Seattle’s Burke-Gilman Trail Celebrates 50+ Years
I’m old enough to remember when the notion of a rail-trail was a new idea, that decomissioned railways might see their tracks removed and the rocky beds replaced with crushed gravel, or even asphalt. Today, though, they are so ubiquitous that the term rail-trail seems less a descriptive phrase than a proper noun. They are seemingly everywhere, and a town without one is seen as behind the times.
I’d never given much thought to what the pioneering efforts were in the rail-trail movement, but I was afforded a window into one of the earliest efforts recently when Seattle celebrated the 55th anniversary of the hike-in that led to the development of the Burke-Gilman Trail, which runs through Seattle, at times within sight of Lake Washington.
The trail is named for Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman, two of the men responsible for establishing the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway in 1885. But by 1971, the railway had been abandoned and what would become of the land was an open question. Two women, Merrill Hille and Sandy Wood, organized the original hike-in, as they called it, to experience the line as a recreational space. They led more than 1000 people on a hike along the railroad tracks to Matthews Beach Park.
Seven years later, in 1978, it was dedicated as one of the nation’s first rail-trails. The seven intervening years didn’t simply flash by, though. Hill lobbied local government and a band of volunteers wrote letters and encouraged residents to take up the call. I shouldn’t have been surprised that prior to its formal establishment there was a group of NIMBYs who fought its creation, claiming it would be a looming magnet for crime, but as soon as it was opened, real estate agents touted its value for recreation and the value of nearby property rose.
In 2028 the Burke-Gilman Trail will celebrate its 50th anniversary and last weekend’s event was intended, in part, to raise money for the trail. Not for its celebration, but for its maintenance. Root uplift and general wear due to its popularity combined with overstretched parks maintenance budgets have seen residents band together to raise money for repairs ahead of the celebration. That private citizens should have to raise money to maintain a public asset is emblematic of our time, especially with a rail-trail so popular that most cyclists I talked to say they avoid the Burke-Gilman on weekends because it is simply too crowded.
At the celebration, I learned that the effort to establish the Burke-Gilman Trail led to a spin-off, much the way “All in the Family” gave us “The Jeffersons.” The effort to organize and unite cyclists to lobby the city for the creation of the rail-trail led to the creation of Cascade Bicycle Club, and Cascade’s hand can be seen throughout Seattle, and indeed in many locations across King County (and even Washington State).
It’s easy to find disappointment in the need to raise private funds to maintain the Burke-Gilman Trail, a sense that the city has failed. The real legacy here is how a couple of women managed to organize a group of people to walk a disused railway and that led to the creation of a bicycle club with more than 10,000 members, an organization that today touches the life of arguably every cyclist in Seattle.