With the interim trail of the Cross Kirkland Corridor finished, the city has appropriated funds to help maintain it while the Kirkland Police Department has purchased UTVs to patrol it.

During its June 16 meeting, the City Council approved $70,000 for CKC maintenance on top of the $100,000 already allocated to it from the 2012 Parks Levy. The interim trail had its grand opening in February.

According to CKC Coordinator Kari Page, the city has conducted an overall maintenance assessment of the 5.75 mile corridor that lists what projects need to be done to maintain the trail and how often. The additional $70,000 will go toward covering the costs of maintaining the corridor. It will also go toward the cost to have a full-time city worker maintain the trail. Before the fund allocation, the city had a maintenance person but they were not working full time.

Page said the trail will require daily maintenance, though the frequency of certain projects will vary.

The fund allocation was necessary, Page said, because when the city first acquired the corridor it wasn’t known how much the costs would be.

“We knew we would have to maintain it because we’re buying it,” she said. “We didn’t know what kind of trail, what kind of treatment (the city would add) at intersections.”

At the same time, she said, the city has had no unexpected surprises in terms of costs related to maintenance.

Among the maintenance work will include the flashing beacons at intersections, keeping the gravel trail level, as well as preventing erosion in several spots. They are also working to identify invasive plant species found on the trail that need to be removed, something that hasn’t yet been assessed in the maintenance plan.

Page said the plant removal will be done by the Parks Department based on a plan created with the Green Kirkland Partnership.

Other maintenance will be required as they add more connections to the corridor to improve resident access.

Work parties with volunteer organizations have helped install steps and handrails on the corridor where it connects to neighborhoods such as at Northeast 64th Street.

The city also plans to build a bridge and elevator at the South Kirkland Park and Ride located at Northeast 38th Place, where it intersects with the corridor, in order to make it more accessible.

The city also has beautification projects, such as 30 pieces of the historic ferry MV Kalakala the city purchased after it was dismantled and its pieces auctioned off. Among the souvenirs purchased by the city for $59,000 are two large doors, valve wheels, the wheel room and hand railings.

Recently the city purchased two properties in the Houghton neighborhood on 106th Avenue Northeast to obtain an easement for the corridor.

At the same time, Page said the completed connection projects won’t require much maintenance for 10-15 months and that the current funds are intended to handle maintenance for the next two years.”

“As we go we will eventually need money to keep those up,” Page said. “The thing about the maintenance plan is we don’t now how to project out 10 years yet, and I think it’s only 1-2 years.”

Sound Transit is considering possibly placing a light rail in the corridor, which at the moment makes it hard to determine long-term maintenance cost estimates. If Sound Transit were to go forward with the plan, maintenance would depend on how the light rail is installed.

“How would we negotiate it to run through Kirkland?” Page said. “Will they be on existing railbed or not? Would they build us a trail if they were to go down? There’s a chance they would build us a trail and it would look different. All those things are yet to be decided, so we don’t know the impact. We just know they’re possibly talking about going through.”

The KPD has also added patrols on the corridor with two electric UTVs acquired in January as a crime preventive measure.

No crimes on the corridor have been reported since it opened in February, with the only incident reported to police involving a driver who tried to take his vehicle down the corridor. The car was later towed.

However, Page said there have been a handful of vandalism and graffiti incidents. In one such case, she said, someone chopped up the railing along the corridor in the Highlands neighborhood shortly after the interim trail opened.

“It hasn’t been horrible,” she said. “Just seeing it the first time it really surprised us… everybody loves the trails so it’s hard to imagine somebody would do that.”

Police spokesperson Lt. Mike Murray said the patrols will ramp up during the summer months and especially during the evenings. In addition to the UTVs, they will also have bicycle patrols.