Vote “yes” for our parks in King County
Posted by melanib
at Jul 30, 2025 02:00 PM
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Advocacy,
Advocacy: Trails,
Trail Next Door
Now through Aug. 5, King County residents can vote to renew the county’s parks levy for the next 6 years. Funding from the levy provides 85% of King County Parks’ budget, making it essential to operating the county’s parks and trails.
Now through Aug. 5, King County residents can vote "yes" to renew the county’s parks levy for the next 6 years, 2026-2031. Voters have passed this levy multiple times over the last 20 years, most recently in 2019.
Funding from the levy provides 85% of King County Parks’ budget, making it essential to operating the county’s parks and trails.
Graphic courtesy of King County.
By improving and expanding parks and trails, the parks levy will help ensure that King County residents — from Seattle to Redmond to Enumclaw — can get outside, even as the region’s population of 2.3 million continues to grow.
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Please vote “yes” on King County Proposition 1 and return your ballot by Tuesday, Aug. 5.
Improving your hikes and connecting more communities to trails
King County manages 185 miles of regional trails (think Burke-Gilman, East Lake Sammamish and Snoqualmie Valley trails) and also 275 miles of backcountry trails (think Cougar Mountain).
Thanks to the current levy funding (2020-2025), WTA has teamed up with King County to improve trails at Cougar Mountain, Green River, Tolt MacDonald, Moss Lake, Pinnacle Peak and Island Center Forest. Recent projects include:
- Installing bridges to reopen access to Taylor Mountain’s Beaver Pond trail, which had been closed for years.
- Improving the safety and durability of the popular Cal Magnusson trail to Pinnacle Peak.
- An upcoming project this summer to build a new connector trail at Tolt-MacDonald Park between the Scout’s Trail and Turnpike Alley, creating more loop options to enjoy.
WTA and King County use levy funding to improve trails, like a recent project installing trail bridges at Taylor Mountain. Photo courtesy of King County.
If the levy is renewed, future funding will help complete the long-anticipated Eastrail and Lake to Sound trails and extend the Green River trail farther north, connecting Seattle to South King County. Funding would also support many additional projects to construct new trail and maintain existing ones.
Renewed levy funding would also maintain and improve 200 parks in cities and rural areas across King County. That means better restrooms, safer parks and ADA-accessible improvements so more people can experience their local greenspaces.
King County Parks levy brings nature within reach
Local trails, like those funded by the King County Parks levy, are critical to bringing the health benefits of time outdoors to everyone.
Not everyone in King County can easily get outdoors. One-quarter of King County residents do not have easy access to a green space or trail.
Parks levy funding would bring greenspaces to communities in King County that don’t have easy access to get outside. WTA staff photo.
The North Highline neighborhood was one such area. Until recently, individuals and families had no outdoor space within walking distance. Earlier this year, WTA, King County Parks, Earth Corps and neighbors celebrated the opening of Glendale Forest in North Highline. Now, residents can walk to Glendale Forest from the nearby houses, apartments, schools and church.
Voting “yes” on King County Proposition 1 will provide funding to create more places like Glendale Forest. Neighborhood greenspaces provide ongoing physical, mental and social benefits. They also make our communities more climate resilient by keeping neighborhood temperatures lower and providing places where people can stay cool during heat waves.
If you want to live in a place where communities — from cities to rural areas — are connected to each other and to nature through trails, vote “yes” on King County Proposition 1.
Photo courtesy of King County.
This blog originally ran on July 15.
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