Good article on the Seattle Urban park..

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getawa...lonnade29.html

Mountain-bike club reclaims a wasteland
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Last updated 1:52 p.m. PT

By GREG JOHNSTON
P-I REPORTER

Week by week for the past 18 months, a band of local mountain bikers has turned a dark and scary concrete-covered urban dead zone -- where perhaps the most popular activities were shooting drugs or chugging cheap wine -- into a place where regular people actually might want to go.

It's not finished, even after about 4,500 hours of work, but riders are already showing up to bounce through the rolling "whoops" of a pump track, ride the length of several narrow logs, hop boulders and twist through the tight curves of a cross-country course.

"Some of the other activities made it fairly discouraging for people to come here: drug use, trash, homeless camps," says Art Tuftee, the BBTC member and trail builder who designed the mountain-bike park. "Those activities have pretty much ceased. One day we were here and saw 10 different people riding, unassociated with what we were doing.

"I think it will be a popular place."

The most distinctive aspect about the place is the rows of huge concrete columns that hold up Interstate 5 as it traverses the northwest shoulder of Capitol Hill and approaches the crossing of Portage Reach between lakes Union and Washington. A colonnade is a series of columns at regular intervals.

Fat-tire bikers had been dipping into this barren cityscape for years. When Seattle rains pound, it's as dry under I-5 as a cow skull in the desert. But typically they only rode in groups, because of what else went on in the shadowy recesses of concrete. Some of that activity continues, on a smaller, more furtive scale.

"We had a portable toilet here, but when we weren't around at night people would use it to shoot up heroin," says Jon Kennedy, BBTC volunteers coordinator. "Overall, this has been a real plus for the city. Bringing in mountain bikers helps eradicate that stuff."

The Eastlake community identified the area as potential open space in its 1998 Neighborhood Plan. It was a no-brainer for local mountain bikers, who are more accustomed to losing close-in trails to ride due to pressure from some hikers who don't like bikes on trails and some parks managers who fear erosion and other damage to trails and natural resources.

The 800-member BBTC offered to pour time and energy into Colonnade Park if they could use two of its 7.5 acres as a bike park.

The city climbed on the saddle and pedaled out an agreement with the state Department of Transportation, which owns the land and still uses it for access to maintain the freeway. Passage of the city's 2000 Pro Parks Levy provided $1.8 million to build the park's framework, including a stairway that provides a pedestrian connection between Capitol Hill and Lake Union, and a fenced-in, off-leash dog area.

That link is now heavily traveled by pedestrians, joggers and others using the stairs for exercise.

"I'll tell you, it's just amazing to see people going up and down that staircase," says Seattle Parks project manager Andy Sheffer. "I don't know of any other place in the country where stair climbing is such a formal type of exercise. It's really opened a corridor to Lake Union from Capitol Hill."

The BBTC envisions the park as a showcase, a model for urban mountain-bike facilities. It will offer only 1.5 miles of trails, but will be packed with a wide range of technical features as a "progression park," where riders can improve their bike-handling skills. Many features are in place, and the club is inviting riders to come and jam.

"We're building this for people to come and ride," says Tuftee. "In our broader vision, we'd like this to be one stop on the way to other opportunities. We want to create a community asset. We're taking care to make sure it's aesthetically pleasing and doesn't conflict with other uses."

The park's sloping landscape has been terraced with rockery to create several hundred yards -- so far -- of a cross-country trail, and the club is now working hard to complete a stone commons areas by the end of March.

Sheffer of the parks department says the bike park is an excellent use for the area because the covered and dry slopes under the freeway would be too costly to develop as a typical park with lawn, shrubs and other greenery

"I think what the mountain bikers have created with the rockeries is just beautiful," says Sheffer. "I think the park is dynamite. The best thing is they've created an aesthetic for the park. They've been a pleasure to work with."

Some of the nearby residents seem to think so, too.

"Sometimes neighbors come by and thank us," says Tuftee. "We ask, 'Are you riders?' and they say, 'No, but we think its cool.' "

The park will include features for the three primary styles of mountain biking: trails for basic cross-country riding; flat-topped logs, boulders and rock drops for free-riding; and obstacles and a pump track for trials riders. Trials riders use controlled braking, hopping and pumping to carefully negotiate natural and man-made obstacles.

"We're trying to do something for everybody," says Tuftee. "We want to create opportunities for different skill levels and abilities, but everything will be challenging enough to build skills. We want a riding opportunity that will occupy riders for a couple hours before they get bored."

Materials for the bike park either are donated by various businesses or are surplus from the city. All of the logs used were from trees knocked over by last winter's storms. The BBTC purchased tools and equipment with a $14,700 city grant.

The bike facility will not be an easy, breezy ride in the park. A lot of the features are downright technical. The club calls the cross-country track a "novice trail," but it's tight and twisty and not exactly a smooth run even for a rider of intermediate skills.

"Novice doesn't mean it's easy," says Tuftee. "It's challenging."

The club urges all riders to wear helmets and know their limitations. "You should do that anywhere you ride," says Kennedy.

Sheffer says liability issues at the park are addressed and covered under the city's recreation doctrine, no different than for skate parks.

The completion date for the bike park is something of a moving target, since it is a 100 percent volunteer effort. But there's already plenty there to occupy a rider, and by the end of the year it will be loaded with features.

The trail builders enjoy feedback from bikers, and if you're not too busy, they wouldn't mind if you grabbed a shovel and pitched in. The club continues to seek volunteers and donations of funds and materials.

"You don't even need to know how to ride a bike," says Kennedy. "You don't even need to want to ride a bike. It's going to look beautiful."

Colonnade notes

I-5 Colonnade Park is beneath Interstate 5 at 1600 Lakeview Blvd. E. in Seattle's Eastlake neighborhood. For more information, see the Seattle Parks home page at www.ci.seattle.wa.us/parks/.

The Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club schedules regular work parties at Colonnade, usually on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. See bbtc.org or call 206-524-2900 for details.

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