Drum roll, please 🥁! Join us on July 20 at the Redmond Central Connector Park and be the first to see the Eastside Rail Corridor’s new name. To help us celebrate we will have live music, a bike rodeo for kids and more! 🚲🎉. https://t.co/hOSg9yEbsv pic.twitter.com/X8vLenjKZV
— King County Parks 🐿️ (@iheartkcparks) July 11, 2019
Yeah, no. The Eastside Rail Corridor Trail will not be named Traily McTrailface. Sorry.
I’m pretty sure I know the name, but I’ll go ahead and let King County announce it in style 10 a.m. July 20 at Redmond Central Connector Park (hmm, this trail isn’t the only thing that could use a better name).
We reported a while back on the contending names for the under-construction trail, which is planned to connect from Renton to Redmond. None of the names were notably amazing or seemed to find a strong following of supporters. I’ve been referring to it as “The Eastside Trail” for years now since it’s official name “The Eastside Rail Corridor Trail” is a real mouthful. Of course, there are several trails on the Eastside, so my name wasn’t all that great, either. In Kirkland, it is known as the Cross-Kirkland Corridor Trail, a name that will remain in use for the Kirkland-owned section.
Maybe if King County succeeds in fully funding and completing the trail according to its ambitious schedule, someday we’ll name it the DowWay or the Baldutrail. Honestly, if the county completes a fully-separated rail trail from Renton to Redmond, they can call it whatever they want. It will be amazing.
It’s worth noting that passing the King County Parks ballot initiative this August would go a long way to helping to build this thing. So we should really do that.
Comments
7 responses to “King County will celebrate the Eastside’s ‘Traily McTrailface’ July 20”
I’m looking forward to them getting the Kirkland-Woodinville stretch rideable. I’d gladly take interim gravel cause that’d eliminate an ‘exhilarating’ ride on NE124th going between Bothell/Woodinville and Kirkland, Bellevue downtown, etc
Yes, that section on NE124th is ugly and I will be glad to see it go away.
Hope it’s better than last year’s celebration of the connection to Gene Coulon Park in Renton when the trail still ended abruptly before the connection. I haven’t ridden it since – did they ever actually finish this?
I rode the trail from downtown bellevue to directly east of Juanita (aka 116th st) a few weeks ago on a skinny tire road bike and it was fine. Provided they fix any ruts that start to develop it’s very ride-able. Nice bridges. Some crossings are just ok, but there aren’t very many. I was stopping right before the really bad one at 124th where it looks like one would want to walk a bike through two long pedestrian signals.
The worst parts of the ride was from the edge of downtown bellevue to the kirkland park and ride. Looks like part of that is basically light rail construction, so i’m guessing the gap closes up when that is done but right now you are on some vaguely terrifying freeway-adjacent roads for a bit there, and then have have to climb back up to the trail (and its quite steep at the kirkland P&R)
I think they might be able to greatly improve that, temporarily, by opening up some kind of link from 116th right next to 520. The trail is right over there with nothing much in-between. It looked like there was one place where they really just needed to open a chain-link fence gate. Could be private land, but just lease access for a few years. It would be way better even if it was a ‘dismount and walk 50 feet’ link.
This fence!
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6322994,-122.1855844,3a,60y,94.97h,87.31t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgAHfK0NQYw1EBksLXDGUXA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
The “dismount and walk 50 feet” link is at the end of 116th, across Northup. There is a little footpath down to the trail along the side of the rug store: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.633159,-122.1857969,3a,78.2y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spUAYTny8VOT7_6-NloiErA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Well… that is better than the route around to the west. I’d carry my bike through there. Still wish that gate was open. :)