As awareness and popularity of the trail has increased, it has become a community recreational gathering place, where people of all ages, shapes, sizes and speeds can freely enjoy the smooth, flat path. Shaded and tranquil, it is an ideal choice for families.

The trailhead is located in southwest Spokane near the intersection of Sunset Highway and Government Way, one block south on S. Milton Circle. Parking, restrooms, water fountains, a garbage can and kiosk with a trail map makes it easy for families to prepare for their ride. The restrooms are open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, according to Spokane’s Director of Park Operations Tony Madunich. During the rest of the year a porta-potty is available. The beginning of the trail is a transportation trifecta of planes, trains and cars that children will enjoy. Kids can watch I-90 traffic whizz below them while trains rumble by on the elevated rail lines and airplanes fly to and from the nearby airport.

Once a Union Pacific rail line and now owned by the City of Spokane, planning for this rails-to-trails project initially began in the early 1990s. After a multi-year process that involved the city and the Washington State Department of Transportation, the initial 4.4 miles of trail were paved in 2009. Tell your children about the rail corridor’s history. Photos and information are posted on the trailhead’s kiosk board.

For the first few miles, the trail heads south before veering west and paralleling the Cheney-Spokane Road. Only 7.4 miles of the trail are currently paved, ending at Scribner Road rather than the actual Fish Lake. For now, the remaining distance of the trail is closed to the public. Once it is completed, the trail’s point-to-point distance will be 10.8 miles all the way to Fish Lake.

“My best advice for families is to try and get beyond the first mile or so and away from the traffic noise of Highway 195 so you can enjoy the rural setting so close to downtown Spokane,” says Fish Lake Trail advocate Dan Schaffer. “It is still the city’s plan to continue the trail over the rail lines to Fish Lake where it will connect with the Columbia Plateau Trail to Cheney and beyond.”

Small wooden posts serve as mile markers. Benches and pull-over shoulders serve as rest areas. Pack snacks and plenty of water, and enjoy the scenery. It’s good to teach your children trail etiquette too. Move to single-file when passing or while being passed by other trail users, when possible. When passing another trail user, always pass on the left and give a warning before you do so – call out “on your left” or ring a bike bell like riders do in Europe. Be sure to pack out your garbage.

Regarding safety and shared use with cycling groups, the trail is a narrow, multi-use corridor, so slower groups should be conscious of this fact and not spread out across the width of the trail, but try to stay to one side or the other, advises Schaffer. “My guess is that the faster cyclists are more likely to be on the trail from 7-9 a.m., including weekends. It is in [a family’s] best interest to avoid busy times so that they can enjoy a relatively unobstructed ride.” Also, help your children be mindful of the trail’s steep banks. Yellow warning signs are posted.

Personally, though my family has visited the trail numerous times, we’ve only gone as far as the five-mile mark – which is a tremendous feat for my son who rode the entire 10-mile trip, to commemorate his fifth birthday. That day my three-year-old daughter rode our family’s trail-a-bike that was attached to my seat post. It was a blissful adventure that took less than 75 minutes. My kids were proud of their achievements – their longest bike ride ever. My husband and I were equally proud, happy and relieved that no one got hurt or even whined.

Biking Fish Lake Trail was an easy way to spend a fun afternoon together. More importantly, my kids left asking when we’ll return. //

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Looks like the Fish Lake Trail nabbed enough stimulus money to begin work on paving a few more miles this spring. Now we just need to get Iron Bridge going. This news comes today from Paul Kropp (There is a link to a great pdf with all the stimulus funding at the end of this post):

Folks:

SRTC will be issuing a press release about this too, but FYI the SRTC
board today approved the allocation of “stimulus” funding for the Fish
Lake trail to be $308,679 + $469,638, which — I believe — makes this
portion of the City of Spokane’s total trail project virtually whole.

The second amount is the remainder of total funds available to Spokane
County jurisdictions after the top priority big-ticket construction
projects identified by SRTC for federal stimulus monies passed through
the state are fully funded.

The decision to allocate the remainder to a so-called enhancement
project (“non-motorized”) ensures that the City of Spokane will not
lose $1 million of funds already made available from the state subject
to a match. This portion of the Fish Lake Trail is roughly a $2
million project and the whole trail is undoubtedly of regional
significance.

I have attached a PDF file to show the full list of ARRA projects that
were approved today. (Tier 2 items are backup projects to cover the
remote possibility that Tier 1 projects cannot meet funding
requirements and need a substitute in order to retain the funding.)

srtc-arra-projects
—
Paul Kropp pkropp Spokane, WA

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Trying to follow the stimulus package transportation dollars and whether or not they will result in new bike/ped construction in Spokane this year is complicated! Here the latest news (this information comes straight from SRTC’s very helpful Jeff Selle):

– Spokane Regional Transportation Council received $10.1 million in direct funds from the transportation stimulus money. Of that $308K had to go directly to bike/ped enhancement projects

– The SRTC Technical Committee met yesterday and decided to recommend allocation of that $308 to the Fish Lake Trail so that the project can begin immediately and won’t risk losing the $1 million already allocated towards it. Fish Lake Trails has $1.3 million in funding now but still needs $700K for final paving. Work will proceed, but paving won’t happen unless they find more funds.

– 5-Mile Prairie Road Improvements were allocated $1.25 million which means the entire 5-mile project can be completed, including new bike lanes.

