City of Redmond and County want to improve Power Line trail connections.

"Trail Hunter", an avid Power Line Trail mountain biker, first tipped Redmond Neighborhood Blog (RNB)  of Puget Sound Energy's easement widening project east of Avondale.  His concern was not so much about the deforestation ("Read More") as an opportunity to improve the trail linkages.  "Trail Hunter" received the following response for the City of Redmond: 

"The property between Farrel-McWhirter Park and the Watershed Preserve is not owned by the City of Redmond. Puget Sound Energy has responded to questions about the trail in this section with the following comment:

There is no authorized "trail" on PSE's land, between the Watershed Preserve and Farrell McWhirter park. Although the City and County have been negotiating with PSE for over a decade, for an easement or permit to construct such a trail, no easement or permit has been issued and no rights for such a use have been granted by PSE -- we have, however, informally allowed individual recreational uses, such as horse riding and mountain biking, to occur on our land. The existing "trail" is, in fact, simply a utility access road and is planned to be maintained as such. PSE would be prohibited by the UTC from expending utility rate-payer funds (i.e. from recovering the costs through utility rates) to upgrade the road for recreational purposes.

I know there continues to be an interest by the City of Redmond and King County in making this trail connection."

Teresa Kluver
Park Operations Supervisor   

"Trail Hunter" has stopped biking on the powerline trail.  Of course, it's not as scenic, but he has also popped three tires on recent rides.  The County says they will replace the 3-4 inch rock construction road with a suitable trail surface.  Posted by Yoder, Photo:  internet   READ MORE  (see pictures)

3-4 inch crushed rock was installed over the County portion of the Power Line trail  to service the construction vehicles working on the easement widening.   It will be removed by the County and resurfaced with a bike, horse and pedestrian friendly surface. 

The Power Line Trail used to run through parts of this section of Redmond's Watershed Reserve.  See the stack of logs in the distance.  The City will  plant 4,031 trees to replace the 682 removed.  The forested wetland in the foreground will transition into a scrub-scrub wetland.