The City of Renton has lowered the speed limit for bicycles to 10 mph on most of the Cedar River Trail. Bicyclists must dismount on the remaining sections. [See maps below]

Violation of the speed limit carries a $101 fine, according to signs posted on the path.

The Cedar River Trail is a rail-trail that runs from the mouth of Lake Washington to Landsburg, a distance of about 17 miles. The restrictions of bicycle riders target only the western 4.5 miles of the trail in Renton.

The measures are a reaction to the death of an 83-year-old woman this spring after she stepped in front of a moving bicycle about a quarter-mile from where the trail passes under I-405.

Both the woman and the 57-year-old bicyclist fell to the ground and were knocked unconcious, according to news reports. The cyclist recovered at the scene, but the woman later died of her injuries at the hospital.

No charges were ever filed in that case. Renton's mayor and city council set about limiting or restricting bicycle use on the multi-use trail at its next meeting   more »

Opposition to public bicycle paths can come from unusual sources in unexpected places.

For instance, the prospect of a public bike path running alongside a corner of the members-only Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia, has some of its members up in arms.

Fourteen of the active and retired military commissioned officers at the club are suing the club's board of directors for letting such a proposal go through.

A Navy captain said:

"Once the word gets out to the younger generation there is a secluded place to come and visit and have some fun, you can bet they're going to be there. ... Gangs. Rivals. Hazards to pedestrians coming in and out. ...   more »

Here's my campsite at Alice Creek on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail, a rail-trail that stretches from near North Bend all the way to the Columbia River.

It seemed like one of the first sunny, dry days in a while, and I was lucky to be able to take advantage of it.

From where I live, this is a little too far for one of those sub-24 hour bike camping trips. It's about 50 miles and quite a bit of climbing for me to get there.

As you can see in the photo below, I don't travel light. That Yakima trailer carries ...   more »

For the past three years, the Rails to Trails Conservancy has been culling through hundreds of bicycling and hiking pathways to create the Rail-Trails Hall of Fame.

It's not an easy task. There are currently 1,631 abandoned railroad rights-of-way that have been converted into bicycling and hiking trails in the U.S. They account for 19,578 miles of paved or gravel pathways.

So far, they've chosen 15 rail-trails. The Rails to Trails Conservancy wants to wrap up the Top 25 on the Honor Roll in time for its 25th anniversary, which is next June. Be looking for almost monthly announcements ...   more »

A section of the Sammamish River Trail in Redmond will be closed until Friday, May 14, while work crews repair a 200-foot section.

Access by bicycle riders and walkers will be shut down between Northeast Marymoor Way (the western access to the park) and Leary Way.

King County suggests that bicyclists find alternate access to the section of trail north of Leary Way as there's no detour through the work area.....   more »

The need to be moving must be in the blood of retired long-haul trucker Al Weidtz.

Long after leaving the truck business, 90-year-old Weidtz puts in a lot of hours in the saddle of his hybrid bicycle.

In good weather it's not uncommon for him to ride 100 miles a week on the 13 miles of the Wheeling Heritage Trails network near his home, a fact notable enough to earn coverge in the local newspaper. He also rides in bike tours with family and friends.

Next month, Weidtz will participate in the 4th annual Wheeling Heritage Trail Bike Tour. The May 30 event is a fund-raiser to close the gap between the Wheeling trails and bike trails in Brooke County to the north ....   more »

An elderly woman has died after she was struck this past weekend by a passing bicyclist on the Cedar River Trail in Renton.

News sources report that the 83-year-old woman was walking on the path about 4:45 p.m. Sunday about a 1/4-mile from the Interstate 405 overpass when she stepped out in front of the bicyclist, 57, who was passing her on the left.

Both were knocked to the ground and lost consciousness. The cyclist came to and was treated for minor injuries by EMTs; the woman was rushed to the hospital where she died Monday morning ...   more »

The other day I noticed that someone searched my blog for the longest bicycle trails in the United States. 

I don't know why the search engine directed them here, because I didn't have that information. Since then, however, I've set out to correct the omission with a list compiled by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.

