Some effects of culvert removal for salmon enhancement.

I-5 Salmon crossing work near Lake Sammish

Washington State is spending lots of highway money for culvert removal and salmon enhancement due to court order related to tribal treaty rights.

I've often thought that a few of these expensive crossings could also create opportunities for pedestrian and bike crossings as well. One expample would be the planned culvert work at I-5 and Meridian here in Bellingham.

A stretch of Old Samish Highway southwest of I-5 will soon be closed for many months for culvert work along the road and adjacent I-5. There are alternative routes like Samish Way north of I-5.

A few days before this road was to close, I decided to take a last bike ride out there for a while. Turns out the road was already closed to bikes. Seeing the sign, I tuned around and had a better trip anyway.

The detour is 32nd street which is horrible so I went back the way I came. I came back into town by way of some real nice trails in an area called 100 Acre Woods.

There is some interesting history about the 100 Acre Woods area. In the early 2000s, there was plans for a large development called Chuckanut Ridge. It would have preserved some forest, but also find room for around 700 homes and townhouses. Some folks in the community wanted the area preserved, versus any development.

My picture from 2005

I'm not anti housing so I had my own ideas about it back then. Clustered development in one part and preservation in the rest. My clustering is a bit less "family oriented" and more like high rises for singles without cars on one corner of the land. Most of the world isn't that way.

Maybe the development wouldn't have been the end of the world, but folks were quite concerned about increased traffic on the old bridge into Fairhaven District. It would have cost a fortune towiden that.

Traffic on 12th street Bridge

Turns out the Chuckanut Ridge Development ran afoul from the 2007 mortgage crisis so the market value plummeted. The city was able to buy it for a good price by borrowing from its Greenways Fund.

Then the plan was to sell some of the land for development to pay back the Greenway Fund. South side of Bellingham does have quite a bit of open space while the fast growing north side needed more parklands.

Quite a few neighbors on the southside still wanted the whole thing preserved so they formed an LID (local improvement tax district) to fund it. This means the majority of voters within the LID district voted to tax themselves a bit more to pay back the Greenways Fund. The entire 100 Acre Woods remains forest.

Since then, some trails have been built. I haven't been back there that often, but it was a nice treat to go through there as I came back into town.