It looks like a set out of a Mad Max movie, full of slag and dust. With those high concrete ceilings supported by massive grey pillars and sheltering a post-apocalyptic swath of dirt, scrub and dusky recesses-and with the muffled hum of I-5 freeway traffic moving out of sight overhead-this sunless, vagrant wasteland separating the Capitol Hill and Eastlake neighborhoods is an unlikely site for a park in the Emerald City.
Unless, of course, you go for that sort of thing. Justin Vander Pol, a 33-year-old mountain-bike enthusiast and activist, goes for that sort of thing. As executive director of the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club (BBTC), Vander Pol and his organization have spearheaded a design project that has transformed the once-dicey no-man's-land under I-5 into a paradise of skinnies, steeps and drops-or, in lay terms, a riding course for urban mountain bikers.
"This is new for mountain bikes," Vander Pol, a Northwest native, said of the Colonnade project, which he hopes will set a precedent for the creation of urban biking trails.
The I-5 Colonnade-formerly known as the I-5 Open Space-is a 7.5-acre city park beneath the interstate, and bordered on its east side by Lakeview Boulevard and by Franklin Avenue East to the west; lengthwise, it runs south from East Howe Street all the way to the fence line of the current Gates Foundation headquarters.
Once a prime hideout for transients camping and junkies cooking up, the park was opened to the public in December 2005 after being conceived and developed with $1.8 million in Pro Parks funding. The Colonnade reconnects Capitol Hill and Eastlake, a connection that was severed some four-plus decades ago by the high-arching construction of I-5.
With several pedestrian walk- and stairways, a fenced dog run and an impressive art installation that recreates the area's pre-freeway climate-complete with computer-timed applications of moonlight and rainfall-the park is surprisingly accommodating and user-friendly, considering its odd and seemingly off-putting location.
When BBTC approached the city and the state Department of Transportation (WSDOT), which owns the land, about adding biking trails to the I-5 open space, Vander Pol said the group was given the go-ahead-with the provision that the organization, which touts some 800 members, raise all the money and provide all the labor.
Through a combination of public and private grants and volunteer work parties, the BBTC has been busy since late 2005 transforming approximately 2 acres of rugged land into a "skills development park"-a diverse and challenging series of short trails rather than a continuous linear track, on which mountain bikers can work to improve their technique.
So far, BBTC volunteers have put in some 5,500-plus hours of work at more than 100 work parties, clearing scrub, pouring gravel, building bridges and terracing hillsides. The organization has received grants from sources such as King County, Starbucks, REI, Vulcan and various biking outfits; just this month BBTC landed a $75,000 matching grant from the city's Dept. of Neighborhoods which will go toward construction of Phase Two, to be finished October of next year.
The Novice Area, or Phase One, will open with a party on Sept. 8.
According to Vander Pol, the term Phase One is a bit of a misnomer. "It's not easy for a novice, but they can make it," he said of the skills course, which he describes as "tight, technical and rocky." Vander Pol said the idea was to make sure the course stayed challenging to riders at all levels of expertise and experience. "Sometimes it just makes you want to hit your breaks and fall over," he said of a particularly difficult passage. "That's what makes it fun-it's challenging."
The course was designed primarily by BBTC member Art Tuftee. "Art's been doing trail design for decades," Vander Pol said. "He did the bulk of it."
Anyone looking at the terrain of Phase One will realize that, yes, folks are going to crash occasionally, and walk away with bumps and bruises. That's part of the appeal, Vander Pol said. "You have the expectation that risk is involved," he said. "We tried to design it so the risk is reasonable." State law, Vander Pol explained, is "really, really strong" in the area of liability; basically, when it comes to outdoor sports like skateboarding and biking, the philosophy is similar to caveat emptor-let the rider beware.
A nice side benefit of having folks use the park again is that the area is no longer a dangerous hideout or dumping ground for hypodermic syringes. "A busy park is a successful park," Vander Pol said, adding that people seen enjoying the park tends to drive away illicit activity. "It's a great way to clean up an area," he said. "Policing doesn't work, but mountain bikers do."
Vander Pol said he's particularly proud of the Main Gathering Area, a site surrounded by two curved stone benches that forms an open circle. This area, created by the BBTC, is located at the bottom of a slope near the large west entrance to the park, and creates a sort of nexus between the two courses. "We're going to have lots of festivals and fun gatherings here," he said.
For Vander Pol and the BBTC, it's now onto Phase Two, which has a "firm" completion date of October 2008. "They're going to be different in character," he said of the two courses. "Phase Two is going to be flowy and jumpy," he added, featuring a few main flow lines with features branching off of them. "We're going to let the ground design," Vander Pol said of the construction plans for Phase Two. "That way we can build it faster and cheaper."
All of the trails, he pointed out, are one-way tracks, and for good reason. "One-way trails can handle ten times the capacity of two-ways," Vander Pol said. Beyond that, he said he can't really predict how the trails will handle a high volume of riders; he imagines that, as with any type of park feature, the unwritten rules of usage will simply develop among the community of bikers. "It's a pretty mellow user group," he said of his fellow mountain bike enthusiasts. "It tends to be pretty collaborative."
[[In-content Ad]]
