This trail is and will be a joke. I would be willing to wager that the “serious cyclist: won't use the path on Shilshole or Ballard Ave…..they will ride down the street as most presently do.

When taxes in Seattle need to be raised again, services are lacking, etc……remember that you do have a nice trail, and in doing so compromised a small part of the City's tax base.

The City's rep explained to me that 46th would need to be made a one way in the opposite direct ion of 45th; if 45th were to be made a one way street. Something about the City regs……laughable reasoning given the process the City took to run the trail through its current location. Most of the others on 45th were agreeable to the one way street idea………….

Sometimes I need to remember that those people who were in the lower 90 percentile when I was in school are the majority of the people……….thus the stupidity of the world!

Did you try to convince your fellow business owners?

I pushed for the stretch on 45th to be made a one way street. That would have allocated a separate lane for cyclists and one for motorists. Utilities would not have to be relocated, the train tracks could be avoided, etc………..a city representative asked me if I could simply renovate my building and install an elevator lift and move our fabrication shop to the second floor……after asking him if he ever had a job in the private sector (the answer was no); I explained that all of those things cost money, a lot of money, and that in private biz that is an obstacle.

After reading the ignorant ramblings of your post; I think you could be him.

And mixing industrial businesses with bicycles, walkers, tourists? Anyone ever been to Granville Island, where the local cement company embraces it's proximity to all those people. . . . . .
http://www.seegranvilleisland.com/oceancement/o...

No one 'wins' and no one 'loses' with this Hearing Examiner decision. We all benefit.

And yes, maybe you'll take your business and its economic impact somewhere else, and I have no doubt that someone else will occupy your vacated space and….provide jobs, donate money and offer services. Supposing all that happens and we have both a bike path and a company that does all of those things better than yours? That would be progress.

And if we ended up with “just” a bike path and someone who added no more than you: that would also be progress. Some had the space before you, and someone will have it afterwards and chances are, things will improve.

Yes, some bikers are childish and egocentric — some are namecallers — let's ignore them SaltyRod.

I understand that change is inevitable, but usually the change represents progress. This stretch of 45th was neglected and looked like a road from Tiajuana 15 years ago. We couldn't get the city to fill in the pot holes……heck, some of it was dirt road then. Instead of watching bicyclists wreck daily, as I get to now……I watched motorists “bottom out” and damage their cars as they sped to avoid 46th.

I have witnessed the worst of people due to this mess on this street. The mean spirited, self righteousness of some, the ineptitude of government, the battle to survive of business owners, and the utter stupidity of it all.

This entire thing is a joke and a farce.

Change is inevitable, and someone always gets the short end of the stick.

Avoiding the areas near Salmon Bay S & G was meant to be a compromise to avoid the busiest sections, but as another poster noted, their representatives are still the major players fighting this (including George Griffin, of fight-the-plastic-bag-ban fame, among others). As other posters have also pointed out, many of the businesses along here, including SBSG, use the right of way for marshaling, loading, etc. For me, that makes such vehement and unrelenting opposition even more galling — 100 yrs of use of the public right of way for business parking, etc., and when the public decides to use 20 feet of the 100 foot width, not even in front of SBSG, they fight it tooth and nail….you throw in a 30 yr franchise for the Ballard Terminal RR, for free, and you've got yourself a pretty good deal using public right of way.

Having said that, I do not want SBSG, Ballard Oil or any of Ballard's great businesses to go, and I do not believe this project will lead to that. In fact, I think the opposite could have been true — if those business owners had embraced this, as in Vancouver (ever been down to Granville Island and see the Ocean Concrete plant, smack dab in the middle of one of the most visited sites in BC?), trail design, safety issues, and improvements to business access could have been further enhanced. As it stands now, hundreds of cyclists and walkers have been injured due to unsafe conditions on these rights of way — this isn't future injury or harm, this is now. Building this further section of trail will save hundreds of people from harm in the future.

I live, walk, drive, bicycle, shop, love Ballard. This has been over 15 yrs in the making, and it's time to make it happen.

I don't understand how that is safer than just running the whole trail down the Southside, waterside, of Shilshole Ave.