– Other projects that the Technical Committee recommended to the SRTC board: $450k for Rutter Parkway Bridge, $2.8 million for Spokane Valley Sprague repaving (which includes pedestrian enhancements and traffic calming), $1.4 to Havana St. overpass, and $1.75 million to the Deer Park Crawford Rd. project. This leaves $1 million left over that hasn’t been recommended for allocation yet. Might be great to lobby the SRTC board on how this should be spent.

A totally unrelated Federal safety grant for $619K was announced by the City of Spokane two days ago that will pay just for downtown Spokane Biking improvements, included lane striping. This means 3 or the 5 Smart Routes bike project are getting full or partial funding for 2009. But there still more to do! Right now the legislature is debating what to do with another $11 million dollars of transportation enhancement money (that the pile of money that bike/ped projects get funded out of.) Westside politicians want to take ALL of this money for some west side beautification project! They must be stopped! If we got even $500K we could pay for the entire Iron Bridge project. Another $700k would complete the Fish Lake Trail paving.

Barb Chamberlain has put together this handy cheat sheet for contacting the legislators involved with making that decision. Contact them today and tell them we need our projects funded:

This is a negotiation that does not yet have a bill number.

Given that, go ahead and use either the email form links I sent previously, or the direct email addresses and office numbers listed below.

It’s great if you customize your message to talk specifically about which project is most important to you, or general bike/ped information, while keeping it short. The email form allows 4000 characters, and my draft language is well within that limit.

House:
Rep. John Driscoll:
driscoll.john@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=6&Position=2
Office: (360) 786-7962

Rep. Don Cox:
cox.don@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=9&Position=1
Office: (360) 786-7942

Rep. Alex Wood:
wood.alex@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=3&Position=1
Office: (360) 786-7888

Rep. Matt Shea:
shea.matt@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=4&Position=2
Office: (360) 786-7984

Senate:
Sen. Chris Marr:
marr.chris@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=S&District=6
Office: (360) 786-7610

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Volunteers work on the Fish Lake Trailhead

If Spokane gets some infrastructure stimulus money the Fish Lake Trail is the No. 1 bike/ped project on the list. That makes this a great opportunity to see and and comment on the direction of the project this Wednesday. Here’s the details courtesy of Inland Northwest Trails:

Next Wednesday the Design Review Committee will review the proposed Fish Lake Trailhead at Government Way and Milton Avenue. The meeting is open to the public and there will be an opportunity for interested parties to comment.

The DRC will review the proposal with regard to the City’s adopted policies. Please note that the DRC is a recommending body and will not decide whether or not the project should be permitted. Nor will the DRC address traffic issues.

The meeting will be held in City Conference Room 2B, 2nd Floor City Hall, at 5:30pm, Wednesday, February 11, 2009.

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“In this high tech world with cell phones and PDAs, where our cars talk to us and park themselves, there’s a real beauty in the simplicity of a skateboard.”
“The competitive side is very serious but also very supportive-it’s like minded people just out to have a good time.” There aren’t a lot of local longboard competitions; most of the comps are on the coast in the Seattle area or in Oregon, but Harris is working with the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department, the YMCA and the local skate shops to organize more local events and competitions.

Most recently he traveled to the Oregon State Games in Salem, a three-day event in which he competed in the Park Slalom, a timed event within a typical skate park, a Giant Slalom race, and a Tight Slalom, where the boarders make three to four turns per second in a downhill course.

Boards: Harris has more than a few boards, but the highlights of his collection include the Long Board Larry Tarpon board his wife bought him for Christmas, the Gravity 36 board he uses for the Park Slalom events, and the Roe Racing board for GS.

“Every board, every material has a little different personality,” Harris says. The Tarpon is made of baltic birch, “which gives it strength and resistance, a layer of carbon-fiber for dampening, and bamboo for added strength and flex while still being lightweight.”

The Gravity 36 is made of hard rock maple, and the Roe board is “a carbon-fiber raceboard made by a guy in Seattle who makes some of the best raceboards in the world.

Trucks: “On my downhill board I run Randall downhills,” Harris says, and for the park slalom: “Trackers-they’re one of the oldest companies in skateboarding, they’re and industry standard and a brand I’ve trusted and used forever and ever.”

“The GS and Slalom trucks are much more specialized. You can spend huge amounts of money on trucks, but there’s also a lot of great guys out there on standard-issue Trackers.” For his Slalom board, Harris uses Splitfire trucks on the front and Airflow trucks in the rear.

Wheels: “For all racing other than park, my wheels of choice are Abec 11-the company is owned by a long-time racer, so he’s got the right combination of size, shape and construction of the wheels, and the right urethane mix.”
For the park slalom, Harris prefers wheels by Bulldog skates.

Shoes: “I wouldn’t say there’s one brand that’s better than the rest,” Harris says, but shoes are important in a sport where your equipment is brakeless. Currently Harris is racing in a pair of DVS shoes with a hard rubber sole.

Helmet: Harris uses the Pro-tech Ace Helmet.

Body Armor: Harris has yet to start racing in the downhill competitions where velocity requires leather suits. However, he says, “asphalt hurts, and if you’re fully padded up you can push yourself that much harder knowing you can take it in the pads rather than leaving your skin on the streets.” He uses knee and elbow pads by TSG and wrist guards by Pro-design.

And you thought longboarding was just a great way to tackle the fossil fuel shortages.

Originally published in the July 2007 issue of “Out There Monthly.“

[Feature photo courtesy David Uhlenkott, Dopamine Board Sports. Because this story dates to 2007, there is no feature photo of Mark Harris available for the web version of this story.]

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