← Back to City Council Digest

City Council Mobility & Infrastructure Committee Auto captions

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

6:30 PM · Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
Topic tracked across meetings:
Sunset Way Landslide and Utility Improvements (TR061) Project AB 9143 1/2
3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
3a
Approval of minutes of July 12, 2022
packet pp.5–6
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES a) 07-12-22 City Council Mobility & Infrastructure Page (0000) Committee Minutes CITY OF ISSAQUAH City Council Mobility & Infrastructure Committee 6:30 PM Council Chambers, 135 E. July 12, 2022 MINUTES Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
4. AGENDA ITEMS
4a
Newport Way Maple to Sunset Improvements, Corridor Concept ID 1197
45 min · Shuo Wang, Senior Engineer, Public Works John Mortenson, Transportation Engineering Manager, Public Works · packet pp.7–130
Topics: Transportation
Staff report:
The Administration recommends the Mobility and Infrastructure Committee to approve the Newport Way final design concept and recommend City Council adopt the final design concept at the September 6th regular meeting.
0:00 video people know we're ready to go
0:04 olin are we ready
0:10 great good evening
0:12 welcome everyone i'm councilmember joe
0:14 and welcome to the august 9th mobility
0:17 and infrastructure meeting i'll call the
0:18 main order at 6 30.
0:21 the first thing on the agenda is public
0:23 comment
0:24 and so
0:27 per our normal
0:29 standard i've got to read that members
0:30 of the public may address
0:32 this committee at any time in person or
0:34 virtually those who signed up in advance
0:37 to make comments will be called on first
0:39 if you're joining us virtually and would
0:40 like to make comments please raise your
0:42 hand
0:43 if you're on the phone that probably
0:45 requires you to press star three
0:47 if you're joined by a computer or
0:49 smartphone look for the hand icon this
0:51 varies by device
0:53 one option may be go may be to go to the
0:55 participant panel and choose the raise
0:57 hand icon on the lower right hand corner
1:00 if you're in the room did not sign up
1:01 i'll ask for other speakers before
1:03 closing this portion of the meeting
1:05 i'll wait a moment to see if anyone
1:07 wishes to raise their hand
1:10 i see connie marsh you want to go ahead
1:12 and come on up to the
1:14 lectern and
1:15 identify yourself and you have five
1:17 minutes
1:21 okay i'm connie marsh and i live up on
1:23 squawk and
1:24 my understanding from the agenda is that
1:26 we also get to speak after the questions
1:29 of the of the main things so uh what i
1:32 wanted to talk about initially is the
1:35 concept of a pedestrian grid in flatland
1:39 issaquah which
1:41 newport way borders that and
1:45 we are creating a grid structure in our
1:48 development but at this point in time we
1:50 haven't really found a way to get people
1:52 across the street so that they can
1:55 actually travel distances easily in this
1:59 grid system so when i imagine
2:02 our central esqua area which is somewhat
2:04 bounded by newport way
2:06 i expect that we'll actually be able to
2:08 get across newport way along with that
2:11 same basic 250
2:13 foot
2:14 grid and that it is going to become of
2:17 our highly part of our highly mobile
2:21 system and we're going to have
2:22 businesses potentially along that area
2:25 that can
2:26 thrive because it has an extra layer of
2:29 way of people to get to their businesses
2:32 right so
2:33 we do have a a you're going to ignore
2:36 what this is but this is a development
2:38 that is a proposed development that
2:41 shows a sketch of a roundabout
2:45 on newport way and i was
2:48 sort of fascinated and stunned to see
2:51 what this might do to impact existing
2:53 businesses because it's not very
2:55 personal when you look at a a just a
2:57 configuration of a road so i brought
3:01 this little map and i'm going to fold it
3:03 over and i wanted to hand that to you
3:05 before this discussion um began to sort
3:09 of give a better three-dimensional
3:11 glimpse of what life might look like
3:14 for
3:15 for people on newport way in the future
3:17 thank you the map will be marked as
3:19 exhibit a
