Say bye bye to those Arboretum ramps!

Just in case you missed one of the implications of the Governor’s announcement earlier this month concerning her revamp of the SR-520 project, allow me to hammer the point home for you: the existing Lake Washington Boulevard on and off ramps in the Arboretum will be demolished.

And they will not be replaced.

There will be no easy out-the-back-gate-of-Broadmoor access to 520, no trips through the Arboretum to a convenient access ramp. For Madison Parkers, the new way to get onto the floating bridge will simply be this: drive to Montlake and get in line.

The press hasn’t done a very thorough job, in my opinion, of spelling out this consequential aspect of the Governor’s latest 520 decision. But it’s a fact that the Governor came through big time for those who opposed the “wide and intrusive” Arboretum access ramps that were a feature of the Option A+ plan. The earlier Option A plan for the western approaches to SR-520 had already eliminated the existing Arboretum ramps, but the subsequent Option A+ compromise plan put new Arboretum ramps back into the mix. Now they’re out again.

So, beginning with the very first stage of the floating bridge replacement project, the westbound 520 exit to Lake Washington Boulevard will be closed. Under current construction plans, that’s expected to occur in the last quarter of 2012. And eventually, as construction moves forward in what’s anticipated to be a six-to-eight year construction project, the eastbound Lake Washington Boulevard ramp to 520 will also be demolished, along with the famous “ramps to nowhere.” Right now, that’s expected to happen sometime in late 2015.

This is a great image from Google Earth showing the Arboretum ramps which will be no more (the top is north, and the “ramps to nowhere” are marked with the largest red X and with the X immediately above that):

In announcing “the State’s preferred alternative” plan for 520 at a press conference at the UW’s Waterfront Activities Center, the Governor stated that “the State Department of Transportation heard the concerns of the neighborhoods and the City of Seattle” by creating a new design for the floating bridge and its western approaches that addresses those concerns. With regard to the elimination of the Lake Washington Boulevard ramps, the Governor said that “the purpose is to protect the Arboretum.” So score this as a one big win for the friends of the Arboretum.

For the many of us who have been using the Arboretum as a sort of gateway to and from the Eastside, however, the world will be changing in a less-comfortable way. And for those unhappy residents of Montlake: expect even more traffic to be heading in your direction. Of course, there will be that lovely new “Montlake Lid” to make things pleasant for everyone.

This is what the Montlake interchange and freeway lid look like in the proposed scheme, with the yellow routes showing 520 traffic flows from and to Lake Washington Boulevard (click to enlarge):

Some of the details are reportedly still being worked out, but basically traffic that now enters 520 in the Arboretum will under the new scenario be channeled to the intersection of E. Lake Washington Boulevard and Montlake Boulevard E., where it will (after negotiating at least one traffic light) enter a freeway entrance that loops around and under the Montlake Lid, heading eastbound. Traffic from Lake Washington Boulevard attempting to go west on 520 will apparently have to negotiate both a right turn at the same intersection with Montlake Boulevard and then make a left turn through another traffic light a block further north on that street. This is how the streets mentioned line up today:

There may be some relief for high-occupancy vehicles going eastbound on 520. They will apparently be allowed to enter the freeway by making a right turn on 24th Avenue E. from E. Lake Washington Boulevard (that’s where the bridge to the Museum of History and Industry currently crosses 520) and then they can enter the HOV lanes eastbound. Presumably the same would be true for the westbound HOV lane from 520, with an exit leading to the 24th Avenue intersection with Lake Washington Boulevard.

When all is said and done, assuming the “preferred plan” is the final plan, the Arboretum will not be a jumping off point for traffic to or from the Eastside. And a lot of the traffic that currently goes through the Arboretum before or after a 520 trip will no longer find Lake Washington Boulevard the most direct or convenient route. Anyone watching the E. Madison Street/E. Lake Washington Boulevard intersection during rush hour knows the extent to which traffic from downtown, First Hill, and Capitol Hill currently makes use of Madison Street and the Arboretum as a means of getting to and from 520. When the 520 ramps are reconfigured, however, all of this Madison traffic will benefit from turning left onto 23rd Avenue E. at the top of the hill, rather than coming down into Madison Valley for an approach to 520 through the Arboretum.

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Madison Parkers, however, as well as drivers from Denny-Blaine, Madrona, and Leschi who currently use Lake Washington Boulevard to enter or exit 520 in the Arboretum may still find that route is the shortest way to get to the Montlake entrances. But using the Arboretum for this purpose may not be possible, or it may be severely restricted. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) notes on its site that it will be working with the City of Seattle “to develop a traffic management plan for the Arboretum.” The goal? Limiting auto traffic through the Park.

So the Arboretum really came out ahead in the Governor’s new plan, while Madison Park, Madrona, Leschi , and—most spectacularly—Montlake were badly inconvenienced. Give credit to the Coalition for a Sustainable 520, the Arboretum Foundation, and the City of Seattle for the success of the Arboretum’s efforts. They all wanted the Option A+ Arboretum ramps drastically scaled back, and the Governor effectively said “Fine, no ramps at all.” The Coalition issued a statement today deploring the Governor's new plan, stating that it will channel all of the Arboretum traffic (which it estimates at 15,000 cars per day) onto 23rd Avenue E. and into Montlake. "The neighborhoods got shafted," says Coalition head Fran Conley, adding that the Governor's failure to plan for all of this new traffic in Montlake is "infuriating."

Note, however, that the timing for all of these 520 changes—including those affecting the Arboretum—is still very much in doubt. One big problem is that the money's not there. Unless another $2 billion or so of revenues is found, there will be no re-engineering of the western approaches to the new floating bridge (which does have funding). Also, delays in funding could mean that the construction schedule is pushed back. Another factor to consider is the willingness of the opponents to continue their fight in both the political and legal arenas, with changes to the Governor’s “preferred plan” a distinct possibility. In other words, this ain’t a done deal.

Nevertheless, I think we can still kiss those Arboretum ramps goodbye.

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[Graphics courtesy of SDOT, Google, and Google Earth. Photos by Tagas. For more information on the Montlake Interchange, click here.]

Contemplating Montlake

The idyllic scene illustrated above, believe it or not, is supposed to be E. Lake Washington Boulevard as it will look at some point in the future--after the new SR 520 floating bridge has been built and the new westside approaches have been installed. As you can see, there is no traffic.