The non-profit has helped states, communities and volunteers turn 19,578 miles of abandoned railroad tracks into trails for hikes and bikers to enjoy. Another 8,676 miles are under development or construction. They are certainly to be applauded for their efforts.

The list of longest rails-to-trails ....   more »

Starting with today's home opener, Minnesota Twins fans can combine their love of baseball with their devotion to the bicycle.

Monday is the debut of the Twins' new Target Field, and one of its advantages over the old Metrodome is that a bicycle path -- the Cedar Lake Trail -- heads right to the new ballpark from the western suburbs.

To further welcome cyclists, the new stadium has space for 300 bicycles in racks behind the third base wall on the northwest side of the ballpark.

Opened in 1995, the Cedar Lake Trail rolls from the west ..   more »

An 80-year-old railroad bridge that served as a missing link on the 225-mile Katy Trail across Missouri will be preserved for use by future pedestrians and bicycle travelers.

The bridge over the Missouri River at Boonville has been at the center of a debate for some 5 years. The owner of the 400-foot-long steel lift span, the Union Pacific, wanted to dismantle it and use it to build a bridge for trains crossing the Osage River.

Trail supporters -- such as Save the Katy Bridge coalition, BikeMoFed, and the Rail to Trail Conservancy -- said dismantling the bridge would not only remove an historic structure as part of the Katy Trail, but also threaten the "railbanked" status of the trail because of the broken segment.

Last Friday, however, Gov. Jay Nixon announced the state had brokered a deal for Union Pacific to give the bridge to the city of Boonville in return for Missouri allocating $23 million in federal stimulus funds to go toward building the new bridge over the Osage River ...   more »

Earlier this week, I pedaled my Rockhopper up the John Wayne Pioneer Trail east of North Bend in search of snow.

It's been warmer than normal in the Seattle area so far this winter, and I had to ride 12 to 13 miles up to Carter Creek Camp before I found any white stuff. I didn't have time to explore any further, so I don't know the conditions closer to the now-closed Snoqualmie Tunnel.

Along the way I came across this fallen boulder partially blocking the trail. It looked like a fairly recent fall. I rode my bike up this way in the autumn and don't remember it, and there's some fresh gouge marks in the trail where it looked like it hit.

Seeing this boulder on the trail, got me to thinking about how work crews for the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company -- aka The Milwaukee Road -- made this route .....   more »

(Update: Jan. 21 -- Trail cleared and reopened on Wednesday) A fallen tree blocks the Burke-Gilman Trail just north of Seattle. Cyclists were directed onto a sidestreet to detour the mudslide that brought the tree down.

Neighbors say this tree in Lake Forest came down about 5:30 Friday morning. The trail was also blocked further south. The area has undergone some precip just about everyday the past two weeks.

This narrow section of the Burke Gilman ...   more »

Those of you trapped inside your homes by the winter storm back East might enjoy watching this video about the picturesque Moonville Rail Trail that meanders for 10 miles through the scenic hills of southeastern Ohio.

Aside from the pleasant scenery and the sounds of twittering birds and mountain bike wheels crunching over gravel, there's a good lesson here.

Those earnest volunteers who are trying to create trails out of abandoned railway rights-of-way might be interested to know that the Moonville Rail-Trail Association avoided using county money to build the trail that connects the small towns of Zaleski and Mineral.

Founder Neil Shaw says the whole effort was accomplished with volunteers, donations and grant money ....   more »

When two girls, aged 11 and 10, on bicycles were struck and killed by a van driver in October 1987, the people of Davie resolved to make the small south Florida city safer for bicyclists.

By the end of the year the town council budgeted $150,000 for its first bike trail. Within six months work began on a 3-mile bike trail adjacent to the street where the girls were killed.

Twenty-two years later, Davie boasts a network of 135 miles of bike paths and horse trails that connect the two dozen parks in the town with a population of 90,000.

When you consider the reputation of Florida among bicyclists, the feat of building so many bike trails in the town is remarkable. ....   more »

We can vote early and often for our favorite bike trails in this election.

A few weeks ago Google Maps sought nominations for off-road photographic visits by its Street Views trike.

After receiving 25,000 ideas, the Google Maps staff came up with 24 finalists (trails in blue on map). They're asking us to vote for our favorites; multiple times if we feel like it.

