A Bike/Ped Trail in Beaverton Dies...

[K'Tesh]

I was looking at the League of American Bicyclists website at the Bronze winning Beaverton page, when I spotted this bridge...



I just went over that bridge the other night... it's mostly blocked (by a jersey barrier and blackberries) and the trail on the other end has been obliterated with the demolition of the hotel that used to sit there...

Rubberside Down!
K'Tesh

[K'Tesh]

Here's the same bridge today...



The barrier isn't a complete block, but to the East, the trail dead ends at the bus barn.



Going West, you get out to the heaped remains of the old hotel that was here... The path that paralled Hwy 217 and the Peppermill Inn is abandoned...



One positive sign though...



I spotted this rider cutting through the remains of the parking lot of the hotel.

I'm more than a little dissapointed that this trail is being left to rot, rather than being enhanced and expanded.

See Something? DO SOMETHING!
K'Tesh

[scdurs]

Is there a property development in the works on the other side of the barricade? Looks like piles of rock on the other side, evidence of construction. I know of cases in Clark County where a trail stops at a development site that is either under construction, or still in the plans approval stages. It could be that these developments were required to install a trail, but it will not connect until the development next door does it's share of the work.

Until the development is constructed and platted it is private property. After construction the right-of-way is dedicated to the City/County and then they open the right-of-way to the public. The developer probably doesn't want the public on their private property for liability reasons, and that includes the duration of construction. If the right-of-way has been constructed but not yet dedicated to the City/County it would still be private property. You could look on the County web site for Final Plat documents on that property to see if it is public right-of-way yet. The final plat could be tied up for various reasons (litigation, boundary disputes, loss of financing, foreclosure...) causing this seemingly finished trail to remain closed to the public.

[hydrogeek]

That is a section of the Fanno Creek multi-use trail. Last I knew, plans were in the works to connect that section east to Scholls Ferry.

The hard part will be connect west of 217 in the future.

[wrinkles]

SCDURS has it about right, I imagine. This *is* or *was* part of the Fanno Creek Greenway Trail, an ambitious, very incomplete route that may some day reach from Tualatin to the Willamette River at Portland's south waterfront. At this moment, this point seems to lie in one of the many gaps that trail planners have pinpointed--Gap 6, to be precise. See p. 17 and map p. 27 at http://www.oregonmetro.gov/files/pla...ocreekplan.pdf
Many, many jurisdictions are involved in the project, which is being overseen by Metro's Regional Parks and Greenspaces Dept. I think it's a wonderful idea, yet I have little hope that it will be completed within my lifetime.
There are opportunities to volunteer. Check out the above url or Google 'Fanno Creek Trail'.
-wrinkles