That’s certainly not what that boulevard looks like today, especially during rush hour through the Arboretum. It makes one wonder what the artist may know that we don’t. The graphic is courtesy of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT); and as we’ve reported, the State’s “preferred” alternative plan for SR 520 contemplates both the removal of the Arboretum ramps to 520 and the imposition of a new “traffic management” plan for the Arboretum. The combination, apparently, will make Lake Washington Boulevard into the bucolic back road of the artist’s imagination.

Here, by the way, is what the artist imagines the scene at 24th Avenue E. and E. Lake Washington Boulevard will look like (this is the intersection where the bridge to the Museum of History and Industry now crosses 520 at Montlake). Under the “preferred” plan, HOVs may leave Lake Washington Boulevard to enter an eastbound ramp to 520 at about this point. Nevertheless, it doesn’t look like this area is expected to be too busy. Although a bus is depicted, it certainly didn’t end up in that location by coming north on Lake Washington Boulevard, since it would not have been able to navigate under the Arboretum’s low-clearance brick footbridge.

But will smaller high-occupancy vehicles be able to drive through the Arboretum to get to the 24th Avenue intersection? That’s a question that will only have an answer once all the public agencies (State, City and the University of Washington, which co-manages the Arboretum) and the Arboretum Foundation agree on a “traffic management” plan for the Arboretum, as noted by the Governor when she announced the new 520 scheme. It’s a matter of some doubt whether any non-HOV traffic will be able to drive through the Arboretum to access 520 either. Just how traffic will be restricted will soon be a topic of discussion between the various players, with a recommendation on an overall traffic mitigation strategy to go to the State Legislature no later than December 31, 2010.

In the meantime, it’s interesting to speculate on just how that new Montlake Lid and 520 interchange will work exactly, since we’re all going to have to make use of it. Eventually, Montlake will have to handle all of the current traffic that flows into the area plus all of the new traffic that will be dumped there because of the elimination of the Arboretum on and off ramps for 520.

As a starting point, WSDOT had provided me with some additional information concerning current usage of the Arboretum ramps. This graphic depicts usage of the 520 westbound exit to Lake Washington Boulevard in the Arboretum:

And this graphic shows usage of the 520 eastbound entrance:

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, Capitol Hill tops the list of peak-hour users of Lake Washington Boulevard to access and exit 520 (35% of total westbound off-ramp usage and 36% of eastbound on-ramp usage). That includes a lot of people coming down E. Madison Street and turning into the Arboretum rather than taking the more direct (but often more time-consuming) 23rd Avenue route to Montlake. First Hill and the Central Area (including Madrona) comprise the next biggest number of westbound off-ramp users. Many of these drivers are certainly bypassing the more direct route to and from their neighborhoods. Montlake residents, somewhat unexpectedly, are also big users of the Lake Washington Boulevard ramps (23% of eastbound traffic and 13% of westbound).

Madison Parkers (and residents of Denny-Blaine), meanwhile, represent only 5% of eastbound traffic and 4% of westbound traffic. But given the fact that Lake Washington Boulevard is the most direct route to 520 from our neighborhood, it is likely that almost all of Madison Park’s 520 traffic to and from the Eastside goes through the Arboretum. So next to Montlake, which is going to be on the receiving end of a lot of new 520 traffic, Madison Park may feel the biggest impact of any neighborhood when the Arboretum ramps are closed.

Quite clearly, based on this WSDOT data, many neighborhoods—including those as far south as Mt. Baker and Columbia City—are going to negatively impacted by the State’s preferred plan. And if access through the Arboretum is further curtailed, as expected, huge changes to traffic through Madison Valley and down 23rd Avenue E. are inevitable, since that route would become the main corridor for 520 traffic to and from Madison Park, Denny-Blaine, Madrona, Leschi and points south that now utilize Lake Washington Boulevard and enter the Arboretum at E. Madison Street. All of that downtown, Central District, and First Hill traffic that now heads down Madison to enter the Arboretum at Lake Washington Boulevard will in the future probably need to turn left at 23rd for the trip downhill to Montlake.

And when everyone gets to Montlake? Well, WSDOT didn’t provide any graphic of what that’s going to look like!

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Stuck with ugly?

Though their cause may ultimately prove futile (a fact admitted by our own State Senator, Ed Murray), opponents of the State’s plans for re-engineering the 520 floating bridge were out in force this morning for a news conference in the Arboretum, during which they spelled out their objections to both the proposed 30-foot high floating bridge and Plan A+ for the bridge’s west approach. A significant number of elected public officials made their voices heard at the event, including all of the 43rd District’s legislators (Representatives Jamie Pedersen and Frank Chopp, in addition to Senator Murray), City Council members Nick Licata and Mike O’Brien, and Seattle’s new mayor, Mike McGinn (shown in the photo below).

They, and the rest of the Seattle City Council, are—at minimum—on board to delaying the 520 decision-making process for about 120 days in order to look carefully at alternatives that are more mass-transit intensive than Plan A+, the option that the Legislative Work Group has proposed to the Governor and Legislature.

The public officials who were present--along with the Coalition for a Sustainable 520 (made up of the Seattle community councils most impacted by 520 and the local boating community), the Arboretum Foundation, the Cascade Bicycle Club, and the Sierra Club--want more than just a delay in the process. In essence, they would like to see a scaled back plan for 520 that does not have as wide a footprint through Portage Bay and across Foster Island, allows for no cars in the HOV lanes (only buses and, potentially, light rail), and does not include new much-wider on and off ramps in the Arboretum. They’re also not too happy with that high and ugly floating bridge that is being planned.

But in spite of their best efforts, ugly (in both its figurative and literal senses) is still a likely outcome in the opinion of many observers, including some members of the Coalition. Publicola, a Seattle political blog, sums the situation with this headline: “Seattle’s Preferred 520 Alignment Unlikely to Find Support in Olympia.” The blog argues with some persuasion that the process is too far along and the Seattle City Council too divided for the opponents of Plan A+ to get anything more than changes around the edges of the proposed 520 design. The basic idea of six lanes with two of them dedicated to HOV (car pools included) was established as the basis for all design options years ago. And no plans currently exist to bring light rail across the Lake using the 520 corridor.

Several of the politicians present referred to themselves as being in favor of construction and not obstruction. The issue, as they see it, is whether or not the new 520 will be part of an integrated and well-thought-out transit plan for the region or whether it will simply represent a short-term fix for getting more cars across the Lake more quickly. “This is a decision that is going to have a profound effect on our environment,“ said Representative Pedersen. “This is not a decision that should be entered into lightly.”

