End of Lower River Road remains open

If You Go

• What: Heritage tree bike ride, an easy, guided 4-mile bike tour of 10 Vancouver Heritage trees. Event includes tree facts, histories and legends. Participants are asked to wear helmets and obey traffic laws.

• Where: Beginning and ending at Esther Short Park, Columbia West Eighth streets.

• When: 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

• Information, register: 360-487-8308 or urbanforestry@cityofvancouver.us

If You Go

• What: Opening ceremony for the Lower River Road Path, a new bike-pedestrian segment from West Fourth Plain Boulevard to the Port of Vancouver. Event features speeches, refreshments and a ribbon-cutting.

• Where: Take the new path out to the parking lot of ABC Plastics, 2801 N.W. Lower River Road, next to port headquarters.

• When: 11:30 a.m. June 30.

• Register: rsvp@portvanusa.com

Who keeps closing Lower River Road?

In early 2014, the Washington Department of Transportation installed a gate — and left it open — a couple of miles short of the dead end on what’s also known as state Highway 501. The gate will eventually be locked shut due to erosion of the shoreline out past Milepost 10. That final road segment hugs the Columbia River, and the state wants to be able to close it before the land below gets really precarious, officials have said.

But in recent days, cyclists who love the scenic, secluded, out-and-back route were vexed to find the gate already shut and posted with a ROAD CLOSED sign. Rumors have been swirling, but nobody’s certain who closed the gate and whether the road really is closed. State crews have been called and opened it again. And then it’s discovered closed again.

One witness, who insisted on not being named, claimed that the gate has been repeatedly closed late at night by troublemakers — people who drive in, shut the gate behind them and then get drunk, shoot guns and trespass on private property. Closing the gate must make them feel that much more isolated as they make mischief, this witness said.

Law enforcement has been called, but because the road is a state highway that passes from city to county to state Department of Fish and Wildlife land, this witness added, there appears to be confusion about which agency is responsible.

Here’s the bottom line, though, according to Department of Transportation spokeswoman Tamara Hellman: The road has been and remains open to all forms of traffic — both pedal-powered and motorized. The state has not made any determination about when the road might be closed, she said; when it does, word will go out first so nobody is surprised.

“The road is open and the gate should be open,” she said. Anyone who finds it closed should call DOT’s Traffic Management Center at 360-759-1300.

But what about new shoulder improvements that were recently added exactly in front of the gate — making that spot into a defacto parking lot, as if this really is the end of the road?

It’s just a turnaround, Hellman said. Building it has been on DOT’s list of projects for a while. It’s not a parking lot, she said.

New path, long wait

In other positive Lower River Road cycling news, the Port of Vancouver is close to finishing work on one segment of the continuous, separated, paved path that it means to eventually extend all the way out to meet the existing path between Vancouver Lake and Frenchman’s Bar Park.

The 12-foot-wide path begins at Mill Plain and Fourth Plain boulevards and continues for a half mile, to the entrance of the port’s administrative building, where it connects with an existing trail segment. Work began in January and included site clearing, grading, asphalt paving, concrete construction, block retaining wall construction, landscaping and irrigation. Farther down the road, the port had previously completed a 2,700-foot segment in front of a new Farwest Steel plant.

“Because the port’s administrative office is not currently serviced by public transportation, the bike/ped path provides a new, safe way for citizens and port staff to travel to the office,” port spokeswoman Julie Rawls wrote in an email to local cycling enthusiasts. “It also provides an additional transportation option for port tenants. And we hope Fruit Valley neighbors will check out the new path segment when they’re out and about walking or cycling.”

But the path remains segmented and disjointed, and it’s on the southwest side of the street; cyclists journeying all the way out to the lake or beyond still must ride on the road — in the shoulder on the northeast side — most of the way there. The port regularly applies for federal and state grant funds to extend the path, Rawls said, with each segment presenting specific design challenges and landscapes to cross.

She pointed out that the next section to be built will traverse a wetland mitigation site — a spot that’s highly encumbered by environmental regulations — and will require a 450-foot-long raised platform that passes over the sensitive area. The port applied this spring for a grant for that work, she said.

All of which is why the port is hoping for a big show of cyclist and pedestrian support at a June 30 grand opening of the new path segment.

“The more support we can show for the path, the more likely we are to secure federal and state funds for the construction of future segments,” Rawls said.

There’s no real estimate for how long the overall project could take to complete. It could be years, officials have said — depending on dollars and political will.