The Mercer Island Mountain Biking Advocates have shared the following suggestions with the parks and recreation commission for consideration.

This feedback captures feedback from the local mountain biking community on the published conceptual design. Thank you to the design team for keeping this process moving and providing the surveys and meetings to get community feedback. The conceptual design is available on the BSA project page.

Overall, we are very impressed with the progress and the conceptual design is aligned with the vision we had when we first visited the space. After reviewing the revised conceptual design, we have a few specific call-outs for consideration. Refer to the image to link the feedback to the locations on the design. Locations in the call-outs are approximations.

A: Great to see the added line that will use the natural slope of the area – thanks for responding to feedback. We hope the steeper grade can be used to provide a step-up style jump to add to the progression of the line in the park.

B: Recommend adding a predestination access gate to allow parents and kids to move between the areas. The bike playground area is designed to be used but the same age group that would also use the existing play areas. Consider an offset entrance to limit bikes from moving between the areas but can make it easy for a pedestrian to move back and forth.

C:  Recommend adding a secondary access path from the east side to avoid funneling users from the east into the narrow roadway to reach the entrance path on the west. This improves safety for bikers and can also allow pedestrian access to the playground avoiding the busy park entrance drive. This should be designed as a shared-use path, not limited to bikes.

D: Limit the use of wooden berm turns, use dirt instead as the wooden berm turns can become very slippery during the wet months with moss & mildew. This is from experience with similar features in the PNW at trails like Duthie Hill and you probably have experienced this on your deck surfaces. Specifically features 11 & 13 in the design.

E: Add an area where bikes can be placed on a rack or open space to lay down a bike out of the pathway when people take a break. This will avoid conflicts with paths being clogged. A simple bike rack system that hangs by the seat works well for this kind of temporary storage. An example is shown here.

F: A bonus feature would be making a watering station available with watering cans where users could apply water to the dirt surface during the dry months to maintain an optimal surface. In other parks, this is a large water barrel with garden watering cans.

Thanks to the Mercer Island Parks and Recreation Commission for your continued efforts to find a solution to re-open a bike skills area on the island. The Mercer Island bike community is ready to volunteer to bring this to life.