Bayside Trails
IIn the 1970s local government took state and federal money to build highways through the city, including Schuster Parkway. As part of that, the city was obligated to provide waterfront access. Initially the city honored that obligation, building the Bayside Trails. The building of the trails cost $138,000. Adjusted to 2025 for inflation this is $820,000.
The trails opened in 1975, running from downtown to Stadium Bowl and on to Garfield Park near Old Town. They served the public for decades.
1975 map showing the Bayside trail extending from downtown to stadium bowl and on to garfield park
1970s city permits for the bayside trail
schuster slope section of the bayside trail before the city blocked it off
From the records I've found, it seems the Bayside Trails were declared closed by the city around 2010. If you can believe it, the city actually cut trees and dropped them onto the path to destroy it!
Yet, the trail remained in use even after that vandalism. The trails continue to exist today.
overlooking commencement bay along the bayside trail
researching the bayside trail with the help of the northwest room staff at the tacoma public library
a runner enjoying the restored and reopened upper garfield gulch section of the bayside trail
Map showing the garfield guclh section of the bayside trail. Courtesy of katrina fernandez
me and my wife apple handing out top pot donuts and coffee at a wta work party. this work focused on the upper garfield gulch section of the bayside trail. we lobbied to get it organized.
Starting in 2022, I worked with our neighbors to clean up the trails. Volunteers removed logs blocking the trail. We pulled garbage out and cut brush back. I chased the city to remove homeless camps. I personally trucked 1000s of pounds of garbage out of the gulch.
During all that, I successfully lobbied Parks Tacoma to formally reopen the Garfield Gulch section of the trail. I created this Facebook group and used it to organize work parties, ultimately pulling in the Metro Parks CHIP-in! work program as well as the WTA.
I worked with Adopt-a-Road, using complimentary dump passes to pay for garbage removal along Schuster Parkway at the bottom of the trail.
The result of this effort is that you can walk nearly all of the trail today, starting at this trailhead. There's also an interactive GPS map of the full trail system here.
The garfield guclh section of the trail is owned by metro parks. They closed it from 2010 until 2022. in 2010, Metro parks cut trees and dropped them onto the trail to block it! Through a mix of physical labor and lobbying metro parks, I got this section reopened. now we can all enjoy this public land like we should have been able to all along.
Because of all this lobbying, Parks Tacoma allocated approximately $100k to improving the Garfield Gulch section of the trail. That was spent funding paid (versus volunteer) WTA work parties. Those crews have put in new steps to fix a washed out section of the trail.
In addition there have been a number of volunteer WTA parties focusing primarily on the trail surface.
one section of the garfield gulch trail had eroded away due to lack of maitenance by metro parks. normally they depend on the wta for this kind of work, however they’d let that contract lapse. because of my pushing they renewed the contract and in october 2024 organized work parties to put these stairs in.
While the success with the Garfield Gulch section has been substantial, I’ve hit a wall with our local government. Parks Tacoma has a policy of not allowing citizens to maintain trails. Yet they can’t allocate sufficient resources to maintain the trails. I believe we should change this policy.
The City of Tacoma has been even harder to deal with. Sarah Rumbaugh, the district 2 City Council member has no interest in restoring the trails and has advocated for closing off more public spaces. Even after the trail had been reopened, she suggested that it should not be. She even suggested a fence blocking it off be rebuilt.
I’ve hit walls working through civil servants as well. The mayor’s office sent their policy advisor to walk through but he came back saying the trail could not be reopened until stabilization work takes place. There is no plan for this stabilization work. While some sections of the trail could use work, the section we’ve requested reopened is a railroad grade dating from 1893. It has remained in place for over 130 years and seems pretty damn stable to me.
I reached out to, at the time, Deputy Mayor John Hines. After two months of research he came back with a grab bag of concerns making it impossible to reopen the trail, including the issue of it not being ADA compliant. Only allowing ADA hiking trails would not leave us with many places to hike. This is a silly policy.
During all this Parks Tacoma attempted to block off access to the railroad grade section of the Bayside Trail from the Garfield Gulch trailhead. This is a fundamental failure in that organization, acting against its mission to make our public spaces available to the public.
Parks Tacoma attempted to block off the railroad grade section of the Bayside Trail in 2024 citing hazardous conditions that do not exist.
1893 map showing the railroad running along the shore where the bayside trail was later built
A neglected staircase on the schuster slope section of the trail. This is one of the worst sections of the trail. The city halfheartedly attempted to destroy it, fencing off parts and even pouring concrete on one section of the stairs!
On 3/3/25 I presented these slides to the North End Neighborhood Council (NENC). I did so to try to raise awareness of the trails and work toward reopening the entire trail system.
In response to all my muck raking, the city recently published an FAQ on the trail. The FAQ is here. It contains a number of lies. The most egregious are:
That the city is actively working to reopen the trails. They are not. We can however force them to.
The FAQ gives three reasons the trails were closed. They are not the reasons the trails were closed. The trails were closed because of homeless camps. Rather than dealing with the homeless camps, the city blocked the trail system off and ignored the problem.
In the last year, the city fabricated the following three reasons to keep the broader trail closed:
ADA Access - Hiking trails are fundamentally not ADA accessible. We should not expect them to be.
Emergency Access - Similarly hiking trails do not have great emergency access. We should not expect them to have it.
Stability Concerns - The section of trail I would like the city to reopen immediately is on a railroad grade that we know dates from at least 1893. It has been stable since then. The city is conflated this stable section with another less stable section on Schuster Slope.
The stability concerns also make a ridiculous error. They use low resolution GIS data, showing a 40% grade where none exists.
City map showing a 40% slope where none exists. This is due to low resolution GIS data.
None of these concerns are real. They are a smokescreen for the real reason the city doesn't want to reopen the trail -- it would be work. It would involve changing a current policy that the trail should be closed, a policy put in place 15 years ago by people who no longer work at the city. This is bureaucratic momentum at its worst.
These trails have some of the most beautiful views in Tacoma. They’re public trails that we already own. It’s absolutely insane that the city has closed them off.
It further boggles the mind that while the city can’t allocate thousands of dollars to maintain these trails, they are simultaneously planning to spend $49 million building a new trail that runs parallel to the existing trail. The new trail would run along the bottom of the bluff next to Schuster Parkway. The existing trail runs along the top of the bluff with a great view, a natural setting and much less road noise.
Maintaining the existing trail could be done for a few thousand dollars a year. While significant money could be spent on restoring the trail, it could also be done for only the cost of materials by leveraging WTA volunteers. The city currently will not permit that.
Trillium growing along the Bayside Trail
The view from the foundation of an old lookout hut on the railroad grade section of the Bayside Trail
Birds nest fungi growing along the Bayside Trail
If you'd like to learn more, there is a Facebook group here. There was a pretty lively Reddit discussion here too.
If this issue is important to you, consider voting for me. I’d really like to get this trail restored so all residents of Tacoma can use it. The office of city council would likely me enable me to complete what I’ve started in reopening the Garfield Gulch section of the Bayside Trails.