Five bike trails have been nominated for a visit by the Google Maps Street Views trike. They are the Centennial Trail in Washington, Capital Crescent Trail in the DC area, Schuylkill River Trail in Pennsylvania, Boulder Creek Trail in Colorado, and the Stevens Creek Trail in California...   more »

Bicyclists in Seattle should feel fortunate that the creators of Ride the City chose their town as the latest addition to the online bike-route mapping tool.

Since launching the website for New York City last year, Vaidila Kungys and Jordan Anderson have added Chicago, Austin, Louisville, San Diego and now Seattle to their mapping tool.

Don't blame these guys for the slow roll-out; Vaidila told me that they have full-time jobs and update the website during coffee breaks, lunches and after work.

Essentially, Ride the City is a mapping tool that finds the most direct route between two points, much like Google maps does for car travel [you can give it a test drive on the jump] ....   more »

 

Any plans you had for bicycling the Green River Trail in the next few years are being sandbagged.

Crews are racing to erect a 3- to 4-foot high sandbag wall along the trail to help contain expected floodwaters in Kent and Tukwila if heavy rains strike the area this winter.

The work stems from problems at the Corps of Engineer's Howard Hanson Dam upstream, where engineers are concerned about the structural integrity of the dam. They'll be releasing more water to reduce pressure on the dam, which could mean flooding downstream in the Green River Valley.

The Green River Trail could be closed to bicycles for up to five years, if it takes the Corps that long to figure out how to solve and repair the problem. With the sandbags in the middle of the trail that sits on top of the levee, there's not enough room for safe usage by bike riders and pedestrians.

The less scenic, but more direct, north-south Interurban Trail is slated to remain open. .....   more »

Google Maps is looking for help in selecting places to send its StreetView trike.

Noting that some of the most interesting and scenic locales are not accessible by car, Google is accepting suggestions on what else should be featured on StreetView.

Of course, I'm thinking of nominating the most-used or most picturesque bike trails in the Pacific Northwest.

The Olympic Discovery Trail on the Olympic Peninsula comes to mind first, as it winds along between the Strait de Juan de Fuca on the north and the snowy peaks of the Olympic Mountains on the south. That's a picture of the trail east of Port Angeles where it skirts the seawall ....   more »

Google keeps adding data to its maps to make them more detailed.

That's good news for bicyclists who want to find bike trail routes in their cities that might take them near their destinations.

As I found from tracing some bike trails in the Seattle area, some are labeled and some aren't. Some are mislabeled. Some vanish from sight in places then reappear later. But it's a start, and the information on the Google maps is only as good as the sources.

At its Google Lat Long blog, the company tells about some of the improvements and says "...cyclists will now find many more trails and paths to explore. Soon we even plan on providing you with biking directions to take advantage of this new data ...   more »

Not-in-my-backyard naysayers often allege that proposed bicycle trails will ruin the quality of life in their neighborhoods and destroy property values.

But it seems that the opposite is the case in follow-up studies or polls of neighbors.

For instance, the Ithaca (NY) Journal reports that 81% of residents who live next to that city's three main trails say the bike and hike trails improved or greatly improved their neighborhoods. Only 7% of the survey's respondents believe the trails made their neighborhoods worse.

In fact, many neighbors found the trails such an improvement that they use them regularly ....   more »

The Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park opened this past weekend in Poughkeepsie, New York, drawing thousands of people on bikes and on foot to enjoy the new views of the Hudson River.

The 6,767-foot-long bridge is being touted as the world's longest pedestrian and bike-only bridge. It even surpasses the length of the 4,226-foot Big Dam Bridge over the Arkansas River in Little Rock.

The old railroad bridge will connect to 27 miles of rail trails and riverfront parks already built or planned for construction on either side of the river in Ulster and Duchess counties ....   more »

Those of you heading to Wenatchee, Washington, for Saturday's Dam2Dam charity bike ride should consider paying a visit to the Apple Capital Recreation Loop Trail if you have any extra time.

I explored the trail earlier this month on an overnight camping stay in the Wenatchee area during my bicycle tour from Cle Elum, over Blewett Pass and up the Columbia River. The trail passes through natural wetland settings and urban parkland and offers spectacular mountain views from both sides of the river.

