After reading both the original neighborhood plan put out ten years ago and the updated status report released back in May this week (in preparation for taking the city’s survey, found here), I decided to do some checking up on the condition of one of the project’s the city has been attempting to complete on our Hill for years – the Queen Anne Bicycle Beltway!

The beltway has been in the works for over a decade now, and once completed will create a system of interconnecting bike paths that will encircle Queen Anne Hill. Currently the progression of the project is hinging on the completion of one part of the track, known as “Phase II” of the Ship Canal Trail, a 3/4 mile gap between the existing Ship Canal Trail (“Phase I” of the trail runs from the Fremont Bridge to 6th Ave W. and was completed in 1996) and Fisherman’s Terminal where it would meet the Emerson Street bike path and then eventually Myrtle Edwards.

The completion of this 3/4 mile stretch would make biking from Redmond to downtown Seattle almost entirely on dedicated cycling paths possible! According to the status report, the Seattle Department of Transportation was scheduled to complete this segment of the path in spring 2009, but now spring (and much of summer) has come and gone.

According to Stuart Goldsmith, Supervising Project Manager at SDOT, the city’s website is “not quite up-to-date” (but don’t worry, they’ve ensured us they’ll be updating it shortly).

He writes,

Right now, the plan is to split completion of the Ship Canal Trail into two construction contracts. The first will extend the trail from its current terminus at 6th Ave West to 11th Ave. That contract will be advertised very soon, with construction anticipated for this fall. The second contract will construct the rest of the trail, but that cannot be advertised until we can work out a construction schedule with BNSF Railway and get them to issue permits for the private utility line that needs to be relocated so that the tracks can be moved to make way for the trail.

Stuart says SDOT is working to resolve the coordination problems currently halting the project, but that it’s “highly unlikely” that the second construction contract will be public until at the very best the end of the year, but “most likely, early next year.”

Stay tuned for updates!

(Thanks to Allie and SDOT for the graphic!)