3:22 people
3:30 i'll make sure the clerk gets the copy
3:32 of it yes cody can i have a copy please
3:37 very good
3:46 all right thank you
3:48 any other members of the public present
3:50 that would like to speak during public
3:52 comment
3:54 saying that i will turn to
3:56 deputy clerk to see if there's anyone
3:58 online that would like to make comment
4:00 or might have raised their hand
4:02 uh chair joe there are no virtual
4:04 attendees
4:05 very good thank you
4:07 well citizen comments are important part
4:09 of the public process we take them
4:10 seriously and we factor them in the
4:12 decisions we make so thank you for
4:15 attending virtually if you're online and
4:17 thank you for giving comments tonight
4:19 there will be a second opportunity to
4:21 give public comment after the
4:22 presentation
4:23 from staff
4:25 and if there are no other
4:27 individuals that would like to give
4:28 public comment we will move on to number
4:31 three
4:32 in our agenda which is the approval of
4:34 the minutes from july 12
4:36 2022
4:37 have those been reviewed by the members
4:39 of the committee
4:41 yes yes all right any changes
4:44 modifications clarifications
4:48 no okay i'll take a motion then
4:52 motion to approve um the minutes as
4:55 posted in tonight's agenda second okay
4:58 any discussion
4:59 i'll call the question then all in favor
5:01 of adopting the minute say aye aye
5:04 opposed
5:06 record reflect it's 3-0 thank you we'll
5:10 move on to the next item on the agenda
5:11 then
5:13 moving right along
5:16 okay this takes us to agenda item id one
5:20 nine seven one one nine seven excuse me
5:23 newport way maple to sunset improvements
5:26 corridor concept we have senior engineer
5:28 from public works wang and also mr
5:31 mortensen from transportation
5:33 engineering uh transportation
5:34 engineering manager from public works
5:36 good evening to you both
5:40 good evening
5:42 thank you for having us here thank you
5:43 for the introduction council member joe
5:46 i'm john mortensen transportation
5:48 engineering manager i have with me showa
5:50 wang who is the city's
5:53 newest senior transportation engineer
5:55 she is now the project manager for this
5:57 project before she would join the city i
6:00 was the project manager and so we're
6:01 going to split our presentation
6:03 and i'm going to cover the stuff up
6:05 until she was hired and then she will
6:08 cover the rest of the material
6:15 tonight i'm here to talk about the
6:17 newport whey maple to sunset project
6:22 the outline for tonight's item is to
6:25 talk about the purpose of the item
6:28 the direction needed
6:30 discuss the project goals and policy
6:32 impact
6:33 a little bit of background about the
6:34 project will be provided
6:37 and then we'll get into what is the
6:39 final proposed concept for newport way
6:41 between maple and sunset
6:44 followed by a discussion of the public
6:46 outreach that was conducted
6:48 recently
6:49 and that followed by timing and next
6:52 steps
6:54 the purpose of the item tonight is to
6:56 seek recommendation from the committee
6:59 to the city council on the preferred
7:01 concept
7:04 and the direction needed
7:06 the administration requests direction
7:08 from the mobility and infrastructure
7:09 committee on the final design concept
7:12 for newport way between maple and sunset
7:15 there are three options the first option
7:17 is to concur with the design concept
7:19 with no additional changes
7:22 recommend that the city council adopt
7:24 the preferred concept
7:26 the second option is to revise the
7:29 proposed design concept
7:32 and then the
7:33 third option is to delay the project
7:38 the project goals and policy impact
7:42 as we work to put together this project
7:45 and come up with our design concept we
7:47 really looked at the mobility as a
7:49 project design team we looked at the
7:51 mobility master plan
7:52 as well as the climate action plan
7:57 and we really the project's goals are to
7:59 improve mobility within issaquah prepare
8:02 the city for future growth
8:04 better connect disqua with the region
8:06 promote environmentally sustainable
8:08 sustainable mobility
8:10 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions
8:15 high level