The paved loop is a wonderful 10-mile trail that hugs both shorelines of the Columbia River with bike-only crossings at the north and south end. It's heavily used by commuters and recreational cyclists, and it's also an excellent way for visitors to get a feel for the Columbia River environment. ....   more »

It has been a sad few days along the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail between Cumberland and Pittsburgh.

Maynard Sembower, the man known locally as the "trail ambassador extraordinaire" and "number one volunteer", passed away last Wednesday at age 100.

Those who have bicycled the GAP might remember him as the man who staffed the visitor's center at the Rockwood trailhead in the summer. He'd dispense information about lodging, camping and other services in high country of the bike trail, as well as share the local lore.

He became so well known along the Somerset County section of the bike trail that the office was renamed the Sembower Visitor Center .....   more »

Update via Virginia Bikes:


What is John McCain's and Tom Coburn's beef with bicycling?

The two Republican senators from Arizona and Oklahoma have offered amendments that would remove funding for transportation enhancements -- such as bike and pedestrian facilities -- from the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill ...   more »

Few things excite my imagination more than scanning bike trail maps.

On Sunday I stumbled across a new brochure for the Iron Curtain Trail, a bike path that one day will traverse the 4,216-mile length of the Cold War border between eastern and western Europe.

Beginning at the Norway-Russia border on the Barents Sea in the north, the bike route touches 20 nations before it ends on the Black Sea coast in Turkey in the south.

Nearly equal in length to the TransAmerica Trail that stretches from Yorktown, Virginia, to Astoria, Oregon, in the US, this bike trail passes parks, monuments and green belts that mark the so-called "death strip" between East and West during the Cold War ...   more »

The weatherman said there was a 90 percent chance of rain, but I wanted to take this overnight bike trip up John Wayne Pioneer Trail this week anyway.

When I first heard the forecast, I was ready to bail out. I had planned this trip two weeks ago when the weather was hot and sunny.  I visualized riding up there in my shirtsleeves and enjoying a cool mountain night laying out on a picnic table, looking at stars.

A bike trip under gloomy skies with a high probability of rain wasn't what I had in mind. I soon realized this might be my last chance to take a long ride up into the Cascades this summer. Anyway, how often do things go the way we visualize them? ....   more »

With my daughter in a day camp in Seattle this week, I've had the opportunity to do some bicycle day-tripping around the area.

On Wednesday, as I headed north on the old Interurban right-of-way toward Shoreline and Edmonds, I stumbled across a series of signs posted along the bike trail like a picturesque Burma Shave advertisement.

They're not trailside billboards, however. They're FlipBooks, a bit of trailside artwork created by local artist Jennifer Dixon.

Just like a flipbook that you hold in your hand, the images change slightly as you progress along the trail so there's a sensation of movement as you pass ....   more »

A petition that trail advocates are pushing in Virginia could result in hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of bicycling trails alongside active railroads.

The central idea of the petition is that citizens should benefit directly from railroad projects that receive government subsidies for new construction or improvements.

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy points out there already are 200 rails with trails projects in the US totaling more than 2,000 miles.

Currently, the Virginia Bicycle Federation is asking Gov. Timothy Kaine to support trails with rails on all major railroad projects in the state.

Here is VBF's take on the issue ...   more »

When I pedaled my aged Rockhopper mountain bike on an out-and-back ride on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail last summer, I had no idea that I was riding the most popular rail-trail destination in North America.

I only saw about a dozen people on bicycles on my 50-mile ride, and no hikers. Maybe the reason was because it was the middle of the week and the trail starts at a park about 35 miles from Seattle.

In any case, based on internet traffic to its 44,000 trails listed at Trails.com, the former railroad grade of the Milwaukee Road is judged the most popular rail-trail. The votes comprise page views, trail downloads and trail rankings ...   more »

Falling debris hazards in five John Wayne Pioneer Trail tunnels, including the 2.3-mile-long Snoqualmie Pass Tunnel at left, have convinced Washington state parks to close them until further notice.

