SR 520 – Montlake Design Open House
Thursday, September 11th – 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Montlake Community Center
All Montlake neighbors are encouraged to attend this open house to share their thoughts concerning the Montlake Lid and Multimodal connections. Additionally, you may leave your feedback at the bottom of this page or one of the may articles on this topic or send an email to the contacts listed on the Everything 520 page. Design images available HERE.
Visit our neighborhood calendar to keep track of upcoming events. All registered users of Montlake.net are authorized to submit events via our Post Your Event tool.
Karen Luke says
Sorry, I would like to be involved, but from my last experience, we are just being told what will happen and nobody listens to our inputs anyhow. : ( It wouldn’t change a thing. ! Just gets me frustrated. – How about a sign further up on 24/25 to see if the bridge is raised ? I like to turn off my engine, but there is no visual because of those big round parts which block the view.
Louis Hoffer says
We have tried with two previous City Governments and failed miserably, is there anyone in City Hall that can stand up to Olympia and not budge on issues that will have such a long term effect on our community?
Seattle won those hard fought design concessions thru years of community mitigation and now Olympia wants to just take them away?
SR 520 is an ill conceived design effort that is not supported anywhere else in the professional civil engineering world yet it cost billions and likely will cost even more when it’s completed why not stop? Pause. Put political ambitions aside and think about what is right?
What about the harmful health risk a project of this scale brings to the community?
Interstate I-5 can not physically be widen so eventually the new expanded SR520 with it’s merging traffic will come to a standstill, this may take time and be delayed with aggressive tolling but eventually no matter how much the state charges traffic will stop. Cars and trucks parked on SR520 waiting to merge onto I-5 will be billowing toxic Particle Pollution down on Montlake from above.
What mitigation will Olympia propose then? Trees, a bike path?
How do you mitigate asthma attacks to children, slowed lung function growth in children and you adults or lung cancer or cardiovascular disease from long term exposure to Particle Pollution?
It is shocking to engineers and people who have spent a lifetime in commercial construction both nationally and globally that this design has been able to get this far with as much State and City approval as it has. This is an example of how improperly informed the public really is and how easily they are lead astray by an outdated, ridiculous design and engineering concept.
Now those people are taking away your lids and particle filters and their private consultsants are spinning it as “Quality over Quantity”? Someone should be shot.
LH
Andre Vrignaud says
[I am cutting and pasting my comments previously left on the Montlake Forum, with a few edits.]
I just reviewed the updated SR-520 lid proposal. Two major issues leapt out at me in particular.
The first issue is that the updated document suggests removing a huge amount of the previously-proposed lid. Simply put, we already have a problem with the neighborhood being cut in half by the freeway, not to mention the ambient effects of the freeway itself such as noise and air pollution. It appears the vast majority of proposed improvements to the design would also work with the original, larger lid. I understand the cost saving motivation, but in my humble opinion, this is an area which should not be cut back on.
The second issue is the most important. The most natural path for a West-of-24th Montlaker to get to the light rail station will be to cross at the Hop In/Gas Station. But pedestrians must still traverse a huge amount of traffic to do so — 520 on/off ramps, gas station entrances, Hop In entrances, etc. The problem is that fully two-thirds of Montlake is WEST of 24th, including the elementary school. Put another way, there is no way for a 12 year old child or 75 year old senior to safely walk to the light rail station less than a third of a mil away. I do not think I exaggerate to say that there will be accidents and deaths with the current design.
My proposal is to build a pedestrian bridge over this section of road, similar to what has been built by Husky Stadium. My original post may be found here, with the drawing attached.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/montlakeforum/conversations/messages/6446
Consider:
– Redmond is building a pedestrian bridge over 520 to allow access to the Overlake Station
– The Central Greenway passage is being built, and ends right at the Hop In — meaning much more bike and pedestrian traffic will arrive at this intersection in the coming years (independent of the increased traffic that will occur due to the light rail!)
– A pedestrian bridge is being built at Husky Stadium over an intersection with very similar characteristics as ours (bikes, buses, multiple entrances/exits)
– *Our* intersection, however, is even worse than that at Husky Stadium as it also deals with 520 on/off ramps
Between these two, if I had to select just one, I would push for the overhead pedestrian bridge. The reduced lid might be a compromise that’s required due to funding; the pedestrian bridge will save lives.
melissa clark says
We are trying to make sure we have a representative at the meeting. As residents on East Lake Washington Boulevard I am thoroughly dismayed about the prospect of a shortened lid. Noise, pollution, impact of property value, multiple reasons – a shortened lid is not a solution in my opinion to the grave impact all this has on our neighborhood. We need to find a way to gather and fulfill what was originally proposed. For the sake of our residents and future residents.