Coal Creek Parkway Open

Recently Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, was celebrating the completion of the Coal Creek Parkway project. He was giving water ski rides to the squirrels. A Squirrel doesn’t require a lot of speed to water ski.

The greys were lined up to get a turn on the water and the little Douglas finally began joining in as well. Regular news media didn’t report this because they were down at the May Creek Bridge for the ribbon cutting. If there was a person involved they would have reported it.

The south end of the project is Duvall Avenue in Renton. It’s fairly open now except for a few random lane closures. This is a very classy retaining wall that Renton should be proud of.

Around the corner from the classy wall is the one I predict won’t last. As you can see (assuming your puter can see these photos) there are trees growing out of it. It’s doomed. I just hope nobody gets hurt. For example a retired bald guy getting too close to take a photo.

Continuing north along the new road we come to the new May Creek Bridge. Looking over the railing you can see it’s a very long way down. I never did that before because the old bridge didn’t have enough room for cars and certainly not some random pedestrian. It’s a very long drop if one had to leap over the rail to escape being squished. The new bridge has nice walks on both sides.

The swooping décor is unique on the east side of Lake Washington. I had fun with it.


Then, just for comparison, here’s an old bridge in Indiana. Spring in Indiana this year was very wet.


My boat was floating well above the standard level of the river. As you can see the yellow numbers are expertly applied and professional looking. You can also see why I want to have the boat painted.


OK, back to Coal Creek Parkway. King County took the construction opportunity to build a large pond for rain water. The in thing these days is to hold runoff in ponds to let the debris settle out before releasing it into the streams. This pond is above May Creek.


Up the hill north from May Creek is Wall 104. It’s anchored into the hillside by long bolts and backed up by tons of rock. This stairway goes up to a hiking trail. Us eastsiders have lots of trails where we can wander to and fro hardly knowing where we are. It’s one of the benefits of living in the Bellevue/Newcastle area.

As you can see there’s a handrail on top of the retaining wall. The sidewalk goes up and over the wall while the roadway stays below it. Probably safer that way.


Next up are the Newcastle Oxen. These beasts can haul huge wagon loads of facts and figures about the new roadway construction. If you like facts and figures you’ll just have to wait until these guys bring them to you. My report is all hearsay and rumor.

These next two are the entry and exit portals of the Boren Creek culvert. The crew completely revamped the culvert to make it big enough for Glen to swim in and out of the lake. They’ll deny it had anything to do with the Lake Boren Carp, but we know the truth. It’s hard to see in these photos because I declined to climb down the bank but the culvert is at least six feet around.




Next up is retaining Wall 106. This one is anchored quite far into the hillside in order to make sure the houses on top never come down. There’s a secondary wall topped with a fence and the sidewalk is at street level in this case. This is another retaining wall built for the long haul. I think a number of Volkswagons are stuffed in there to help ballast the wall against any chance of a problem.

Right now you’re probably wondering if there really are 106 retaining walls on Coal Creek Parkway. No. I don’t have a clue why they chose to use those numbers. I don’t do facts and figures. Wait for the oxen.

Al