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(For previous posts on the issue of 520, click here.)

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[Upper graphic, courtesy of the Coalition for a Sustainable 520, shows a view of 520 from the lawn at Canterbury Shores with an outline of the Plan A+ configuration for that location. Graphic by Legal Media Experts Group.]

Governor announces “preferred” plan for 520: opponents not amused

The Governor’s revised configuration for SR-520, which was formally unveiled today, gives scant comfort to the opponents of the State’s initial plans for the new floating bridge and its western approaches. But it’s apparent, nonetheless, that Governor Gregoire and the State Department of Transportation (SDOT) have made limited concessions which would not have happened but for the opposition of groups such as the Coalition for a Sustainable 520 and elected officials such as Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. Some people may even feel that the new plan is an actual improvement over the old Option A+.

Here’s what’s new about the Governor’s latest “preferred alternative” for 520:

· It will be able to accommodate light rail at some future date
· It eliminates the ramps to 520 from the Arboretum
· It adds ramps to the UW for transit and HOV
· It expands the lid over 520 at Montlake and adds one near the UW
· It lowers the new floating bridge to 20 feet high at mid-span

At a news conference today, somewhere near 520, the Governor reportedly said that when it comes to major transportation issues, you can’t expect to please all of the people. Mayor McGinn is apparently one of the displeased, not buying into the Governor’s assurance that the new 520 will be light-rail ready. Fran Conley, head of the Coalition for a Sustainable 520, meanwhile, was already on record as believing that the Governor’s latest iteration “doesn’t resolve any of our basic issues.” The Coalition’s principal concerns, she says, have not been addressed. “We will still have cars coming towards Seattle with no place to go once they get here, causing constant congestion in Montlake, the Arboretum area, North Capitol Hill, and I-5. We think that we need mass transit, on dedicated lanes, to accommodate the growth of the next 50-100 years and to minimize the impact on the area.“

Of course the Governor’s announcement today is not the end of the story. Opponents vow to fight the State in the courts if necessary. And then there’s that other stumbling block: funding. Revenue sources amounting to about $2.6 billion have so far been identified to fund the project. Unfortunately, that's still about $2 billion short of total cost, based on current estimates.

Not to worry. SDOT has produced some lovely new graphics, including that idealized aerial view of the proposed floating bridge shown above (Madison Park is on the right). The middle graphic details the Montlake interchange area (note that there are still two draw bridges in the plan). And this is the view from on high:

[Graphics courtesy of SDOT. Click to enlarge. For previous postings on SR-520, click here; for the City's 520 Project Enhancement Draft Report, click here; and for SDOT's complete overview, click here.]

SR-520 Arboretum ramps finally coming down

Western exit from 520 to be replaced January 6

It's been well over five years since Madison Park first learned that the Arboretum ramps to and from the 520 floating bridge would ultimately be just a memory (see our May 2010 posting on that subject here.)  Next month, the neighborhood will begin to see the consequences, for better or worse, of this historic highway reconfiguration. The Westbound 520 exit to Lake Washington Boulevard will be permanently closed on January 5 at 11 p.m. Beginning at 5 a.m. on January 6, drivers wishing to exit 520 to head South at Montlake will need to use a new Westbound ramp to Lake Washington Boulevard, which will channel traffic onto 24th Avenue E. (as shown below):

At least initially, there will be two stops associated with this exit, one at 24th (to allow construction vehicles easier access to a staging area) and one at Lake Washington Boulevard, which will be permanent.  Drivers may turn either East or West onto the Boulevard, which will be a new four-way stop at that point.  For those interested, here's a nifty traffic animation from WSDOT showing how this will all work.

As most readers will recall, WSDOT has had its issues with the new exit ramp from 520 to Montlake Boulevard, which opened earlier this year.  WSDOT is already noting that "as drivers adjust to the new [Lake Washington Boulevard] off-ramp, WSDOT will work with the City of Seattle to monitor traffic conditions and adjust signal timing on Montlake Boulevard as needed."

Ultimately, all of the Arboretum ramps will be outta here, of course:

The contractor has already demolished part of the "Ramps to Nowhere" configuration (a remnant of the never-built R.H. Thompson Expressway) and the final removal of these unconnected ramps is expected to be completed by the end of Spring 2016, according to WSDOT.  Meanwhile, no firm date has been established for removal of the existing Eastbound entrance ramp to 520 from the Arboretum.  This will happen no earlier than the fall of 2016, though more likely in 2017.  

The Westbound ramp needed to be replaced now because it is in the path of the new SR 520 West Approach Bridge North, which will connect the three Westbound lanes of the new floating bridge with 520 in the Montlake area:

Completion of the new approach bridge is scheduled for the summer of 2017.

Bringing us up to date on 520

You might well think that there just is no stopping the State from doing what it wants to do to State Route 520.  To be sure, the project has quite a bit of forward momentum.  For example, the revisions to the Eastside portion of the highway, including the creation of two additional lanes, are well underway (that's the Bellevue Way overpass above 520 being demolished earlier this month in the photo above). Meanwhile, the State recently published its final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the I-5 to Medina portion of SR-520;  an apparently winning bid was received from a general contractor for the floating-bridge-replacement work; and the federal government weighed in with its approval of the project.  This thing is marching forward.

But while there doesn't seem to have been much press coverage of the fact, the opponents of the State's plans have by no means rolled over.  In fact, just this month the Coalition for a Sustainable 520 filed a federal lawsuit over the FEIS in which it asks the court to "declare that the defendants' actions as set forth in this Complaint are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, not in accordance with law, not supported by substantial evidence, and without observance of procedures required by law, and therefore must be set aside."  The defendants are both the federal and State governments, so this is pretty strong stuff.

The State still thinks the whole replace-the-bridge program is a fine idea, it still doesn't have anywhere close to the money needed to complete the project, and the opponents are still up in arms.  Oh, and the tolling that was supposed to begin on the floating bridge during the spring?  Maybe next year. That pretty much covers the 520 story since our last posting on the subject.  Consider yourselves up to date.

Tomorrow, you will have your chance to weigh in on "the urban design of the new corridor." That's the currently unfunded portion of the new 520, everything between Foster Island and I-5, including the new Montlake "interchange" and freeway lid.  From 9 AM until noon there will be a presentation of the "Seattle Community Design Process" and an opportunity to "meet" (and presumably talk to) the SR 520 design team.  The session will be held in Mary Gates Hall at the University of Washington (south of Suzzallo Library, north of Drumheller Fountain, for those familiar with the campus layout).

