Eastrail provides beautiful vistas with level biking and walking from Renton to Woodinville

As a 20-year member of I-405 corridor transportation planning team and a founding member of the Eastrail Regional Advisory Committee, I was glad to help bring Eastrail to Renton

Our new Eastrail hiking and biking Trail on the former Burlington Northern Santa Fe Eastside Line is a wonderful new amenity in our city.  If you have not yet discovered it, you are in for a treat.  With amazing views of the lake, streams, trees and nature at a grade of less than 1%,  the trail is a delight for travelers of any degree of mobility.

The trail is a successful example of “railbanking,” where an otherwise abandoned rail corridor is preserved intact under a long-term agreement between the railroad and government agencies, allowing the corridor to become a public trail with the proviso that it could potentially be used by rail again in the future.

I was a longtime member of the I-405 Corridor Executive Steering Committee and Eastside Transportation Partnership when we learned the rail corridor would be abandoned.  Working with King County, the Port of Seattle, the DOT, and others, we protected the corridor to assure multimodal transportation options up and down the corridor.  I was a founding member of the Regional Advisory Committee for the new Rail trail, which we ultimately named Eastrail as it blended “Eastside Rail” and trail.

As someone who appreciated railroads, I was very pleased we could preserve the original trestles on the trail, and make them safe for pedestrians.

Several smaller trestles have already been converted for pedestrian use, and the plan is in work for the magnificent 1000-foot-long Wilburton Trestle in South Bellevue.  Funding issues are being worked to upgrade the trestle across I-90, and build a pedestrian/bike bridge across I-405 in the Wilburton area where the original tunnels used by the train were dismantled during the previous I-405 widening.

My wife Cathy walking the trail with me. Here it crosses over May Creek.

Trail users get this good view of the Seahawks training center

A bike and pedestrian section north of the Seahawks training center, built on the original railroad trestle.

From below the railroad origins of the bridge are obvious, and add to the trail’s charm

Details of the historic timber trestle bents and beams that carry the new concrete walking surface

The thousand-foot-long, hundred-foot high Wilburton trestle will be converted to a bike and walking path.  Amazon is helping with funding of this portion.