8:16 of what the project is
8:19 i have a map here that shows the project
8:21 the project is located in yellow it goes
8:24 from
8:25 the intersection of maple which is near
8:27 target and trader joe's
8:29 all the way to sunset
8:33 with intersections at
8:36 holley
8:37 juniper and dogwood and at those three
8:39 intersections we're proposing
8:41 roundabouts
8:42 the project also includes a second
8:45 southbound lane that would go from the
8:47 intersection of
8:49 newport and maple
8:51 to 900 feet south of hawley
8:56 it would construct
8:58 curb gutters sidewalk landscaping
9:01 as well as a separated bicycle lane for
9:04 the bicycles
9:08 a little bit of background on the
9:09 project and
9:10 this is a project that the city has had
9:14 planned for many many years and we're
9:16 going to give you the abbreviated
9:18 version of the history starting with
9:20 2009 because it actually goes
9:22 much further than that
9:24 the city initiated a corridor study and
9:27 did a lot of community involvement
9:29 between
9:30 2009 and january
9:33 2011
9:35 at that time a preferred concept was
9:37 adopted by the city council
9:41 a little more than a year later the city
9:43 council adopted the central issaquah
9:45 plan
9:46 and
9:47 the two plans
9:50 both
9:51 spoke the newport way mapled a sunset
9:53 concept that was adopted in january 2011
9:57 and the central essaquah plan actually
9:59 conflicted with what they said should
10:02 happen on newport way that the january
10:05 2011 concept had a second southbound
10:08 lane
10:09 it had the three roundabouts
10:11 and
10:12 the
10:14 central issaquah plan
10:16 identified newport way as a parkway
10:17 which said generally will have one lane
10:20 in each direction although it
10:22 didn't specifically say it had to
10:25 and then it also
10:27 oh i guess i i got to back up the 2011
10:29 concept one of the big things that came
10:31 out of it from the public involvement
10:33 was not to have a center median that it
10:36 was a cost-benefit discussion and the
10:39 community really did not want it and so
10:41 it was not in there and then the central
10:44 squad plan put the center median back in
10:47 now centralized squad boundary includes
10:50 the part of the project that goes from
10:52 maple to hawley and when i have another
10:54 exhibit i'll i'll show that once you get
10:56 south of hawley you're outside of
10:58 central esqua so that no longer applies
11:01 then
11:01 in 2018 the city got some design funds
11:04 for the project
11:06 as a project design team we started
11:08 trying to think of how can we
11:10 merge these two
11:12 adopted sections for newport way
11:14 the
11:16 2011 concept in the central isquad
11:19 parkway for newport and we came up with
11:21 a concept at the time
11:24 it was i think a really good concept for
11:26 newport way but it was very expensive so
11:29 we went back to the drawing board and
11:30 said how can we preserve the goals of
11:32 the project and reduce costs and reduce
11:35 the footprint of what we would be
11:36 constructing and that's how we came up
11:38 with the concept that we're going to
11:40 discuss tonight
11:46 this map shows a general overview of the
11:48 project we're going to talk about the
11:50 three different or the four different
11:52 sections that are color coded
11:56 and
11:57 as i mentioned
11:58 i think this is a good time to see that
12:00 the part that's in central esquad goes
12:02 from maple
12:03 to hawley that's in central squad and
12:05 then once you get past
12:07 we're outside of central issaquah the
12:10 first section this is the one that's in
12:12 the light blue color
12:15 and it goes from maple
12:19 towards the south towards holly
12:21 and on this section
12:23 it has the two southbound lanes and in
12:26 order to accommodate transit the outside
12:29 lanes are 11 feet wide for the extra
12:31 width for the buses mirrors but then in
12:33 order to keep speeds down
12:35 the inside left southbound lane is 10
12:39 feet wide because slope smaller lanes
12:42 reduce speeds and make it safer for
12:44 pedestrians and bicycles
12:47 the planter strip would then
12:50 be as a buffer between the travel lanes
12:54 and the bicycle lanes where a six foot
12:56 wide
12:57 protected bicycle lane would be next to