The closures are bad news for the many bicyclists and hikers who pass through the tunnels at they hike and bike the 100-mile-long rail-trail over the Cascades from Cedar Falls to the Columbia River.

Shutting down the tunnels not only removes interesting historical landmarks from the Iron Horse State Park, which contains the rail-trail, but requires trail users to take long detours -- sometimes out to Interstate 90 -- to get through the remote area.

A request for funds to repair the tunnels, estimated at $9 million, are included in the 2009-2011 two-year budget cycle ...   more »

Trail supporters in New York state are pushing for completion of the Erie Canalway Trail.

Originally completed in 1825 to carry commerce from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, the canal is now the focus of lively towns along its path trying to lure tourism dollars to their communities.

Some 260 miles of bike trails (officially multi-use trails) run through the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor, which includes the Erie, as well as other historic canals in upstate New York.

Eventually, 366 miles of bike trails are planned between Albany and Buffalo. ...   more »

Heavy rains and snowmelt combined last week to flood wide areas of western Washington.

High water devastated the communities of Duvall, Carnation and Snoqualmie in the Snoqualmie River valley, as well as towns located further south, such as Pacifica, Centralia and Chehalis.

These are known haunts for cyclists in the area. The rural roads in the Snoqualmie Valley are ideal for long rides and are the routes for popular summer bike ride events like the Flying Wheels. Centralia and Chehalis are stopover towns for the annual Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride. ...   more »

This photo I shot on the Foothills Trail in Pierce County, Washington, makes me feel warm all over.

It's a hot June day and that's the volcano Mount Rainier soaring in the background.

I just posted this rail-to-trail photo, and a couple of others, to the Rail-to-Trails Conservancy group on flickr.com

There already are more than 300 photos in the group of people riding their bicycles on rail-trails all across the US...   more »

There's a trail plan underway that would enable bicyclists to visit dozens of Colonial and Civil War-era historic sites from a single off-road trail.

Bicycling advocates and history buffs are working to link 11 bicycle trails in the mid-Atlantic states to create a 185-mile circular historical bike route.

Called the Grand History Trail, the project would fill in the gaps between trails in Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.

Along the way, it would connect the historic cities of Annapolis, Baltimore, Frederick, Gettysburg, Washington and York and points in between, such as Colonial-era settlements and Civil War battlefields ...   more »

The East Coast Greenway is a 3,000-mile bicycle-pedestrian route from Calais, Maine, to Key West, Florida.

The route is proposed as an off-road path that links cities along the eastern seaboard. Currently, about one-fifth of the route is on traffic-free paths with more on the way.

But before things get too far along, however, the Greenway wants to establish a set of uniform signs that can be used along its length.

To get some public feedback, the Greenway folks are distributing an online Bicycle Signage Survey that takes 12 minutes to complete (your time may vary) .....   more »

King County (WA) is getting closer to filling some missing links in its countywide bicycle route network.

The latest proposal is a 17-mile trail that links four other bike paths as it rolls between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington south of Seattle.

Dubbed the Lake-to-Sound Trail, the bike path is designed to intersect the Cedar River Trail, the Green River Trail, the Westside Trail and the Des Moines Creek Trail. It will pass through Renton, Tukwila, Burien, SeaTac, Normandy Park and Des Moines. The trail also visits the Tukwila light-rail station ...   more »

The Raccoon River Valley Trail in west central Iowa has been dealt a setback in its bid to becoming the nation's longest looping trail.

Already 56 miles long, another 33 miles of trail-building was in line for a state grant until it was diverted to help pay for disaster relief from Iowa flooding earlier this year.

The trail partly uses the old "Milwaukee Road" railroad right-of-way (same at the John Wayne Pioneer bicycle trail in Washington state). When complete, it will be 89 miles long, including the 72-mile loop.

Iowans are very familiar with the famous line from the movie "Field of Dreams":  "Build it and they will come." Local bicycling advocates say the new trail will be a boon to bicycle tourism in the region ...   more »

A nonprofit that works on behalf of all trails -- including those for bicyclists-- recognized the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route at its annual meeting that ended Monday in Little Rock.

American Trails issued its 2008 Partnership Award to Adventure Cycling Association and the University of Pittsburgh and the Center for Minority Health, who worked together on the project.

