve the health and safety of Seattle over there--what incredible bar-raising have you accomplished that a bicycle trail would negatively affect the health of Ballard residents?