No progress at ICW and Merrimount
February 4, 2009 · Updated 10:59 AM
I was one of the people selected to represent our community on the Citizen Board for the Island Crest Way reconfiguration project, set up after the City Council received a flood of citizen input regarding the “road diet” for our main arterial connection to the Eastside and Seattle, viz. Island Crest Way. At our final meeting on Thursday, Jan. 29, I was disappointed that the Council has elected to go ahead with the narrowing of the road option (making ICW effectively a two-lane road with a center turn lane until just past the Merrimount intersection), which is exactly where we started back in November.
The citizen panel voted to dispense with the idea of a traffic light at the Merrimount/44th Street intersection, which — though the most expensive option — fulfills the primary purpose of making the intersection safe, and focus on the road diet, which in my opinion, does not make the intersection any safer than it is now.
I do not support this “road diet” at all and want it to be known I think that anything less than a pad-controlled traffic light at this — the most dangerous intersection on the Island — is a waste of our money.
Deborah Ehlers
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