[Photo courtesy of the Washington State Department of Transportation, whose website for the SR 520 Bridge Replacement and HOV Program can be found here.]

520: where to from here?

It’s been a pretty eventful week since the opponents of the State’s current SR 520 plan held their press conference in the Arboretum last Monday. For those who haven’t been paying close attention to the issue, here’s a summary of what’s been happening, as well as a brief look ahead:

As you may recall, the opponents--including all of our 43rd District legislators, the Mayor, two City Council members, and a coalition of the immediately affected Seattle neighborhoods—are opposed both to the Option A+ design for the Westside approaches and to the design of the high-and-wide floating bridge that the State is planning to build, beginning in 2012. Fran Conley, coordinator of the Coalition for a Sustainable 520, summed the opponents’ views by arguing that the State should not be designing a transportation system for the 21st Century while using the outmoded transportation concepts of the 1950s. Opponents want a delay to the process and a redesign of the project that allows for only high-density transit (buses and potentially light rail) in the two addition lanes which will be added to the 520 corridor. And they want the height of the new floating bridge (currently designed to rise 30 feet above the water line) lowered significantly.

The opponents got a fair amount of publicity for their position during the week--as well as an immediate reaction from Governor Gregoire, who issued a statement declaring that delay and redesign of 520 were unacceptable. "Changing the configuration now would require a new environmental process,” she wrote. “The office of the Attorney General tells us that revising these decisions from several years ago would set the project back at least 18 to 24 months. Our commitment to ensuring public safety does not allow that kind of delay."

Eastside legislative and city officials then piled on, telling the media that the issue of 520 has been studied for many years and that the six-lane concept advocated by the state’s Department of Transportation (WSDOT) must move forward without delay. At this point, leaders of the transportation committees in the state legislature added their voices to the no-delay chorus. Finally, as if to add insult to injury, five members of the Seattle City Council (who just days earlier had signed a letter to the Governor asking for delay), stood shoulder to shoulder with the Eastside public officials to voice their opposition to delay. Mayor McGinn, for one, found their about face confounding.

All of this might lead you to believe that the opponents would be packing it in and licking their wounds. But not so. I talked to Fran Conley today (that’s Fran in the photo below, taken at last Monday’s press conference), and she actually believes that the anti Coalition is gaining momentum.

“For one thing,” she said, “we are raising awareness.” She noted that the lack of leadership by Seattle's ex-mayor, Greg Nichols, was devastating to the process, which has been very influenced by those suburban politicians who have taken a leadership role. The citizens of Seattle have not been represented and have not been informed, she believes. This is changing.

Though she hopes for a quick resolution though the political process which will result in a new 520 design, she noted that there is another option which might prove necessary. “We are hoping to avoid legal action,” she told me, “but we have funding and we have hired a lawyer.” I asked her if she envisions a legal battle like the one that Mercer Island residents waged against I-90 in the last century. She’s hoping it doesn’t come to anything like that, she said, but she nevertheless sounded determined to do what's necessary to stop the State from building the six-lane 520 as currently proposed.

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Next up on the agenda is the Coalition's response to the supplemental draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project issued last month by WSDOT. Public comments are being accepted through March 8, and the Governor has stated her intent to approve the configuration for 520 by the end of April. It's anticipated that the EIS will be finalized by the end of the year. If it is accepted, if the Governor approves the design, and if the legislature funds the program, court action may be the only recourse for the opponents.

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But at least one thing is clear about the process: it ain't over.

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[Graphic above, taken from the supplemental draft EIS by WSDOT, shows the height of the new floating bridge relative to the old bridge.]

Foes of the new 520 dig in

From the point of view of the State’s elected officials, it’s a done deal: the SR-520 floating bridge and its approaches will be replaced using the “preferred alternative” plan approved last year by the Governor. Although construction on the new bridge itself will not begin until next year, pontoon construction is already getting underway in Aberdeen, and construction is scheduled to begin next month on an SR-520 expansion project that will create a six-lane highway from Medina to Bellevue to better connect the new six-lane floating bridge to the Eastside.  And even though the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project has yet to be finalized, the State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is already conducting over-water fieldwork and on-land test drilling in preparation for construction of the new bridge.

In spite of all this “full speed ahead” activity on the part of State officialdom, however, the opponents of the “preferred alternative” have definitely not given up the fight.  In fact, with their other options becoming increasingly limited, the foes of the new bridge are girding themselves for the possibility of taking their case to court.  “We would still love to avoid a lawsuit,” says Fran Conley, leader of the Coalition for a Sustainable SR 520, “but it looks like we are heading that way.”

Conley states that there are several potential legal challenges that the opponents may pursue, including ones based upon the State’s supposed failure to adequately measure the traffic impact of the new bridge on the surrounding communities, the effect of construction on the environment, and the impact of the new bridge on open spaces and on water spaces. She says that both State and Federal laws govern these issues, none of which has been adequately addressed by the draft EIS.

Additionally, she notes, the draft EIS does not provide an analysis of two important factors: 1) the effect of having tolls on the floating bridge, and 2) the possibility of using the two additional traffic lanes (5 & 6) for busses only or for busses and eventual light rail only.  Both these things, she says, need to be studied.

In its literature, the group’s case against the “preferred alternative” plan is succinctly argued: “The state plans to spend money it doesn’t have to expand 520 in a way that doesn’t solve traffic problems and blights our historic communities.”  That’s a pretty comprehensive condemnation of a project that appears well underway, with construction bids for the floating bridge portion due to WSDOT by June 8.

The State, for its part, stresses theses positive aspects of the project: the replacement of a seismically unsafe floating bridge with one that can withstand both earthquakes and windstorms, the addition of a transit/HOV lane in each direction (as well as a bicycle/pedestrian path) across the new bridge, wider and safer traffic lanes, and the capacity of the new bridge to accommodate light rail at some point in the future.

We have given a significant amount of coverage on this blog to the issues surrounding the “preferred alternative” plan for the new bridge. Our previous postings have highlighted these salient facts: 1) the Arboretum on and off ramps to 520 will be eliminated, 2) the new bridge will be much higher, wider, and imposing than the existing bridge, and 3) funds do not currently exist to pay for the planned western approaches to the bridge. 

WSDOT has yet to produce a graphic showing the new floating bridge from a side view, as we would see it from Madison Park.  Opponents believe this is because the bridge will look pretty big and ugly from the water side.  This view, which comes from a WSDOT simulation, shows the projecting pontoons at the sides of the bridge.  These pontoons may extend nine feet above water level, and the bridge itself is expected to extend at least another 11 feet above that.