The bicycle route takes cyclists along the path to freedom used by many slaves before the Civil War. It stretches 2,100 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to Owen Sound, Ontario.

"Since the route's official establishment in 2007, Adventure Cycling's Underground Railroad Route map sales have been exceptional, with 4,150 maps sold to date ...   more »

Some of you might remember my encounter with "long rider" Mark Ryan last month as I was bicycling along the John Wayne Pioneer Trail in the Cascades.

The Associated Press tracked him down and now his story is spreading across the country. The article says that he reached his destination but is stuck in Wyoming after a truck he bought to get home broke down.

When I ran into Mark in early October, he was nearing the end of his 2,000-mile ride from Kingfisher, Oklahoma, to Ferndale, Washington, to visit a friend. He had set out on June 2, and he had ridden Mister Doodles the entire way.  His mule, Festus, carried the supplies. ...   more »

There are hectic days when the weather is nice, but I just can't get out for a long bike ride. That's when I jump on my mountain bike to ride some trails and finish up with a stop at a local grocery to pick up something for dinner -- all in under an hour.

Part of the bicycle route is on an unassuming dirt path that veers into a second-growth forest behind some homes in neighboring Newcastle.

I never thought much about this dirt trail that dead-ends at a stairway high above May Creek until recently. That's when I found out that this is no ordinary dirt trail.

Merely 1.7 miles long, the May Creek Trail is the abandoned route of a narrow-gauge railroad of the 1800s that connected the lucrative old coalfields of old Newcastle to docks in Seattle. ...   more »

Whenever I'm out bicycle riding, I always keep an eye open for passing bicycle travelers who might need some directions or some company. It's how I return the favor to the countless people who have helped me over the years.

I met up with Mark on Friday as I was enjoying an early fall bike ride on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail in the Cascades. Although he wasn't on a bike, I knew he had an interesting story to tell.

Mark and his two companions, Festus, the mule, and Mister Doodles, the horse, had been on the road since June 2 when they left Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He was traveling to see an old friend in Ferndale, so he was nearing the end of his journey. ...   more »

There's a suburban legend out there that rail-to-trail conversions drive down property values.

Propose a trail on an abandoned railway and you'll hear fear and loathing from neighbors about loss of privacy, increased crime, traffic and noise, all which will affect property values.

A University of Cincinnati master's degree candidate in urban planning decided put those fears to the test by checking data from a populated section of the Little Miami Scenic Trail in southeast Ohio. Her research concluded that the opposite is true.

Duygu Karadeniz discovered that single family home sale prices increase by $7.05 for every foot closer a property is located to the trail. ...   more »

Remember that old Saturday Night Live joke?

"I'm from New Jersey." "Oh yeah? What exit?"

That retort could be rewritten to "What bicycle route?" as the New Jersey Department of Transportation has published three more bicycle route guides to make an even dozen that are available online for cyclists.

The three are Burlington County Bikeways, Cape May Shoreline Ride and Cumberland Salem Revolution bicycling guides. Combined, they offer 168 miles of bicycling through New Jersey ....   more »

Bicyclists from Georgia and Alabama will ride to a shrimp boil get-together in a farmer's field at the state line in a couple of weeks to celebrate the completion of the longest paved bike path in the US.

With the paving of the last gap of Georgia's Silver Comet bike path last month, the 61.5-mile rail-to-trail combines with the Chief Ladiga bike path to become the longest paved bicycle path in the US at a distance of 95 miles.

Bicycle enthusiasts will leave from trailheads in Georgia and Alabama that morning and arrive at the state line for festivities, food and entertainment at 2 p.m. Sept. 27.

The PATH Foundation flyer (.pdf) explains all the details of the Silver Comet celebration ...   more »

A budget shortfall in Illinois means fewer off-road routes for bicyclists to enjoy beginning this fall.

The biggest hit to cyclists is closure of  the Hennepin Canal Parkway State Park, left, a linear park in northwest Illinois that boasts more than 90 miles of towpath -- 30 miles of it paved -- as it crosses six Illinois counties.

The towpath is a popular route for bicyclists. A portion was used during the 2008 Grand Illinois Trail and Parks bike ride (GITAP) this summer.

