Prairie Line Trail Has a Billboard-Shaped Problem

Peter Callaghan is stirring up trouble over the Prairie Line Trail. Again. This time Callaghan has drawn our attention to the billboard-shaped hole in the plan hashed out between the City and BNSF, which owns the 80-foot wide swath of property north of the Tacoma Art Museum.

Last we heard, the agreement had BNSF “donating” a 20-foot wide strip of land extending north from UWT to South 15th Street in exchange for concessions from the City on other pieces of property. Although the “donated” property would not include the actual rail line (rather it would run along side the tracks, leaving BNSF with a contiguous strip of land), the deal seemed like it was finally ready to go forward, as construction begins on the UWT portion of the trail.

One little problem. A 70-square foot problem in the shape of a billboard, to be exact. Somehow in all the back-and-forth over this deal, a billboard standing solidly in the middle of the 20-foot property that would make up the trail got overlooked. The problem isn’t so much the billboard itself, as the perpetual easement that goes along with it.

The billboard isn’t in a great location in terms of visibility. It’s out of compliance with City codes. But it may be owned by Clear Channel (there’s some confusion over ownership), which means that it could be dragged into the ongoing fight conversation over other billboards around the City, and become a bargaining chip, in which case it could be a long time before all that gets sorted out.

Callaghan offers a couple possible scenarios:

 

1. The City could scrap the deal that took so long to work out, take back the concessions to BNSF, and push harder for the 20 feet down the middle of the 80-foot right-of-way (which would follow the historic rail line more faithfully anyway).

 

2. Council could take the deal and hope for the best.

We’re wondering if there’s a possible answer in these old Imagine Tacoma gift ideas…

… Maybe some combination of the clear vision glasses and the view enhancement decals could be redesigned to deal with a billboard-shaped problem …

Read on the BNSF deal and the billboard that might get in the way from Peter Callaghan at The News Tribune. Read more from Exit133 on the saga of planning for the Prairie Line Trail.