The purpose of this posting, however, is not to rehash any of those issues or to provide a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of the bridge project.  Rather, we are alerting our readership to the fact that both the opponents and proponents have upcoming information sessions where you can judge for yourselves whether this construction project is going to be, on the whole, a good thing or something less than that.

The State has been sponsoring “outreach sessions” to address citizen concerns and answer questions about the project.  The next such session will be held today, March 30, 5 to 7 pm, at Voxx Coffee in Eastlake (2245 Eastlake Ave. E.).  Information from WSDOT about the SR-520 bridge replacement project is available here. 

The Coalition for a Sustainable 520, meanwhile, will be holding a meeting at Park Place Deli (4122 E. Madison St.) on Saturday, April 2 at 9 am to inform Madison Parkers about their concerns surrounding the bridge project.  Information about the Coalition’s positions is available here.  The Madison Park Community Council, which is a member of the Coalition, is a co-sponsor of the session.  On Monday, April 4, Tom Rasmussen, Chair of the City Council's Transportation Committee, will be on hand at the regular meeting of the Madison Park Community Council (7 pm at the Bathhouse) to discuss the 520 situation.  The meeting is open to the public.

And so it begins: initial work on the new SR 520 is officially underway

I received a press release last week from WSDOT (the Washington State Department of Transportation) reporting that field work has begun for the new SR 520 floating bridge. If you’ve looked across the Lake or driven over 520 recently, you’ve probably noticed the large barge crane that’s been moored alongside the floating bridge for the last several weeks. That crane has been involved in a project replacing pontoon cables. The arrival last week of the barge pictured above, however, presaged work on the new bridge, which officially started on Friday.

This barge is the first of several that will be involved in “field work” to study the lakebed in places where support columns and anchors will be placed for the new bridge. Drill rigs on the barges will explore 40 separate locations alongside the floating bridge, taking borings to a depth of up to 100 feet beneath the bottom of the Lake. The results of the bore sampling will then be shared with the design teams working on plans for the new bridge. To quote WSDOT, “Smaller efforts were conducted previously on the preliminary anchor design. This more robust geotechnical work allows WSDOT to advance the design of the anchors prior to issuing the contract documents for the floating bridge.”

It’s been some time since we last did a posting regarding plans for the new 520, so perhaps the beginning of actual work on the project is a good time for an update. Let’s start with the opponents. They remain opposed to the Governor’s “Preferred Alternative” and are currently up in arms about a recent graphic from WSDOT which shows the bridge terminating at our end of the Lake with an “Interim West Approach bridge and bicycle/pedestrian connection.”

Larry Kyle, Program Engineering Manager for the SR 520 Bridge Replacement and HOV Program has provided this explanation: “Per the legislature’s authorization and funding, the project is limited to replacement of the floating bridge and the connections to SR 520 at either end of the floating bridge. At the eastern shore of Lake Washington, it will tie into the SR 520 alignment just east of the new approach structure approximately at the Evergreen Point overcrossing. At the west end, it will connect the transition span at the end of the floating bridge with the existing west approach north of Madison Park.” In other words, there’s no money appropriated or identified at this point to do anything with the western approach to the new floating bridge other than to create in the water just north of us an interim connector to the old approach. One opponent’s reaction to the new schematic: “Laurelhurst and Madison Park will have years of extra trauma” as a result of WSDOT’s plans.

WSDOT, meanwhile, recently posted a spiffy new video on YouTube of the “Preferred Alternative” for the western approach which will be constructed when funding becomes available. Although the computer-generated graphics show cars traveling over the bridge west to east and provide dramatic aerial side shots the Portage Bay section of the new 520, conspicuously absent are any side shots of the floating bridge itself as it crosses Lake Washington. Take a look here.

I suspect I'm not the only one wondering what WSDOT's reason might be for not showing us what the bridge looks like from the side view.

[This, by the way, is the 250th posting in the 17-month history of Madison Park Blogger.]

Floating bridge closed (again) this weekend

Apparently the installation of a fish-passage culvert under the 520 floating bridge is more than a one-weekend operation.  When the bridge was closed for a weekend in June, that was one of the reasons given.  It's one of the reasons for this weekend's closure as well.  That and the need for inspection and repairs "to the aging SR 520 floating bridge to make sure it will continue to carry traffic safely through winter weather," in the words of the WSDOT press release.

The upcoming closure, which will begin at 11 pm on Friday night and end at 5 am on Monday morning, will involve traffic in both directions of SR 520, with all ramps between Montlake Boulevard and I-405 closed.  SR 520 will remain open between Montlake Boulevard and I-5. The Montlake Boulevard exit ramp from SR 520 will remain open during the highway closure, and anyone still driving on SR 520 at that point will just have to exit the highway.

And this ain't the end of it.  Here's the official word from WSDOT: "We are planning several more complete weekend closures of SR 520 in 2011 to demolish overcrossings, set girders, install more fish passage culverts, and complete other work."  

Don't say we didn't warn you.

[Photo by PG Svensk on Flickr. Details on WSDOT's SR-520 closure plans are available here.]

The new 520 pounds its way across the Lake

Madison Parkers give bridge the stink eye

There’s literally been a lot of water under the bridge since we last wrote about the floating-bridge project.  Some of that water, unfortunately, was in the new pontoons. That design-related problem has supposedly been fixed, though at a whopping cost. WSDOT reported earlier this year that an additional $208 million will be needed to cover the cost overruns associated with repairs to the four leaky pontoons that were already on the Lake and design changes to the pontoons that were yet to be produced.  That uses up the project’s remaining reserve fund, initially pegged at $250 million. Meanwhile, the timetable for completion of the floating-bridge portion of the project has been delayed by nine months.  If the bridge is completed before spring 2016 it will be a miracle.  It was originally supposed to be drivable by July 2015.

Even when the floating bridge is completed, it will not be the end of the new 520’s woes. The southern, eastbound half of the Western Approach (that’s the two fixed bridges to be built between Montlake and the start of the floating bridge) still awaits funding, as does as the section of the roadway that will connect Interstate 5 to the two Western Approach bridges (one for eastbound and one for westbound traffic).  The northern, westbound approach bridge is funded, with construction to begin later this summer.

