Thank goodness we are finally starting to see some help arrive on traffic congestion relief and mass transit projects in our town. While Kirkland has been working on small improvements, there has been a notable absence of "big buck" investments necessary to make some real investments. That is beginning to change and the future looks much brighter in several respects.
The I-405 improvements will start to help with the infamous "Kirkland Crawl" and will eventually rebuild the N.E. 116th Street interchange. Some work will start next year adding new lanes in both north and south directions between N.E. 70th and N.E. 124th streets. You may find out more about these projects at: www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/I-405/kirkland.htm.
Sound Transit just broke ground on the Sound Transit N.E. 128th Street HOV Direct Access and Freeway Station near the Kingsgate Park and Ride. This will be an $86 million investment to give Kirklanders efficient access to all the buses traveling on I-405. Next, Sound Transit will start construction on the new transit center on the corner joining the hospital and the mall (just above Trader Joe's). My key concern is that all participants are smart enough to ensure an effective way for all pedestrians to get up the hill from the mall to N.E. 128th Street. We have a couple of key groups in that area that need particular consideration: seniors and medical patients.
Further south, on N.E. 85th Street, Sound Transit will be making a number of improvements from 132nd to 120th avenues N.E. - a new bus stop at 132nd Avenue N.E., traffic signal priority for transit and new sidewalks along N.E. 85th Street.
One aspect of this project just doesn't make sense, but it seems the city and Sound Transit want it anyway. The story goes: to improve the speed and reliability of buses coming from Redmond to Kirkland, another turn lane will be installed for those traveling east on N.E. 85th Street and turning left at McDonald's. This will, of course, add cut-through traffic to the neighborhood, but apparently that is not sufficient concern to cut out this bad idea.
You may find out more about the Sound Transit projects in Kirkland at: www.soundtransit.org/projects/co/east/.
The next, near-term project will be a new downtown transit center. Sound Transit will be leading an effort to completely redesign the transit center. About the only thing that will remain the same is that the transit center will stay on Third Street next to Peter Kirk Park. The design effort is just getting underway.
Finally, State Route 520 should finally have the preliminary work done next year so we can move forward with replacement of the floating bridge and improvements between I-405 and Lake Washington. This project is vital to our economy and the future of the Eastside to get the first phase of this corridor's improvements done quickly and properly.
I have two issues here. First, we must have enough foresight to plan now for the whole corridor to accommodate high-capacity transit, rather than restarting this whole process once again when we're ready to extend high-capacity transit across the lake in this corridor.
Second, I believe we should be smart enough to figure out how to provide Kirklanders with access to the 22 bus routes that run along SR-520 but don't go to the South Kirkland Park and Ride. Some form of flyer stop should be possible to provide access to those routes. So far the engineers have not been able to find a way to make it happen. You may find out more about this project at: www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/SR520Bridge.
So we have important transportation projects in our future. These are, of course, dependent upon funding that has been absent for so many years. Finally we are in a position to move our region forward, help move our economy forward and make the investments necessary for us to progress.
It's our turn to make the same kind of investments that our parents and grandparents made for us. It is our time at the plate to build for the future. If we can't see farther than the end of our nose, then we won't make the choices to bolster this region like those that did that for us. Sure, they didn't get it all right, but they tried mightily.
That role is on us, now. We can choose to invest for the future or back away from our responsibilities. It's our choice.
Dave Asher is a member of the Kirkland City Council..[[In-content Ad]]
