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UW's $12.3M Fix For Burke-Gilman Trail's Root-Cracked Mile

UW awarded Granite Construction a $12.3 million contract to widen, repave and light a narrow, root-cracked mile of the Burke-Gilman Trail.

<h2>Braden Kelley&#x27;s Assessment Of The Burke-Gilman Trail&#x27;s Eastern Mile</h2> <p>Braden Kelley manages commute options and transportation planning at the University of Washington. He does not soften it. His subject is the mile of the Burke-Gilman Trail that runs along the east side of campus, from Rainier Vista to NE 47th Street. &quot;A little narrower and darker,&quot; he said of the mile. &quot;There are roots coming up through the asphalt.&quot; He added that the stretch &quot;doesn&#x27;t feel as welcoming and it doesn&#x27;t feel as safe.&quot; Kelley raised a second concern. People coming from the north or east side of Seattle, he said, might be less inclined to travel through that area to reach campus at all. That is the assessment from the university&#x27;s own transportation office, and it now has a fix attached: a $12.3 million construction contract, awarded to Granite Construction with KPFF Civil as design partner, to rebuild the mile before it drives away any more of the people it is supposed to carry.</p> <h2>What The $12.3 Million Contract Actually Buys</h2> <p>The contract is structured as a progressive design build, the same delivery method Granite regional vice president Mike Stein pointed to when the award was announced: &quot;Our teams bring extensive experience in collaborative delivery methods like progressive design build. We look forward to collaborating with UW on safety, accessibility, and improving the overall experience of thousands of trail users.&quot; Design work started in June 2026, well before construction begins. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2027 and run through the first quarter of 2029. What arrives when it&#x27;s done: a wider footprint where the corridor allows it, separate lanes for pedestrians and cyclists, new pavement, added lighting, better drainage, and wheelchair-accessible connections. Cascade Bicycle Club and other members of the Seattle cycling community are named as project partners.</p> <h2>The Segment Next Door Already Got This, In 2016</h2> <p>Walk west of Rainier Vista and the trail changes. The segment from 15th Avenue NE to Rainier Vista, including the Hitchcock Bridge over NE Pacific Street, closed for construction in October 2015 and reopened on August 8, 2016. According to the University of Washington, that stretch &quot;doubled in width to accommodate increasing capacity levels with the opening of UW Station nearby,&quot; gaining a separate concrete sidewalk for pedestrians, a distinct asphalt track for cyclists, overhead LED lighting, and blue emergency phones. Much of what the new contract promises, more width, separated lanes for cyclists and pedestrians, and better lighting, already exists. The gap between the two segments has been standing on campus for a decade.</p> <h2>The Same $16 Million, Promised A Decade Apart</h2> <p>That gap has a paper trail. In 2015, the state legislature and then governor Jay Inslee awarded UW $16 million to renovate the same eastern stretch, Rainier Vista to NE 47th Street, listing it as a &quot;Priority 3&quot; project with funding scheduled between 2021 and 2025. The work never happened on that schedule. The money reappears in the enacted 2025-27 state transportation budget as $9.4 million for the current biennium and $6.6 million for 2027-29, the same $16 million total, described in the budget language as &quot;accelerated funding&quot; for the trail. The city is chipping in too, $750,000 toward design. The full project, design and construction combined, totals $16.75 million, and the $12.3 million Granite contract is the construction piece of that total. A decade after it was first funded, the fix the state promised for 2021 through 2025 is now scheduled to break ground in spring 2027, arriving more than five years behind its own original timetable, in a budget that calls the same money &quot;accelerated.&quot;</p> <h2>Who Actually Rides This Mile</h2> <p>Mark Huppert, UW&#x27;s transportation services director, has pointed out that much of the mile&#x27;s traffic has nothing to do with university business at all: commuters passing through campus, not starting or ending a class day there. Kelley&#x27;s warning about people avoiding the route altogether follows from the same fact: a trail that connects Seattle neighborhoods to campus loses that function the moment enough people decide the route feels unsafe. The mile UW is now rebuilding is not a campus amenity so much as a piece of the city&#x27;s commuting network that happens to run through university land.</p> <h2>Fifty Years On A Rail Line Nobody Wanted</h2> <p>The Burke-Gilman Trail exists because Seattle bought a nine-mile rail right-of-way from Burlington Northern in 1973, named it the Burke-Gilman a year later, and dedicated it on August 19, 1978, over objections from residents who expected it to bring crime and falling property values. A 1986 study found the opposite: nearby property values rose, and the trail had &quot;little, if any, effect on crime and vandalism.&quot; Today the trail runs roughly 20 miles from Golden Gardens Park to Bothell, and the mile Kelley described is a small piece of a much longer commute for people who use it every day. Half a century after it opened, the same trail is still being built one contract at a time, one mile now catching up to the mile beside it.</p>

