City of Seattle to clear tents, trash on stretch of Interurban Trail

SEATTLE — The city of Seattle is moving forward to clean up a stretch of the Interurban Trail after receiving numerous citizen concerns about it being overrun with trash and the tents of homeless people.

The area the city is targeting ranges from North 110th to North 128th streets, which is in the Bitter Lake area.

Signs were posted along the trail for those staying there to remove all personal property, citing it was not an authorized area for storage or shelter.

Cleanup crews began their work around 9 a.m. on Wednesday and are scheduled to work until the end of Thursday.

“Six months ago it was the occasional tent, you know, just kind of neat and tidy and no big deal but now it’s like some of these places are huge and it’s not comfortable to ride or walk past them,” said Mike Mayes who bikes daily on the trail. “The garbage is really stunning.”

People in the Bitter Lake area told KIRO 7 that every time they came to the trail, they saw new tents, with some taking up a significant amount of space.

One person KIRO 7 spoke with last week said the area had gone down over the last year.

“Well, I walk this trail three or four times every week, and you know over the last year especially, it’s gone from just a nice, pretty, green natural area to filth and trash, and now there’s vehicles, people are building structures out of pallets, somebody built a garage, they’ve got a truck down there,” Michael Stevenson said.

While the city has ordered the removal of people’s personal items, anything left behind will be stored by the city for 70 days at no charge.

“I think when the mental health and the drug issues are primary, it’s very hard to convince people to come inside, and that they can trust that there’s people that are looking out for them and I think that’s a lot of why people are out here,” said Carol Mayes, who bikes daily on the trail.

A HOPE representative with Seattle’s Human Services Department was at the cleanup and the city is also offering housing assistance to anyone living in the area.

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