As a result of delays and design changes, both taxpayers and bridge users will, one way or another, be paying a lot more for the privilege--and other road projects will be denuded of funding (but thereby be developed more efficiently, in the words of the WSDOT press office).  Meanwhile, the legislature has apparently given up on trying to pass an omnibus transportation bill for the near term, WSDOT dysfunction providing a handy cover for the legislators’ inaction.  So there’ve been and will continue to be big implications resulting from the 520 screw-ups.

Many in Madison Park, of course, have more parochial reasons for being upset with WSDOT.  The local media has done several stories on how residents here are dealing with the noise and vibrations of 520 pile driving (apparently, not well).  That constant pounding!  And at all hours of the day and into the night--even on weekends!  More distressingly, at both the Canterbury Shores condo building and the Edgewater Apartments residents report that cracks have appeared that are possibly due to 520 construction.  It’s not clear at this point whether these problems are merely cosmetic or have structural significance.  The State will investigate (and, if necessary, compensate) once the project ends, according to WSDOT.

The near-term good news is that the pounding has apparently stopped for a while. According to a WSDOT spokesperson, pile driving related to the West Connection Bridge ended in early March, though pile removal has been underway since that time--and that, too, “can cause noise and vibration, but not nearly as much as pile installation does.”

The pilings in question were only temporary and were placed there to aid the construction of that portion of the highway that will connect the new floating bridge with the old Western Approach. This new West Connection Bridge (shown in the photos above and immediately below) is a necessity because the new floating bridge will need to channel traffic onto the old highway while the new westbound West Approach Bridge North is being constructed, along with the fact that since there’s no funding yet for the new 520's permanent, eastbound approach bridge to the west of that point (Pier 36). We’re talking about the area just off the northern shore of Madison Park.

Construction on this 1,330 foot connector bridge began last summer and will be completed in the fall of this year.  This graphic shows the progress of construction:

(click to enlarge)

The twelve piers, shown in green, are all completed, and the roadway above is now being constructed.  Pier 36 will connect directly to the new floating bridge when completed.

Also on the subject of construction progress, here’s a graphic showing the status the 77-pontoon floating structure of 520:

(click to enlarge)

As noted, there are 32 pontoons on Lake Washington.  Some of these are anchored (those shown in dark green) some are sitting on the Lake temporarily moored (light green), and some are either under construction (orange), pending transit (yellow) or yet to be built (white).  And then there’s Pontoon U, the one shown in dark green with the orange cross hatching.  That’s the remaining problem pontoon that is now being repaired.  Work on that began in early March and should be completed by the end of spring.  After that point, in theory at least, water should only be going under and around the new bridge and not literally into it.

Pontoons parked north of Madison Park

WSDOT’s 520 bridge director, Julie Meredith, reported last month that the new floating bridge is halfway to completion, with 46 pontoons produced to date and all of the bridge’s 766 concrete deck panels for the bridge's low-rise section scheduled to be out of their Kenmore production facility by fall 2015.  And with completion of the West Connection Bridge on the near horizon, it’s just possible that from the standpoint of noise, vibration, and other intrusions the worst will soon be over for Madison Parkers.

Or perhaps not.  WSDOT will begin construction of the westbound West Approach Bridge North project this summer.

Many Madison Parkers haven't enjoyed the 520 nighttime work

[All photos courtesy of WSDOT.]

The new 520: What are they thinking?

When he was a newly-minted, wet-behind-the-ears civil engineer employed by Seattle’s public works department, former Washington Governor Daniel Evans worked on the Alaskan Way Viaduct project. That gray monolithic artery is now, of course, regarded as such a monstrosity and egregious planning error that it naturally raises the question: “What were they thinking?”

That very question was recently put to the former Governor by an enterprising KPLU reporter when she interviewed Evans about his support for the Viaduct replacement tunnel. His matter-of-fact response was that what they were thinking about was solving a problem: getting traffic moved through Seattle quickly in the absence of any alternative road (I-5 was not built through downtown until more than a decade later). According to Evans, the engineers and public officials working on the project were focused on getting the job done (which they accomplished) and he can’t remember anyone complaining about the waterfront location, which he describes as having been a blighted area.

Flash forward more than a half century and we now have another civil engineering dilemma: how to safely meet the cross-Lake transportation needs of our growing community. Are we getting ready to repeat the mistakes that were made with the Alaskan Way Viaduct? Will residents of Seattle and the Eastside be asking “What were they thinking?” sixty years from now?

According to the opponents, that question will not have to await the verdict of future generations—at least not if the proposed Option A+ is implemented without revision. It will be obvious as soon as the thing is put in place, they say, that this was a tragic blunder—a project wasting of billions of dollars while incurring environmental havoc, creating visual blight, and not even solving the basic transportation problems the new 520 is supposedly designed to ameliorate.

Sounds harsh, but there you have it in a nutshell: the main objections to Option A+. If you’re interested, however, in the rationale in favor of the plan, you can check out the State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) website, which has the complete supplemental draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for Option A+ available here. I’ve read it--or, rather, its 66-page executive summary—so that you don’t have to wade through it unless you are so inclined.

But first, some background.

If you’re like me, you probably haven’t been paying that much attention to the fact that the 520 bridge, which opened in 1963, is nearing the end of its useful life. WSDOT gives the bridge 10 to 15 more years. The need for a replacement is based both on the bridge’s structural insufficiency and the growing transportation needs of the region. It was designed to accommodate 65,000 daily vehicles when it opened and is now estimated to be handling over 115,000 vehicles per day. As we all know, it is often clogged with traffic. Additionally, the bridge is potentially unsafe in high winds and is subject to possible collapse during an earthquake (as graphically portrayed in this WSDOT simulation). I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the bridge should not be replaced. The issue is: with what?

The State, in conjunction with the Federal Highway Administration, plans to replace it with a new bridge that will be located 190 feet north of the existing structure. Construction on the floating bridge portion of the project is scheduled to begin in 2012 and be completed in 2014. The remaining changes to 520 would be completed—if they are funded and the project remains on schedule—by 2018. That’s six years of construction or more, principally impacting the Montlake neighborhood.

The cost of the project, which includes a new interchange at Montlake and a new bridge approach through Portage Bay and over Foster Island, is estimated at between $4.5 and $4.8 billion dollars, with $4.65 billion budgeted to date. The State has yet to identify how it will meet the anticipated $2.66 billion difference between funding sources (including tolls) and the total cost of the highway project.

Although the recently released supplemental draft EIS reviews three possible configurations for the project, a Legislative Work Group has already recommended to the Governor and Legislature that Plan A+ be adopted. As noted in a previous posting, this plan involves a second drawbridge at Montlake and a six-lane floating bridge.

