Walkway planned over Bellingham Bay

DANNY GAWLOWSKI | DANNY GAWLOWSKI THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

• WALKWAY MEETING
  
  WHAT: A public meeting to discuss a new walkway that would go from Boulevard Park over the water to the foot of Cornwall Avenue. Renderings will be available. Creating more beach access at the park and improvements to the Pattle Point trestle also will be discussed.
  WHEN: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. June 26, with a formal presentation at 7 p.m.
  WHERE: Bellingham Public Library Lecture Room, 210 Central Ave.
  FOR MORE INFORMATION: Call Gina Gobo, project engineer, at 778-7000.
  
  

The walkway would be about 2,000 feet long, or 50 feet longer than Taylor Dock — and perhaps a bit wider. It would connect the north end of the park to the Waterfront District at Cornwall.

Mayor Dan Pike said the project would provide additional recreational access to Bellingham Bay and would act as a transportation corridor — much like Taylor Dock.

“It is a gorgeous ride or run,” Pike said of Taylor Dock. “It would be nice to have it be extended that way.

“It will be like Taylor (Dock) in that people, once they’re actually on it, they’ll think it’s a no-brainer and why didn’t we do it earlier.”

The proposed walkway would cost an estimated $4 million to $6 million, although the exact price tag will not be known until a study is completed at the end of July or beginning of August.

Construction could begin in 2012, and is contingent upon cleanup of toxics at Boulevard Park and what is known as the Cornwall Avenue Landfill. The two are on the state Department of Ecology’s list of hazardous sites that need to be cleaned up.

The process already has started with the landfill, but the city and Ecology are in the process of negotiating an “agreed order” to study Boulevard Park.

Gobo and Ecology indicated that the hazardous materials could be from a plant that operated in what is now the upper part of the park from 1890 to 1956. That plant manufactured gas from coal for home heating and cooking.

“That’s one point source that we know but we haven’t started an investigation yet,” said Gobo, adding that the Boulevard cleanup will be touched on during the June 26 public meeting with greater details released at a separate meeting.

Other projects that will be discussed during the public presentation include:

Increasing beach access at Boulevard Park. Gobo said that project would be similar to the one completed in May 2005 at Marine Park, when chunks of sidewalk and rebar rip-rap were removed to make it easier to walk along the shorelines.

The city is working with Reid Middleton, an Everett-based engineering consulting and planning firm with waterfront experience, on the walkway and beach access projects.

Improving and widening the short wooden bridge just north of Taylor Dock that is known as the Pattle Point trestle or the boardwalk.

“That old wood trestle is in need of some renovation. We’d like it to be a more durable walking surface,” Gobo said. “The wood is slippery and it’s hard to maintain. It’s worn and rutted.”