Anita Bowers opened the meeting at 7:30, followed by Jon Nelson’s Treasurer’s report.  Anita announced that there will be one more delivery of the Montlake Flyer in a paper version in addition to the online publication.

The balance of the meeting time was given to the WSDOT management team, with a preface given by Barbara Gillerman, legislative work group administrator regarding the 520 project.  This group recommended option A+ as its preference.

WSDOT’s presentation was primarily of the A+ version of the highway replacement as it would be configured in the West Side design, that is, in our neighborhood.  They made these points during the program:

• Traffic volumes after the 520 rebuild are expected to remain about the same as they are today. The primary benefit of the project is to reroute transit and HOV traffic, thus adding lanes to the interchange in Montlake.
• The transit stops now provided on 520 at Montlake will be removed and relocated to the UW side of the cut.
• The Portage Bay bridge will be 7 lanes wide, one of which will be reversible to serve the traffic from the east side.  A portion of the NOAA property will be displaced for this.
• There will be an HOV lane through the middle of the interchange.
• There will be a second bascule bridge over the cut and displacement of homes.
• The draft EIS documents will be released soon and a preferred option will move forward into the final EIS process.  Property values are not addressed in these documents, but noise, air quality and visual blight are.  For mitigation of noise, walls are the only mitigation measure currently approved.
• Storm water runoff will be collected into treatment facilities.
• WSDOT is not working on Option M at this time.

The various plans and documents will be available for review on the WSDOT website, with hard copies available at libraries. The legislative work group report is also available online.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00.