As laid out in the EIS, here are the advantages of this bridge design (in addition, of course, to making the bridge structurally safe):

· The addition to two HOV lanes will reduce or eliminate congestion

· Landscape lids over portions of the highway will “reconnect neighborhoods”

· Pedestrians and cyclists will be able to cross the Lake on new pathways

· Stormwater treatment facilities will be installed for the first time

· Greeenhouse gas omissions will be reduced due to less standing on roadway.

The EIS summarizes the history of the planning process for the bridge, noting that both a four-lane and an eight-lane alternative had been considered. The four-lane replacement was rejected because it would not meet the goal of improving traffic flow. The eight-lane option, meanwhile, was considered impractical in terms of connections to both I-5 and I-405.

Here are some of the principal downsides of the new bridge, as identified in the EIS:

· The Montlake freeway transit station is eliminated, forcing riders to change current travel routes

· Tolling, which will be electronic, will force a hardship on those with low incomes (tolling on 520 will begin in 2011, before the new bridge is even under construction)

· Parkland will be eliminated (5.5 acres or more) due to the larger footprint of 520

· “Visual quality” will be impacted (though the report does not actually say negatively)

· Traffic noise is expected to increase in some areas, even if noise-abatement walls or “quiet asphalt” are installed

· Some wetlands will be filled in and other wetlands will be shaded

· A sockeye salmon spawning area will potentially be eliminated

· Fishing areas utilized by the Muckelshoot Indian Tribe may be adversely impacted

· Vessels over 70 feet high will no longer be able to pass through the bridge due to elimination of the draw span

· Changes to the west approach to the bridge will affect the experience of boaters and park users in the Arboretum.

With surprising understatement, the EIS notes that “broad public and political consensus has not been reached in support of this (Option A+) recommendation.”

That’s for sure. Fran Conley, coordinator of the Coalition for a Sustainable SR 520, has this to say about the WSDOT’s efforts: "It is now clear that the intention is to build a highway looking back into the 20th century instead of a transportation system for the 21st century. After years of working cooperatively with the state, all of our communities are now unalterably opposed to the current proposals." The representative of the Roanoke Park/Portage Bay community, Ted Lane, goes further, stating “this process has been a charade.” And Madison Park's representative to the Coalition, Maurice Cooper, calls the new floating bridge design "that prison wall across the Lake."

The Coalition objects to many of WSDOT’s assumptions about the bridge replacement, including the idea that a safety fix could not be undertaken on the existing bridge at an economical cost. But the biggest issues for opponents are the doubling of the width of the bridge corridor, the addition of a second drawbridge at Montlake (rather than a tunnel), and the “unnecessary” height and profile of both the Westside approach and the new floating bridge itself.

The Coalition notes that the proposed new bridge is actually almost 150% wider than the old bridge, sits 30 feet above the water across Lake Washington (“as tall as a three-story building”), and does not properly incorporate mass-transit options into the mix. As noted in an article in the Seattle Times today, opponents of Option A+ are now pushing for the new HOV lanes to be used by buses only or for a shared bus-rail corridor. In other words, the State should not be encouraging more car use on the revamped bridge but focus rather on mass-transit options.

With regard to the visual impact of the floating bridge itself, the Coalition states that the height can be reduced without negatively impacting the integrity of the structure. Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond is quoted in the Times’ article as saying that WSDOT engineers are now looking at ways to cut the bridge height to 20 feet.

Why a higher bridge was ever thought necessary was not addressed by Hammond, however. And it may well be that the engineers, just as in Dan Evans' day, simply designed the new bridge with utility rather than aesthetics in mind. In the case of 520, the goals were to have the new bridge be high enough to keep waves from blowing onto the roadway while still allowing room for worker access to the brdige deck from underneath. Now, apparently as a result of public criticism, the engineers are back at their drawing boards. It raises the question: what other changes are possible to WSDOT’s current plans as a result of public pressure?

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I guess we’ll find out.

Here are some ways you can give input to the process during the comment period, which ends March 8: 1) you can comment by mail to Jenifer Young, Environmental Manager, SR 520 Project Office, 600 Stewart Street, Suite 520, Seattle, WA 98101, 2) you can email your comments to SR520Bridge_SDEIS@wsdot.wa.gov, or 3) you can comment online here.

You can also attend the Environmental Hearing and Public Open House which will be held February 23 at the Lake Union Naval Reserve Building (860 Terry Avenue N.) from 5 to 7pm.

Meanwhile, the City Council has just gone on record asking for a 120-day delay in the decision-making process, and opponents of Option A+ and “the massive high bridge across the Lake” have scheduled a press conference for Monday morning at which they will be presenting their position. City and State politicians are expected to be in attendance. The event will be held at the intersection of East Miller Street and Lake Washington Boulevard East, in the green space immediately north of the parking lot (near the "ramps to nowhere"), just south of 520 where the Arboretum and Montlake join. The Coalition requests that opponents turn out for the press conference to show their solidarity.

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[Upper photo: SR 520 at Foster Island from Google Earth 2009. Middle graphic: configuration of new floating bridge from WSDOT. Lower graphic: configuration of Option A+ showing interchanges and western approach from WSDOT.]

Arboretum seeks big-time reduction in traffic

“Traffic calming” coming soon to a road near you!

If the Arboretum gets its way, the number of cars using Lake Washington Boulevard to transit the Park each day will be reduced by as much as 80%. And when it comes to traffic mitigation, what the Arboretum wants, the Arboretum may very well get. Frankly, the Park’s recent track record on this issue, though not widely heralded, has been pretty impressive.

Among the various constituencies of the Coalition for a Sustainable 520 (that amalgam of interested communities and interest groups, which includes Madison Park’s community council), the Arboretum was, in fact, the only immediate winner when the Governor last spring announced her new “Preferred Alternative” for 520. Rejecting the previous Option A+ Plan crafted by a legislative workgroup, the Governor eliminated the Arboretum on/off ramps from the design for the west-side approach to the new floating bridge. This, as we earlier reported, means that there will be no Arboretum off ramp from 520 beginning in 2012 (based on the current construction schedule) and no Arboretum on ramp to 520 beginning in 2015. The permanent elimination of the on/off ramps was what the Arboretum had argued for—and it’s what the Arboretum achieved.

But that’s hardly the end of the story. The Governor also mandated that the State Department of Transportation work with the City and the Arboretum to develop a “traffic management plan” that reduces the impact of cars on the Park. That’s something else the Arboretum wanted and got.