Statewide, the Department of Natural Resources is padlocking 11 state parks to save $14 million. The parks will be closed to everyone as of Nov. 1 ...   more »

The Burke-Gilman bike trail's 1 1/2-mile missing link in Ballard could open in two years.

Funding for the trail project is included in the proposed 2009-2010 budget for the city of Seattle.

If you're wondering why it has taken so long to complete this section from 11th Avenue Northwest to the Ballard locks, consider the $14.1 million overall pricetag. The city is including $8.6 million in its upcoming budget for the work, and the remainder is to come from King County. ...   more »

All good bike trails must end, but some end before they ever get a good start.

Exporing some of the many bicycle trails in the Puget Sound area the past couple of summers, I've found that some bike trails begin and end in well-equipped trailheads with restrooms, drinking fountains and parking lots.

Others simply come to an abrupt end in a road culvert, padlocked gate, or a muddy trail that disappears into an overgrown right of way.

Many of these are rails-to-trails that are built on abandoned railroad beds. Rail-to-Trails Conservancy reports 1,534 completed trails covered 15,346 miles in the US ....   more »

Do you like irony? Then here's one for you:

An 18.8-mile bike path that's proposed to run alongside a toll road in the Washington DC suburbs is in danger of being blocked because it could damage environmentally sensitive parkland.

Never mind that the $2.4 billion, six-lane toll road follows the same route. In fact, the bike trail was originally proposed as an ecological offset for environmental damage caused by the new road between Gaithersburg and Laurel ...

Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicycle Association, told the Washington Post:

"We really don't understand the rationale behind dropping a bike trail for environmental issues when they're already running a big highway through there." ....   more »

Whenever I head north along the Sammamish River Trail, a gravel trail that breaks off to the east about 6 miles from Redmond frequently catches my eye.

Leaving my road bike at home, I recently paid a visit to the Tolt Pipeline Trail, left, on the used Rockhopper mountain bike that I bought to explore the many dirt and gravel trails in my big back yard.

This trail is the right-of-way for a water pipeline the serves the City of Seattle. The total distance of the trail, not counting the interruptions, is about 12 miles. I  bicycled the 7-mile central section from Sammamish River Trail to just above West Snoqualmie Valley Road.

Steep grades

Those of us who are used to the oh-so-gentle climbs on rail-to-trail right-of-ways will certainly find these steep grades challenging. The pipeline simply goes from Point A to Point B and the trail follows, with no grading to get in the way ...   more »

The Great Allegheny Passage has turned into a gold mine for communities who are watching money roll into their western Maryland and Pennsylvania towns two wheels at a time.

Time and time again it has been shown that rail-to-trail projects are a big draw for bicyclists, and longer networks like this one draw bike tours with people who need food and lodging.

The 150-mile GAP bike trail hooked up with the 186-mile C&O Canal towpath in late 2006, creating an off-road bike tour route all the way from Washington DC to McKeesport (and into Pittsburgh later this year) ...   more »

I had heard about bicycling the John Wayne Pioneer Trail and the Snoqualmie Tunnel ever since moving here in 2000, but I didn't have the right bike until this spring.

With a day to myself, I threw the knobbies on my Rockhopper mountain bike and drove up to the Cedar Falls (exit 32 on I-90) trailhead to find out about it for myself.

Briefly, it was a great bike ride, and I can't wait to return with my camping gear. I rode the first leg of about 22 miles to the next trailhead at Hyak on the other side of the 2.3-mile long Snoqualmie Tunnel, looked around, and returned. I was shooting photos with my Canon Elph, and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to try a video. It appears at left.

The John Wayne Pioneer Trail is the old Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad -- aka The Milwaukee Road -- that rolls two-thirds of the way across Washington state. About 100 miles of it is a packed gravel rail-to-trail maintained as part of the Iron Horse State Park from Cedar Falls west of the Cascades to the Columbia River to the east ...   more »

Hundreds of cyclists took to the roads of Pierce County on Sunday for the annual Tour de Pierce bike ride, sponsored by the county parks and recreation department.

