The city of Seattle is finishing the design of a mile long Burke Gilman Trail extension from Northwest 60th Street to Golden Gardens Park.

Despite what has historically been a rancorous debate over the plan to build a bike path though the heart of Ballard, designing this section of trail has been a relatively smooth process.

The trail segment, which city planners say is about 90 percent designed, runs along a railroad right-of-way east of Seaview Avenue, then crosses the track and runs along the avenue itself from about 67th street, to the trail's end at Golden Gardens Park.

During previous design meetings, the proximity of the trail to the railroad, property owned by the city and leased to Ballard Terminal Railroad, was cited as a safety concern.

"This thing is really important to us because it's right next to our tracks for 1.300 feet. It's a big deal and we'd want it to be safe," said Byron Cole, the general manager for Ballard Terminal Railroad, a local short-line rail service that hauls limestone and other cement ingredients, to one customer, Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel, along Shilshole Avenue. The train runs infrequently along its three-mile stretch, but it shares a switching yard with Burlington Northern Railroad along Seaview, where the two companies transfer loaded cars with empties.

Cole said that he was initially concerned and met with city planners, asking that the trail be positioned at least outside of the easement that extends 10 feet beyond either side of the center of the track. Cole said railroad employees used that right-of-way when switching out train cars.

"So I said 'please don't let the trail...don't let it encroach on that [easement].' They changed it so I was quite pleased with that. They actually took my comments to heart," Cole said.

The section of the Burke Gilman trail connecting Seaview Avenue Northwest to Golden Gardens, is one of three sections planned and two yet-to-be built, that will link the existing trail, which ends at 11th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 45th street, to Puget Sound.

At an open house about the design held at the Golden Gardens Bathhouse last week, a typical section of the trail was depicted as 11 feet wide, with a two-foot gravel shoulder and a five-foot wide strip of landscaping between the trail and Seaview Avenue.

The mood at the open house was decidedly upbeat.

"This piece hasn't been controversial. There are really no crossing issues," said Peter Lagerwey, the pedestrian and bicycle coordinator with the city's Department of Transportation, in reference to the Seaview-to-Golden Gardens section of the trail and its lack of having to mitigate driveways and, with one exception, railroad tracks.

But this section of the Burke Gilman trail does face one significant issue - funding. Project leaders with the department of transportation said the $4 million extension is several hundred thousand dollars short of a budget. Construction is slated to for next summer and should be complete before the end of the year, but without that money, the project will not begin.

Lagerwey said there was the potential for funding to come from the city's Bicycle Master Plan, announced earlier this year, which seeks to fund bicycle projects. The mayor has submitted the Bike Master Plan as part of the 2007-2012 Capital Improvement Program, but its funding, about $18 million over five years, rests entirely on the Bridging the Gap levy proposal going before voters this November. That proposal, which seeks to raise $365 million in property taxes over nine years, will be competing with King County's initiative seeking a sales tax hike to pay for buses, and the future tab for whatever form the viaduct replacement takes.

"Like anything, it's about money," said Kevin Carrabine, a long time trail advocate, attending the open house. The mayor's budget proposal submitted to the city council last week estimates that by the time the project is complete, more than $21 million will be spent on the 3.5 miles of trail that stretch from its current end, north of the ship canal, to the hoped-for western ending at Golden Gardens Park.

To the east, the Burke Gilman Trail extends from 11th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 45th Street in Ballard, about 14 miles to Kenmore, along Lake Washington. It's part of an extensive network of trails, both in King County and beyond, that, with a few detours, allow bikers to pedal from the Lake Washington Ship Canal to the Columbia River.

Ending the trail at Puget Sound, in Golden Gardens Park, has been a vision of trail advocates for a number of years. But extending the trail through Ballard has been a contentious issue, especially the so-called missing link, from the Ballard Bridge to the Ballard Locks. Business owners claimed bikers could be injured or killed by the trucks and trains lumbering through the industrial corner of Ballard along Shilshole Avenue, making the areas around the trail an uninsurable hot zone for business. Many bike advocates saw that as a red herring, dreamed up by industrial businesses unwilling to share the road.

In 2003, the Seattle City Council put an end to the debate by directing the city's Department of Transportation to build the link, which runs roughly along Shilshole Avenue and Northwest 54th Street. The design process for that section of trail, beginning with a public meeting, will likely begin before the end of the year, according to city officials.

Trail advocate Carrabine said the onus was on the city if the same kind of consensus was to be reached with the missing-link portion of the trail, as had been the case with the trail section ending at Golden Gardens.

"I hope they [the city] get out and pound the pavement and tell people what they're doing," Carrabine said, adding that the businesses along the final missing-link section of the trail could be approached more effectively if they had a sense for what was around the corner.

"I don't think they (those businesses) should have the right to say the project can't happen. But those are the people who should have the biggest say in how it's done," he said.