Burke-Gilman Trail
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The Burke-Gilman Trail is a 17.7-mile bike path and recreational rail trail in King County, Washington. Its newest segment, opened in July 2005, runs for seven tenths of a mile from N.W. 60th Street and Seaview Avenue N.W. to the Ballard Locks in Seattle, Washington. The main trail resumes at 11th Avenue N.W. and N.W. 45th Street and runs 17 miles to Blyth Park in Bothell. There, it connects to the Sammamish River Trail, which parallels the Sammamish River for 10 miles to Redmond.
Currently the trail runs along the Fremont Cut and Lake Union and through the University of Washington campus. After passing the University Village shopping center the trail heads up through the Sand Point neighborhood before returning alongside Lake Washington. The trail is almost perfectly level with few large intersection crossings.
The trail can trace its origins to the founding of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad on April 15, 1885, by a group of men headed by Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman. Absorbed by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1892, the line became part of the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970, and was abandoned in 1971. In 1978, 12.1 miles of the right-of-way, from Seattle's Gas Works Park to Kenmore's Tracy Owen Station, was opened as a public trail and named after the founders of the railroad.
As of 2005, there are plans for extensions of the trail at its western end: connecting the short and long segments between the Ballard Locks and 11th Avenue, and a northern extension along Shilshole Bay from N.W. 60th Street to Golden Gardens Park. A major point of contention regarding the former project is the industrial nature of Ballard's Salmon Bay waterfront, through which this portion of the trail would pass. Many business owners are concerned about the safety and liability issues inherent in the convergence of trains, trucks, cyclists, and pedestrians, while the city and citizen's groups claim the dangers are being exaggerated. [1]