New for this year's ride was a section of the Foothills Trail, which meanders for about 17 or 18 miles from Meeker, near Puyallup, to South Prarie Creek and beyond to Buckley. Although the bike ride didn't follow the entire route, cyclists did get a taste of the 12-foot-wide trail that boasts stunning views of Mount Rainier, above.

More photos inside...   more »

Bicyclists are celebrating today's official opening of a 10.6-mile rail-to-trail that links Sarasota and Venice.

The Legacy Trail takes the place of an abandoned CSX Transportation railway line that was purchased for $14.5 million in 2004. It's one of more than 1,460 rail-trails in the US that stretch across nearly 14,000 miles of landscape.

The paved path is 12 feet wide and is already popular with walkers and rollerbladers as well as cyclists. It has six trailheads ...   more »

There's a more than 100-mile-long abandoned railway corridor on Washington's Olympic Peninsula that is being transformed into a first-rate bicycling trail named the Olympic Discovery Trail.

When completed it will stretch all the way from La Push on the Pacific Ocean, across the base of  the northern slope of the Olympic Mountains, to bustling Port Townsend on Puget Sound.

More than a third of the trail is routed and paved (primarily the central portion connecting Port Angeles and Sequim on the Strait of Juan del Fuca), and volunteers are beginning work on another section east of Sequim that brings the trail closer to Port Townsend ......   more »

One day as a newspaper reporter in an earlier life, I was stuck on a small boat in the Chesapeake Bay with a US Fish & Wildlife Service biologist. To avoid justifying the environmental policies of the current adminstration (Reagan), he swung the conversation around to books.

His favorite was "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold. I had never heard of this conservationist (he died in 1948), so I bought that book a few days later. It later found a place on the bookshelf with John Muir, Edward Abbey, Colin Fletcher and John McPhee.

Leopold's home state of Wisconsin has honored his memory by naming the state's 42 trails as the Aldo Leopold Legacy Trail System....   more »

Many of the long bicycle trails in the Eastern US don't fade away at the state line, they just change names and keep on truckin'.

I'd been digging into some cool, long-distance suggestions for bicycle tours on "non-motorized trails" when I discovered that many well-known bike trails meet at the state borders.

Such is the case on the Georgia-Alabama border where Silver Comet joins the Chief Ladiga. It happens twice between Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the C&O Canal and Northern Central meet the Great Allegheny Passage and York County Heritage Trail...   more »

Many of the rails-to-trails routes in Washington state are suitable for skinny-tired road bikes. In fact, more than half of the 63 rails-to-trails in the state have surfaces that road bikes can handle.

Not the Klickitat Trail in southern Washington. One of the most remote rails-to-trails in the US, it is recommended that visitors use mountain bikes, preferably with front suspension.

The 31-mile trail is the trail-of-the-month for the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The trail starts in Swale Canyon then hooks up with the meandering Klickitat River, nationally designated as a Wild and Scenic River. It ends at the confluence of the Klickitat and Columbia rivers (above). ...   more »

There's a bicycle path in northern Pennsylvania called the Pine Creek Rail Trail that meanders 62 miles along a river that passes through a valley aptly called the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.

The Rails to Trails Conservancy conducted a survey there last year that proves the adage heard in the movie Field of Dreams: "Build it and they will come."

The survey found that not only do they come, but they contribute to the local economies. While the trail has cost about $12.6 million to build since 1995, the Pine Creek survey determined that visitors spend from $5 million to $7 million a year, most of which is spent in the local communities along the trail.

Leaving aside the aesthetic or fitness benefits of a trail, that economic impact should encourage all communities to take those old bike trail plans off the shelf, dust them off, and start spreading the crushed limestone or asphalt...   more »

Instead of complaining about all the trash along a section of a bike path, members of the Mid-Valley Bicycle Club in Corvallis, Oregon, are taking matters into their own hands.

Ten cyclists met at the bike path along 99W, and in little more than an hour had picked up 20 large garbage bags of crap from along the one-mile stretch. Among the items they found was a stripped down bicycle frame, which they're considering upgrading into a new bike.

Good deeds like these aren't isolated to Corvallis. Bicycling groups all over are joining "Adopt-a-trail" campaigns in communities to keep their trails clean ......   more »