13:00 a six foot wide sidewalk
13:04 the second section
13:06 this is the section in red which goes
13:09 from holly
13:12 south 900 feet
13:14 this is really similar to section one
13:16 and the only difference is that on the
13:19 school side the sidewalk is eight feet
13:22 wide instead of six feet wide and that
13:24 came as a result of working with the
13:26 park board and the transportation
13:28 advisory board the park board was
13:30 involved because part of newport way is
13:33 part of the green necklace
13:35 and the mountains to sound greenway
13:36 trail and
13:38 so we wanted to make sure that the
13:39 non-motorized facilities would meet the
13:41 needs we
13:43 talked to the park board and the tab
13:45 about
13:47 different concepts for how to arrange
13:49 the non-motorized facilities and one of
13:51 the things that came out was a concern
13:53 of having the bicycle lanes next to
13:57 the school kids on the sidewalk and as
14:00 to mitigate for that concern we widen
14:02 the sidewalk
14:04 when we're within the vicinity of the
14:06 school to give extra room for the kids
14:08 to walk to and from school
14:12 the third section is the section in
14:14 purple which begins 900 feet south of
14:17 hawley
14:18 and
14:20 goes towards dogwood but doesn't quite
14:22 make it to dogwood this is where we have
14:25 one lane in each direction
14:27 on the
14:29 mountain side we still have a six foot
14:31 wide
14:32 protected bike lane with the sidewalk
14:34 next to it on the school side
14:38 a six foot wide bike lane
14:40 and the eight foot wide sidewalk
14:42 continues
14:45 the final section
14:46 is the section in green
14:48 which is just like the section before
14:51 with the protected bike lane sidewalk
14:53 one lane in each direction
14:55 the planner strip but the sidewalk has
14:57 gone down to
14:59 six feet from eight feet on the school
15:02 side
15:03 with the thought of at this point the
15:05 school the kids have dispersed enough
15:07 and they're spread out where we can go
15:09 back to trying to preserve the footprint
15:11 of the project
15:14 and
15:15 have it narrower
15:17 at this point i'm going to hand it over
15:19 to show us going to talk about the
15:21 community
15:24 engagement thank you john
15:27 before we leave the
15:28 the map sections
15:30 i just had a couple questions about
15:32 um that might have already been
15:34 discussed in
15:36 work before i came on council so my
15:38 apologies if you've already answered
15:40 these questions
15:42 has there been any discussion with the
15:44 school district in terms of
15:46 where they would like to see
15:49 crossings or any crossings
15:52 across newport there and a related
15:54 question
15:55 are there opportunities to have
15:58 pedestrians cross at the roundabouts
16:01 uh similar to the way we have it set up
16:03 at 43rd
16:05 southeast 43rd and east lake sammamish
16:07 parkway
16:08 if you could give us a little background
16:10 there yeah
16:12 at this point we haven't had discussions
16:14 with the school district about the
16:15 specific locations of the crossings
16:18 and we haven't
16:19 worked on the design of the crossings
16:21 that's something we want to get to for
16:23 the next steps
16:25 and then i think the second part of your
16:27 question was
16:29 will the roundabouts
16:31 accommodate pedestrian crossings
16:33 potentially there like we do at 43rd and
16:36 yeah east lake city
16:37 yes they they will have pedestrian
16:39 crossings and that's one of the
16:41 once we get past the concept point we
16:43 really want to dive into
16:45 a lot of our attention into how to
16:47 design these crossings that it's really
16:50 important with
16:52 roundabouts they can be good or bad for
16:55 pedestrians depending on the intention
16:58 and i actually think that roundabout at
16:59 southeast 43rd
17:01 and east lakes mamas parkway is a good
17:03 example
17:05 because the original design was not in
17:07 my opinion adequate for pedestrians and
17:09 that's why right now we have a
17:11 construction project improving the
17:12 crossings and take the lessons learned
17:15 from those along with other tools that
17:17 we've been looking at
17:18 in order to
17:20 design those crossings but i think
17:23 especially the one at holley with it
