By Matt Kite
Sports Etc Magazine

There is a little trail near the boat launch at Lake Sammamish State Park that begins at the parking lot. It winds and wends its way through head-high grass, over a handful of short footbridges and into increasingly marshy terrain, until it eventually disappears into the muck and mire of lush wetland.

The promise of what might lie ahead is enticing – and daunting. Perhaps the trail dries out around the next corner.

Or maybe the quagmire thickens.

When faced with the choice of pressing on or giving up the trail, most turn back, their lingering curiosity tempered by fear. Few like to get their feet wet. Fewer still are willing to stake their future on sinking land.

It’s this sort of quandary that has bogged down progress of another trail nearby, the long awaited East Lake Sammamish Trail. The proposed trail, a former Burlington Northern rail bed that would connect the aforementioned State Park with Marymoor Park to the north, lies dormant while an otherwise well-meaning assortment of politicians, homeowners and trail enthusiasts battle it out in the courts and in the papers.

Press on or give up the trail?

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The sheer force of momentum and political will behind the trail have all but ensured its future. Indeed, the blackberries, thistle and wild grasses threatening to overtake it will soon be covered in blacktop. But when the 11-mile long trail will open – and where it will eventually take us – is as clear as mud.

While the weeds grow, opposing sides become more entrenched. Reasonable discussion is overrun by extremism, political grandstanding and even a little paranoia. Everyone, it seems, is guilty of what has mired the process from the start: oversimplification.

The county, state and federal laws surrounding the issue are Byzantine, and the task at hand extraordinary. But, so far at least, misinformation and slight of hand have won out over honest discussion. And sweeping generalizations by both sides have further muddled the dialogue.

Those in favor of the trail assume this of the opposition: a small pocket of wealthy homeowners refuse to part with even a sliver of their land, despite their legal obligation to do so under the Rails to Trails Act. They do not want the trail near their property, and they have the funds and the moxie to tie the process up in mitigation for years. If they get their way, the trail will run alongside East Lake Sammamish Parkway, an inhospitable highway with snarling traffic and narrow shoulders.

Those speaking out against the current plan assume this: King County has run roughshod over homeowners’ rights from the beginning and will continue to do so until the trail is in place. The county refuses to work within the confines of state and county laws, clinging to the federally mandated Rails to Trails Act. The county’s insistence on building an interim trail while the finishing touches are added to a master plan is merely a slippery slope, which inevitably will lead to permanent use. Finally, county officials are unwilling to compromise on any of the key issues.

In reality, both sides have shown a willingness to compromise. And both seem eager to come to the table and hash out the troubling details.

“We’re opposed to having the trail moved onto the Parkway,” says Jennifer Quesinberry, a staff member of Friends of East Lake Sammamish Trail. “We aren’t opposed to being flexible with its placement within the corridor, which is 50-200 feet wide. We just think the parkway is too dangerous to have our children and our families ride on it. It’s a shoulder not a trail.

“We’re also for interim use as well. We feel the issues that hold up the master plan development are mitigatable and should be addressed before the final plan rather than having to go back and work out the conflicts later.”

Phil Dyer, Sammamish City Councilman and the former city mayor, has been pegged as anti-trail. But, contrary to popular opinion, he doesn’t want to see the trail up on the Parkway, either. Nor does he want to slow its inception.

“We’re fighting a game of perceptions here in many ways,” Dyer says. “We keep getting blamed because we’re raising these concerns, but we want the trail as much as they do. We just understand that, if you don’t do it right, you’ll never see a trail. We’re just trying to be deliberate and careful and get the darn thing done.

“We have some legitimate concerns as a city. Anytime you put together a project of this size and scope with issues of safety, traffic, liability, and law enforcement… We haven’t even seen a plan yet. Nothing is resolved yet. The problems need to be resolved first before opening it.”

According to Dyer, the proposal was flawed from the beginning, when King County officials, operating under the Rails to Trails Act, ripped out the old railroad tracks and began pushing for interim use before a master plan had even been developed. A preliminary Environmental Impact Statement was only drafted after the ensuing outcry by homeowners and area residents – and long after the county’s private contractor had clumsily spilled silt and debris into one of the area’s most fragile lakes while removing the tracks.

“It’s a total mess,” Dyer says. “The county mishandled it from day one. They were in such a hurry to jam it in that they completely botched it up. The county promised early usage and rushed to meet that and actually screwed it up as a result. I fear that the EIS is nothing more than window dressing right now to cover up their past problems and that they’re going to compound these problems and make them even worse and delay the trail even further, which would be a huge disappointment. The best of intentions and the road to hell…”

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Trust in the county bottomed out after the slow-in-coming EIS. It had already begun to wane after officials committed a series of snafus that people like newly elected King County Councilman David Irons are still trying to straighten out.

“The permits for driveways were knocked down from $5000 for 5 years to $20,” Irons muses. “Then you’re supposed to trust the process? At times the county hasn’t always thought things through as well as they could and kind of jumped the gun, which is unfortunate because there are good people on both sides.”

First, there was the meeting called by three county councilpersons in which homeowners, bicyclists and parks department officials were invited. At the last minute, King County Executive Ron Sims advised the parks department officials and bicyclists to stay home. The councilpersons were left staring at the homeowners, unable to explain where the rest of the constituents were or why the county was at odds with itself.

