In their quest to complete the Burke-Gilman Trail's missing link, the segment running from east of the Ballard Bridge to the Ballard Locks, the city has created what some bicyclists are already calling the new missing link.

Construction on the $14 million project will begin in spring 2009 and will create a trail from 11th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 45th Street to the Locks running along Shilshole Avenue and Northwest 54th Street. However, between 17th Avenue Northwest and Northwest Vernon Place cyclists will be rerouted to Ballard Avenue.

The stretch along Ballard Avenue will not include a physical trail, only signs directing trail users. New intersections with traffic signals will be built at 17th and Shilshole and Vernon and Shilshole to help cyclists and pedestrians get to and from the Ballard Avenue route.

At an Oct. 15 open house for the project, members of the public expressed dismay over the Ballard Avenue route. One cyclist wrote "big copout" next to the route on the Seattle Department of Transportation's map of the trail.

Representatives for the Department of Transportation at the open house cited design difficulties, safety and a lack of authorization as reasons for the Ballard Avenue route.

Richard Sheridan, spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said that stretch of Shilshole presents a bigger challenge than other areas they are working with because of the high concentration of industries in a small space.

The Ballard Avenue route is a way to avoid conflict between trucks, which their assessment shows exist in a high concentration on that stretch, and cyclists and pedestrians, Sheridan said.

Frank Harris, a member of the Friends of the Burke-Gilman Trail, said he disagrees with the city's assessment. There are fewer trucks using that stretch of Shilshole than the city says and it is mostly used by cars, he said.

Harris also said 17th to Vernon has the potential to be a much safer stretch of the trail then the rest of Shilshole because there is already a good deal of paving there and there is much better visibility for vehicles and cyclists.

The Ballard Avenue route is the result of the city being scared by Paul Nerdrum, owner of Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel on Shilshole, Harris said.

Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin sponsored a 2003 resolution that laid out the plan for the missing link, including the Ballard Avenue route. Nerdrum, as well as the rest of the large companies on Shilshole between 17th and Vernon, lobbied vocally for the route, he said.

Conlin said he prefers a route that travels entirely along Shilshole, but advocated the compromise of the Ballard Avenue route to avoid conflict between trucks and cyclists and to move forward with the project.

"No one wants to do something that could potentially harm a business or a community," he said.

Sheridan said the Department of Transportation had to follow the resolution from the City Council and did not look at building a route on the 17th to Vernon stretch of Shilshole.

The city is calling the route along Ballard Avenue an interim route, thought he city admits it is years away from moving that stretch down to Shilshole.

Sheridan said the route will move completely down to Shilshole once it is safe to do so. He said he doesn't know what could change specifically to create the safety necessary, but it would require a change in the composition of businesses and traffic in the area.

Until then Sheridan said the interim route is not a failure to complete the missing link; it is a way of working around an unavoidable problem.

Michael Harthorne may be reached at 783.1244 or michaelh@robinsonnews.com