17:24 being right at the school that's going
17:26 to have a lot of
17:28 thought go into it knowing that it's
17:30 going to be a crossing for school
17:31 children
17:33 okay so potentially right now between
17:36 west sunset way and
17:40 basically
17:41 maple
17:42 there's only one designated crossing
17:44 which is a school light which is isn't
17:47 necessarily
17:49 up to full standard but it's a light
17:51 that you can push and cross there and so
17:53 that's only one crossing in that section
17:55 but if we look at this project we're
17:57 going to have three opportunities to
17:59 cross should it be approved is that yes
18:01 that's correct okay thank you very much
18:04 other questions before we leave the the
18:05 concept of the maps
18:08 council member yeah thank you and i have
18:10 a feeling that the answer will probably
18:13 be similar but
18:15 so i was really pleased to see that
18:17 there were the 11 foot width for buses
18:21 but my question is and it's probably
18:23 something that we need to work with
18:24 metro on but
18:27 would there is there any possibility of
18:30 does the width prohibit i guess there's
18:32 a better way to put it uh bus stops
18:34 along newport
18:36 it would not prohibit bus stops that you
18:39 know the the buses would need to stop in
18:42 the lane that we wouldn't have room for
18:44 pull-offs or buses but
18:46 it would allow for bus stops and
18:49 if in the future metro decided they
18:51 wanted bus stops
18:52 we would work with them to
18:56 put in bus stops where currently we
18:58 would have
18:59 planner strip
19:00 okay pro to to be determined in the
19:02 future yes
19:04 okay
19:06 and then uh just the
19:08 i noticed in the public um
19:11 comments and i know we'll get to this
19:13 but um
19:15 the two
19:16 we have two lanes going southbound and
19:18 then we narrow down again to just
19:21 two lanes going in two different
19:23 directions and it seemed like people
19:25 were very worried about that
19:26 bottlenecking um
19:29 so any any uh thoughts about uh
19:32 about how that's going to affect traffic
19:34 going south especially in the afternoon
19:37 when people are
19:39 that's a heavily used uh route and
19:42 you know i can imagine them coming in
19:44 and then it'll just bottleneck just
19:46 further down the road then
19:49 so we did a quite a bit of traffic
19:52 modeling
19:53 for the southbound traffic
19:55 and
19:56 i guess there's a couple of things that
19:58 the project will do and some things that
20:00 it won't do it won't solve the front
20:02 street congestion
20:04 i think an analogy front street is it's
20:06 a wall
20:07 and that this project won't solve the
20:09 front street wall but what it will do is
20:12 provide better access to the
20:14 side streets to promote mobility within
20:16 issaquah whether it's dogwood
20:20 holly or juniper
20:22 and we also spent a lot of time looking
20:25 at where to put the merge point
20:27 of where that southbound lane stops we
20:30 looked at
20:31 a number of options we said well what
20:33 happens if we just keep it where it's at
20:35 and we
20:36 don't extend this southbound lane and
20:39 what we found is
20:40 that would cause problems at the
20:42 intersection of newport and maple we
20:44 looked at trying to
20:46 put it a little bit towards juniper and
20:48 that also caused problems and we we
20:51 found the taking it to hawley was the
20:53 right spot to accommodate future growth
20:56 and like i said it does not solve the
20:58 existing problem at front street and
21:01 my opinion even if we didn't if we
21:03 extended it all the way to
21:05 front street i still think we would have
21:08 congestion from it um
21:10 but this will accommodate the future
21:12 growth that's coming in the city and i
21:14 guess i'll make sure did i answer your
21:17 question or yes thank you very much
21:19 thank you
21:21 okay thank you for uh
21:23 allowing us to ask those questions we'll
21:25 go on to senior engineer wong and
21:28 her portion of the presentation thank
21:30 you
21:31 good evening council members and members
21:33 from the communities um my name is joan
21:36 i'm the new transportation engineer for
21:37 the city since may so i'm going to cover
21:39 the community community engagement part
