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Renton’s beautiful Kennydale Beach Park is not accessible to many residents because its steep, decade’s-old staircases provide the only public entrance. For years the railroad made improvements impossible, but now it would be possible to fix this deficiency.
Kennydale Beach Park is the oldest of Renton’s two beach parks, dating back to the post-war 1940s. Long-time area residents tell stories of a young Clint Eastwood (the actor and director) sitting in the Kennydale Beach lifeguard stand squinting into the sunset and keeping an eye on swimmers.
During the park’s nearly 80-year history, every visitor has used an upper and lower steep narrow stairway to access the park from Lake Washington Boulevard. The park has been inaccessible for anyone unable to climb these steep stairs. The Eastside Railway that ran along the right-of-way between the staircases made any hope of improvement nearly impossible during that time.
Now, with the railway being transitioned into a permanent multi-use trail, Renton has an excellent opportunity to allow people of all mobilities, as well as families pushing strollers and pulling wagons, an opportunity to enjoy this park. In the pictures below I describe how this could be done.
I’ve always been an outspoken advocate of improved accessibility to our waterfront and other public amenities. In 2011 the Department of Ecology was pushing for Renton to build future and replacement docks at a width of no more than four feet. I knew this narrow width was out of compliance with ADA guidelines, which would have made these docks hazardous for residents with mobility issues as well as young children. I pushed back on the errant Department of Ecology guidance, along with my council colleague Marcie Palmer, and we eventually won over our full Council, ensuring we came up with a design that both protected the fish and preserved safety for our residents with mobility challenges. Other Washington State cities followed Renton’s lead afterwards, and our state’s docks are safer and more ADA compliant for this work. This debate is captured in this blog entry here.
When approaching the park from Lake Washington Boulevard, this staircase takes visitors down to the Eastrail multi-use trail.
From the Eastrail trail, this staircase takes visitors down to the Kennydale Park entrance
This section of the Eastrail trail will eventually be paved. A valuable addition would be a ramp that gently ascends crosswise to the grade, from the trail to Lake Washington Blvd, at an ADA compliant slope. It could be built beyond the stairs or replace them. There is similar space on the downhill side that could provide an ADA accessible ramp down to the park. This would be useful for both Renton residents and trail users. Funding could come from a mix of Eastrail sources, Renton Parks capital budget, and potential state and federal accessibility grants like this.
“Now that’s a real good idea….”
I was always bummed the sidewalk on Park south of the Landing was allowed to be non-ADA compatible as it’s way too narrow. It was new construction too.
The city had an ambitious long-term plan to upgrade these sidewalks in the context of an overall Park Avenue Streetscape Improvement. The idea was after Park Avenue extends through to Southport, it will run from Coulon Park to Liberty Park, and Renton was going to rebuild it and make it more pedestrian friendly. I’m not sure what the status of this plan is, and I’m pretty sure the Park Avenue element has never come close to a funding stage. This plan would be significantly harmed by the former aerospace buildings starting to fall into ruin along Park Avenue.
The plan for Park is element 2.3 on page 42 of this City Center community plan. https://rentondowntown.com/wp-content/uploads/City-Center-Community-Plan.pdf
That staircase is crazy.
Not only would fixing it be a good thing for those that need the accessibility, but it would be good for those with baby strollers. Or even for EMT use, parish the thought.
I agree. Even an able bodied person carrying an ice chest or a sleeping baby up or down those stairs can get hurt.
Is it pretty much up to Renton to make the decision to make necessary improvements? While this is part of the rails to trails agreement between the railroad and King County, this land is still under the control of the railroad isn’t it? How much pressure is Renton under to make this beach access ADA compliant? I would be inclined to believe that a ramp across the trail and into the beach access would be positive for all users of the beach access.
Great question about responsibility. The land is now being managed by an agreement between King County and Eastrail. Eastrail is a cross-jurisdictional project with a steering committee comprised of representatives along the trail. This is a trails conversion under State and Federal “Rails-to-Trails” conservancy policy, which supports building a trail on the right-of-way while preserving the right of the government authority to also potentially rebuild a rail system on it sometime in the future. Few if any rail-to-trail corridors have actually been converted back to rail use, so for practical purposes Eastrail should be looked at as a trail that could possibly one day get some form of transit along it, but it is not likely in the foreseeable future.
In general, the trail is being constructed in a way that future trail service could share the right-of-way with the trail, and the trail would not have to be removed. (Note that most eastside cities including Renton have gone on record saying that the I-405 corridor, not the Eastrail corridor, is the preferred corridor for future link light rail service; although frustratingly the I-405 corridor continues to get left out of long term light-rail planning efforts.)
I served on the Eastrail steering committee for a few years before retiring from council, and I helped launch a connection of this trail to Coulon Park which is now in the planning stage. If I had thought of it at the time, I would have asked Eastrail to help us build this new ADA connection to Kennydale Park; but the good news is it’s not too late to ask as the trail still needs work in the future. Renton’s current representative on this Eastrail committee has taken note of the idea that I presented in this blog, and I’m optimistic he’ll pursue it.
Here is more about Eastrail: https://eastrail.org/
While I served on the Eastrail Steering Committee, we chartered and created a foundation of supporters and sponsors that would help find funding sources to connect Eastrail to facilities, parks and trails along the Eastside. These ramps would fit perfectly within their charter, and I think would be eligible for a variety of funding sources. Here is the “about us” website information for that organization, called Eastrail Partners: https://eastrailpartners.org/our-organization
The Democratic Socialists / Westgaard were being political in the Renton parade today. I thought we wen’t supposed to do that. As part of the Save the Renton Library it was fun, but seeing twenty politicos marching got annoying so all politics were banned.
Is that ban still in effect? Or the rules don’t apply to special people?
Anybody in particular?
If was about five people with Westgaard tshirts.
Yep, not really a chance in heck there.
Good news. Some people finally got their exercise.
My understanding is the parade is still supposed to be non-political. In its early years the parade allowed political entries, and then every candidate felt compelled to enter so that they would have an even playing field. The organizers solved this by banning all political entries. I supported this change when it was made, as it much improved the quality of the parade for families, and there are many other ways candidates can campaign. I blogged about it here: https://www.randycorman.com/?p=9025