Then came along fees as high as $7000 issued by the county for driveway crossing permits. Fortunately, only one was sent out before the mistake was realized. But the damage was already done. The EIS debacle only cemented the opposition’s mistrust of county officials.

Irons, 47, has negotiated thorny union contracts in the past, as well as arbitrated for the Issaquah school board. Elected last November, he sees himself as a mediator and a facilitator – somebody the process desperately needs.

“This should have been a very straightforward process,” he says, “and it became very convoluted and political, which is very unfortunate. I came into this process very late. My goal is to weed past the rhetoric and get down to quality information so that we can have something finished in our lifetime – and that’s not a joke. This is either going to take 18 months or, long after either one of us can ride a bike, they’ll still be litigating it.”

Adds Irons, “I firmly believe that if everyone works together, we can have the whole process done, the master plan designed and be moving forward and have interim use here in a year and a half.”

Finally, a timetable. It’s one Robin Cole, the project manager and another latecomer to the scene, is pushing hard to meet.

“We anticipate the actual construction of the trail and its amenities, which include interpretive signs, trail heads, parking, restrooms, and trash cans, will take 10 to15 years,” Cole explains. “So portions of that interim trail will be necessary to provide a complete connection along the corridor.

“Change is very difficult for people. It’s difficult for people who want to have a trail to understand the impacts on people who live there who might not want to have a trail there. My job is to build a trail – don’t mistake me – but what we’re trying to do is fully inform the decision makers of factual information so their decision is the best for the public.”

Cole, though, is unwilling – and unable – to hazard a guess as to where the trail will lead.

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One of the most bitter (and predictable) ironies is that one of the more secluded and scenic section of the trail lies on the most contested land, a 1.6-mile stretch of waterfront property with stunning views of the lake and the surrounding foothills.

It’s the only section of trail out of earshot of the bustling Parkway. And it’s home to a handful of residents, including one Vicki Beres, who has lived there with her husband, Warren, since the two built their home in 1969. She has spent countless hours researching local and federal laws as well as the railroad’s history, hoping for relief from a trail that would bisect her backyard and private dock.

“We’re a small voice in the wind,” Beres says of the homeowners trying to re-route the trail. “Just about everybody agrees that the bisected properties will have a negative impact in just about every way. To try to screen off public use you have to create barrier fences. They’re ugly, and it’s like living in a fish bowl. The county’s own records predict 3-5,000 people a day will use the trail [on a summer weekend]. That’s a major project.

“They’re trying to force a linear park into an area that isn’t linear, and they’re trying to act like the owners don’t exist. They’re trying to make us lab rats for their interim trail experiment. We’re just asking for fair treatment. Don’t make this project unique because of its lack of planning.”

Beres still has a letter sent to her by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in 1969. The letter makes clear that the strip of tracks running through her backyard are for railroad purposes only and are an easement, not a grant of fee simple title.

The assumption then was that, sooner or later, the railroad would abandon the land, which would revert to the Beres. At the time, trains ran only sporadically, carrying cargo for the nearby Dairy Gold plant on undersized and archaic track.

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Everything changed in 1983, when Congress passed the Rails to Trails Act, which enabled a state or local government to purchase an inactive right of way from a railroad for future railroad use and for interim trail use.

Under the act, only those with reversionary rights are due monetary compensation from the federal government. If the chain of title between the original homesteader (who sold the easement to the railroad in 1887) and the current homeowner is intact, the homeowner can claim compensation. Few – if any – can lay such a claim today. Most properties have since been split up and sold by developers.

When the trains stopped coming in 1996, the land sat quietly for two years until the county bought the right of way and had it railbanked for future trail use. Homeowners soon after began to question the plan, including specific details, like 6-foot chain link fences.

According to Cole, residents can upgrade the fences (at their own expense and with approval from the county). But Beres and her neighbors are concerned with liability issues as well. What if someone steps off the trail and onto a private dock? If they slip and fall or – worse yet – drown, who’s liable? It’s a question for lawyers, one that no one from either side can answer.

Beres has proposed an alternate route, which would follow a small, mostly unused road above her property. Of course, this route has its share of problems as well, chief among them the fact that it is sandwiched between several people’s front yards on one side and a high bank on the other. Is it worth the trouble (and money) to re-route the trail there, where the yards are already small and the bank a potential engineering nightmare?

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Not all locals are against the trail. In fact, plenty, like Bente Pasko of Sammamish, can’t wait for it to open.

“Interim use maintains the corridor,” Pasko said, “and it allows people who have walked on the corridor for years and years to continue to do so. Once the trail is paved, you’ll be able to hop on your bike and have a flat paved trail all the way into Seattle.”

At this stage in the game, it’s difficult to imagine a contiguous trail from Dairy Gold to Ballard via connections with the Sammamish River Trail and the Burke Gilman. Right now, that trail runs through the middle of Beres’ backyard. And nobody knows who will win the fight or how long it will last.

“My suggestion is to walk down there,” Pasko said. “Walk on the rail bed. Look at the topography. Walk along the Parkway for a while. Always bear in mind that the trail will be used by children, by the elderly and by mothers pushing strollers. It’s not just a trail for hard-bodied, 30-year-old bicyclists.”

True enough. Ultimately, though, somebody will lose. Whether we’re talking about the privacy of a few homeowners, the aesthetics of the trail or the budget of King County, somebody – perhaps everybody – will walk away from all of this feeling compromised.

And maybe that’s a good thing.