But what exactly does “traffic management” of Lake Washington Boulevard mean? I went right to the top to find out. In a narrow-ranging interview with Arboretum Foundation Director Paige Miller earlier this summer, I asked her what ideas were being debated for re-routing traffic and what kind of process will take place for developing a new traffic plan for the Arboretum.

But first, a word about Miller. She’s an attorney (Yale Law), former Seattle Port Commissioner, and one-time candidate for the Seattle City Council. She became executive director of the Arboretum Foundation three years ago. She has the reputation of being very smart and politically astute. Though she is modest about her role in the Arboretum’s recent success with the Governor ("It was a tremendous effort of a lot of people concerned about protecting the Arboretum") it’s pretty clear that the Arboretum’s cause has been advanced significantly by having Miller leading the parade.

With regard to the Arboretum’s traffic reduction objective, Miller did not mince words: “Our goal is to slow down traffic and discourage people from using the Arboretum as a through route.” And where will the traffic that now uses the Arboretum go? Miller is clear on that as well: “People should be encouraged to use 23rd Avenue E., which is a four-lane City arterial street and not an Olmsted Boulevard.” Her Olmsted reference, which is perhaps a bit obscure to some, comes from the fact that the City’s boulevards—developed in the early 1900s by the Olmsted Brothers—were intended to be parkways linking the City’s parks. When they were designed and built they were not intended to be major conveyors of through-traffic. But in the case of Lake Washington Boulevard, at least in its Arboretum portion, that’s exactly what it has become.

The City estimates that 18,000 cars drive through the Arboretum on average each day. Of these, according to Miller, about 10,000 vehicles access the 520 on or off ramps. She notes that the Boulevard—which was designed to handle only 4,000 cars per day—is only a two-lane road, while the four-lane arterial through Montlake also processes about 20,000 cars on average per day. By implication, improvements to 23rd and 24th Avenues E. could easily increase access to Montlake. To keep people from using the Arboretum in order to enter or exit 520, “we need to make sure that the logical route is to turn at 23rd,” Miller told me. “The Montlake Corridor ought to have the capacity of taking more cars than the Arboretum does.”

In order to encourage that northbound turn off of E. Madison Street and onto 23rd, Miller proposes to make the left-turn light there longer and to have the City lengthen the turn lane to accommodate more cars. Miller also wants the City to investigate ways to improve bus usage in that corridor.

But there are other ways of discouraging Arboretum use which are also under serious discussion. Miller prefers to call these “traffic calming measures” rather than traffic management schemes, but here are the major ones:

--putting a toll on cars using the Arboretum to access 520

--reducing speed limits through the Arboretum

--increasing the number of pedestrian crossings

--introducing speed monitors to tell drivers their cars’ speed

--placing a stop sign at the Boyer Avenue intersection

Miller says that no decisions have been made, but the planning process is underway. She believes that the Arboretum and Botanical Garden Committee (ABGC) has been given jurisdiction by the State to develop the traffic plan for the Arboretum. The ABGC is composed of the Arboretum Foundation, Seattle Parks Department, and the University of Washington, and it jointly operates the Arboretum. The ABGC will be meeting this week (on Wednesday, August 18 from 8:00 am until 12:00 pm in the Graham Visitors Center in the Arboretum), and one of the items on the agenda will be “traffic calming and management in the Arboretum.” That discussion is expected to get started at about 9:30 and last for around 90 minutes, for those interested in attending.

Just to put the issue into perspective for those of us who use the Arboretum for something other than nature viewing, note that Miller is on record testifying to the Seattle City Council in April that the Arboretum would like to see the number of cars coming through the Park each day limited to about 4,000. That’s an almost 80% reduction from the estimated level of traffic flowing through the Arboretum today. To get to that number, a lot of cars are clearly going to have to go somewhere else—or not go at all.

Miller certainly is not apologetic about what she admits might be an unobtainable ideal. “You have to have a goal,” she told me. “Lake Washington Boulevard was meant to be a leisurely parkway and not a long on and off ramp for 520.” On her watch, she said, she intends to fight for the Arboretum as the urban oasis it was intended to be, not a place that’s convenient for people to “just zip through.”

[Lower photo: cars queue up eastbound on E. Madison Street at Lake Washington Boulevard to turn into the Arboretum on a late summer afternoon. Many if not most are heading for the 520 on ramp to the Eastside.]

Two chances to weigh in on 520

Opponents of the State’s plans for the new SR 520 floating bridge think they may have come up with a ‘smoking gun’ buried in an appendix to the supplemental draft environmental statement (EIS) that the Department of Transportation (WSDOT) recently filed. They claim that while the bridge is being publicly touted as a six-lane affair (two car lanes and one high-occupancy vehicle lane in each direction), WSDOT’s real plan is to build a bridge wide enough to eventually accommodate eight or even ten total lanes. They base their claim on this diagram for the “West Transition Spans” which WSDOT included in the EIS:

According to the Coalition for a Sustainable 520, the illustration shows that the bridge pontoons will be significantly wider than necessary just to accommodate the six lanes legally authorized. Opponents note that WSDOT worksheets show that the pontoons will be 240 feet wide at some points, roughly four times as wide as the current bridge.

Whether WSDOT has a stealth plan or not may become a subject of debate at the upcoming SR 520 Environmental Hearing and Public Open House, which will be hosted by WSDOT this Tuesday, February 23, at the Lake Union Naval Reserve Building (860 Terry Avenue N.) from 5 to 7pm. It’s an opportunity for the public to give input on the State’s 520 plans, including Option A+ for the Westside approaches.

Another way to provide input is to attend a town hall meeting this Saturday with the 43rd District’s three legislators: Senator Ed Murray, Representative (and House Speaker) Frank Chopp , and Representative Jamie Pedersen. The meeting will be held from 1:30 until 3 pm at the Seattle First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Avenue (at Seneca Street, up the hill from the Polyclinic).

Our entire delegation, by the way, is already on record as against both Option A+ and the plan for a high-and-wide floating bridge. This is more than can be said for the delegation from the 46th District (which includes Laurelhurst).

[For more background on 520 and for information on how to formalize your input on the State’s plans, click here for all the Madison Park Blogger postings on the subject. Note that the top graphic, courtesy of WSDOT, shows the west approach to 520 under Option A. Option A+ includes on and off ramps from Lake Washington Boulevard, as well as an HOV connection from Montlake Boulevard.]