octopuswithafez

From Cascade Bicycle Club:

UPDATE: July 24

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Victory in Lake Forest Park for Cascade Bicycle Club
Ordinance 951 Overturned: Burke-Gilman Trail Declared an “Essential Public Facility”

Late Monday, July 23, the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board overturned the City of Lake Forest Park’s Ordinance 951. The ruling comes in favor of Cascade Bicycle Club’s petition challenging the ordinance, which would have impeded the upgrade of the Burke-Gilman Trail in one of its oldest areas.

In its ruling, the Board found that Cascade Bicycle Club, “did carry their burden of proof to demonstrate that the City was clearly erroneous in its adoption of Ordinance 951, and issued an Order of Invalidity […].”

During the Board hearing in June, Cascade Bicycle Club asserted that Ord. 951 violated the state Growth Management Act. Cascade argued that the six Lake Forest Park City Council members who voted in January 2007 for Ord. 951 turned their backs on federal, state and county trail development standards, and disregarded three professional engineering reports that explained how to improve the corridor. In effect, the six council members prioritized a few private driveways over the rights and safety of thousands of public trail users.

“Everyone who uses this Trail will benefit from this decision. There are a lot of people who worked hard to develop the Burke-Gilman Trail a generation ago. It’s our responsibility to protect it for future generations.” Chuck Ayers, Executive Director of Cascade Bicycle Club said.

By successfully overturning Ord. 951, Cascade Bicycle Club’s efforts restored King County’s ability to redevelop the Burke-Gilman Trail through Lake Forest Park and meet recognized safety standards.

As the Growth Management Hearings Board noted in invalidating Ord. 951, Cascade “demonstrated and convinced the Board that the Burke-Gilman Trail is an important regional transportation and recreational facility, serving residents from cities stretching from Seattle to Bothell, and continuing to the Sammamish River Trail, connecting to Kenmore, Woodinville and Redmond. Surveys indicate that the trail is more than a recreation facility, in that it is also an important non-motorized transportation facility for commuters – bicycle commuters in particular.”

The case further states: “To answer the threshold question – The Burke-Gilman Trail is an essential regional public facility.”

According to King County Executive Ron Sims Ord. 951 would have made it "impracticable for the County to improve the trail to meet current and future demand." Kevin Brown, Director of King County's Parks and Recreation Division, wrote that should 951 pass, "King County will need to take a close look at the viability of this project -- i.e. whether to allocate funds elsewhere..."

"The stakes were huge. Today, we closed the door on cities that want to apply unsafe or non-standard conditions to regional trails, thereby impeding the development and maintenance of trails according to accepted, uniform standards," said David Hiller, Cascade Bicycle Club Advocacy Director. "This case sets a precedent for all future trail development and reconstruction."

The Board, in its decision, agreed that Lake Forest Park cannot frustrate the redevelopment of the Burke-Gilman Trail, making it impossible to reconstruct. As with other Essential Public Facilities, cities may put conditions on regional trails. However, under the state Growth Management Act they cannot inhibit their siting or redevelopment. Through Ord. 951, the Lake Forest Park City Council tried to deny King County a permit to redevelop the Trail, which is strictly prohibited by the Act.

References

Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board
CPSGMHB Case No. 07-3-0001.

octopuswithafez

The area of the trail, which lies to the north of Seattle, has been hampered by years by the local government ( Lake Forest Park) through a variety of actions including placing stop signs on the trails where it crossed PRIVATE driveways, not maintaining the trail surface ( think of lots of roots), and then finally passing an ordinance that prevented upgrades ( Ord. 951 ). The trail serves as a major commuting route and functions overall as one of the longest MUPs in the country...

KingTermite 

I only recently moved here and didn't even know this was going on.....but glad to see the outcome came out the way it did.

I have ridden up around to the area you mention and know what you mean about the roots. Ugh!

donnamb 

Yay for bikey Seattle!

East Hill

Now let's see what happens with Stone Way...I still haven't heard back from the Mayor's Office on that one .

East Hill

srsly

a local club of hooligans is working on a show of displeasure.
forum thread
https://seattlelikesbikes.org/ - the site they made for the movement. if the developers win and the gap doesn't get completed that will crumble the follow through on the whole master bike plan. so it's kind of important and they're taking it very seriously.

as for Lake Forest Park. screw you guys and your stop signs. fix the damned trail, my bum gets sore having to ride over that root filled washboard. i could really care less about what's in your back yard. and yes, i could care less, that's not a mistake. the only reason i care is because they're blocking the city from fixing a public trail. it's not my fault your private property backs up to a widely used public trail.

Layback

East Hill

Too bad it's in the afternoon (I realise that makes sense, though), but I WILL be asleep.

Perhaps I will send a follow-up comment to the MO after the 1st, and suggest that the riders are frustrated by the lack of appropriate response from the city?

East Hill

Yukonart

That's Lake Forest Park for you, though . . . I swear the vast majority of the city's population is retired and doesn't want to see ANY changes made anywhere. Lived in Kenmore, right near the LFP border, for nearly two years and saw much of this, first-hand.