Trestle Over Slough A Hangout For Teens, Source Of Complaints

BOTHELL - The defunct train trestle Michael Schuerhoff plunged from is a popular teenage hangout that has triggered occasional complaints and attempts to barricade it.

Police say Schuerhoff was shoved from the same wooden trestle many teens jump or dive off on warm summer days. Some use a long rope, hanging from the bridge's center, to swing over the Sammamish River Slough.

Crushed cans and empty liquor bottles between the railroad ties are proof of its popularity. But most simply take in the view and decline to make what could be a harrowing leap of about 30 feet, Bothell Police Capt. Bob Woolverton said.

"It's cool to hang out there," he said. But "you don't know how deep it is, and you don't know what's under there."

Police on bicycles patrol the area closely in the summer, coming down hard on teens found on the graffiti-covered trestle. King County has tried to keep people off by erecting cyclone fences, the remnants of which lie below the bridge.

"They keep putting up the barricades, and the kids keep tearing them down," Woolverton said.

Ryan Allen, a friend of Schuerhoff's, said he has jumped many times from the bridge. But he said the trestle was not one of their hangouts.

While neighbors occasionally complain about people on the trestle, Bothell Police records show only one minor incident there last year.

"They probably should just take it down; they don't use it for anything," said Mike Miller, a Bothell resident who, as a child, jumped from the bridge.

While some complain it is a nuisance, the aging bridge has a charm that officials hope to preserve. The Eastern Railroad built the original bridge in 1887 over property then owned by John Blyth.

King County acquired the bridge from the Burlington-Northern Railroad in the 1980s, Bothell Parks Superintendent Clark Meek said.

Access to the trestle is easy. One end is adjacent to Blyth Park, which is in Bothell, the other to the Sammamish River Trail, which is under the county's jurisdiction.

The city would like to take over the bridge, replace the deck and build a "cage" to keep people from jumping off.

"When the railroad was there - that's not that long ago - people would jump off into the river," Meek said. "It's a historic thing."

Staff reporter Keith Ervin contributed to this story.