Braden Kelley's Assessment Of The Burke-Gilman Trail's Eastern Mile

Braden Kelley manages commute options and transportation planning at the University of Washington. He does not soften it. His subject is the mile of the Burke-Gilman Trail that runs along the east side of campus, from Rainier Vista to NE 47th Street. "A little narrower and darker," he said of the mile. "There are roots coming up through the asphalt." He added that the stretch "doesn't feel as welcoming and it doesn't feel as safe." Kelley raised a second concern. People coming from the north or east side of Seattle, he said, might be less inclined to travel through that area to reach campus at all. That is the assessment from the university's own transportation office, and it now has a fix attached: a $12.3 million construction contract, awarded to Granite Construction with KPFF Civil as design partner, to rebuild the mile before it drives away any more of the people it is supposed to carry.

What The $12.3 Million Contract Actually Buys

The contract is structured as a progressive design build, the same delivery method Granite regional vice president Mike Stein pointed to when the award was announced: "Our teams bring extensive experience in collaborative delivery methods like progressive design build. We look forward to collaborating with UW on safety, accessibility, and improving the overall experience of thousands of trail users." Design work started in June 2026, well before construction begins. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2027 and run through the first quarter of 2029. What arrives when it's done: a wider footprint where the corridor allows it, separate lanes for pedestrians and cyclists, new pavement, added lighting, better drainage, and wheelchair-accessible connections. Cascade Bicycle Club and other members of the Seattle cycling community are named as project partners.

The Segment Next Door Already Got This, In 2016

Walk west of Rainier Vista and the trail changes. The segment from 15th Avenue NE to Rainier Vista, including the Hitchcock Bridge over NE Pacific Street, closed for construction in October 2015 and reopened on August 8, 2016. According to the University of Washington, that stretch "doubled in width to accommodate increasing capacity levels with the opening of UW Station nearby," gaining a separate concrete sidewalk for pedestrians, a distinct asphalt track for cyclists, overhead LED lighting, and blue emergency phones. Much of what the new contract promises, more width, separated lanes for cyclists and pedestrians, and better lighting, already exists. The gap between the two segments has been standing on campus for a decade.

The Same $16 Million, Promised A Decade Apart

That gap has a paper trail. In 2015, the state legislature and then governor Jay Inslee awarded UW $16 million to renovate the same eastern stretch, Rainier Vista to NE 47th Street, listing it as a "Priority 3" project with funding scheduled between 2021 and 2025. The work never happened on that schedule. The money reappears in the enacted 2025-27 state transportation budget as $9.4 million for the current biennium and $6.6 million for 2027-29, the same $16 million total, described in the budget language as "accelerated funding" for the trail. The city is chipping in too, $750,000 toward design. The full project, design and construction combined, totals $16.75 million, and the $12.3 million Granite contract is the construction piece of that total. A decade after it was first funded, the fix the state promised for 2021 through 2025 is now scheduled to break ground in spring 2027, arriving more than five years behind its own original timetable, in a budget that calls the same money "accelerated."

Who Actually Rides This Mile

Mark Huppert, UW's transportation services director, has pointed out that much of the mile's traffic has nothing to do with university business at all: commuters passing through campus, not starting or ending a class day there. Kelley's warning about people avoiding the route altogether follows from the same fact: a trail that connects Seattle neighborhoods to campus loses that function the moment enough people decide the route feels unsafe. The mile UW is now rebuilding is not a campus amenity so much as a piece of the city's commuting network that happens to run through university land.

Fifty Years On A Rail Line Nobody Wanted

The Burke-Gilman Trail exists because Seattle bought a nine-mile rail right-of-way from Burlington Northern in 1973, named it the Burke-Gilman a year later, and dedicated it on August 19, 1978, over objections from residents who expected it to bring crime and falling property values. A 1986 study found the opposite: nearby property values rose, and the trail had "little, if any, effect on crime and vandalism." Today the trail runs roughly 20 miles from Golden Gardens Park to Bothell, and the mile Kelley described is a small piece of a much longer commute for people who use it every day. Half a century after it opened, the same trail is still being built one contract at a time, one mile now catching up to the mile beside it.

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