21:42 so in the summer of 2022 the project
21:45 team conduct a series of community
21:47 engagement events including updated
21:49 project website online survey and a
21:52 virtual open house the goal of the
21:54 public outreach is to inform the public
21:56 about the project timeline project
21:58 design concept but also to gather
22:01 community input and
22:03 and build relationships
22:05 so as we can see various notification
22:08 tools has been used to promote this
22:10 project and communicate community
22:12 engagement so you can see the left
22:14 there's a
22:15 the shows the facebook page
22:18 we promote the
22:19 online survey
22:21 and to the right there's a
22:24 individual mail
22:25 letters uh postcards we send it to the
22:28 committee along newport way and we also
22:30 post our
22:31 survey
22:32 link to the newsletters emails and send
22:35 flyers
22:37 over 700 people visit our project
22:39 website since the updates
22:41 the website provides a project overview
22:44 project timeline funding
22:46 final design concept and
22:48 project history the website also
22:51 the price of the website is i'll provide
22:53 the link to the survey and um
22:57 registration link to the virtual open
22:59 house so during the three month three
23:02 weeks online survey period 196 people
23:04 participate the survey the survey is
23:06 also available in chinese and spanish
23:10 next page shows the survey results we
23:14 have
23:15 the survey
23:18 the server basically
23:20 try to learn from the public about how
23:22 does the final design concept meet your
23:24 needs as a quarter user
23:28 66 thinking the overall design is just
23:31 right to improve connectivity within the
23:33 community for our users
23:35 7 7 74 think the design provide a
23:39 comfortable walking distance walking
23:41 night work and experience for pedestrian
23:44 42 thinking the i think the protected
23:46 bike lane improvement meets their needs
23:50 the driver improvement is slightly lower
23:52 but still
23:53 60 percent 25 thinking the final design
23:56 concept does not do enough for drivers
24:00 the other 13 percent thinking the final
24:02 design concept that too much for the
24:03 drivers
24:05 about 55 percent of survey respondents
24:08 provide comments the comments are common
24:11 topics are roundabout design a
24:13 pedestrian bike facility second
24:15 southbound lane safety improve
24:17 improvements
24:18 the takeaway from the survey is the
24:20 majority of the survey respondents think
24:22 the project does the right amount to
24:24 improve the connectivity
24:26 will meet the needs for both motorized
24:28 and non-authorized users in the along
24:30 the newport
24:32 import way
24:35 and
24:36 on july 13 we host virtual open house in
24:40 the very beginning we provide a project
24:41 overview and attendees
24:44 can
24:45 invite you to join the breakout session
24:47 the virtual section we talk about the
24:49 project question
24:50 citywide questions and traffic analysis
24:52 questions
24:54 the some main topics including concern
24:57 about stormwater stormwater capacity
25:00 second southbound lane merging point
25:02 traffic capacity along the corridor
25:06 bike and pad crossing at the roundabout
25:08 location and right-of-way impact to the
25:10 adjacent property owners
25:12 the
25:13 virtual open house work as intended to
25:16 share the project final design concept
25:18 with the community and also to build
25:20 relationship collect feedback from the
25:22 community and also create awareness of
25:24 the project timeline
25:26 for the timing and next step
25:32 we we are we're planning to bring this
25:34 topic to the city council in september's
25:37 meeting and if the council adopt the
25:39 concept the project will move to
25:40 engineering design in the winter of 2022
25:43 and the administration will also
25:45 continue working on the cost-saving
25:47 ideas
25:48 including retaining wall heights and
25:51 underground in the overhead utilities
25:56 if you just hold on for a second council
25:58 member
25:59 deputy president excuse me all you have
26:01 a question thank you whichever works for
26:03 me um
26:04 so for
26:05 the for in terms of next steps working
26:07 on this cost saving ideas which brought
26:09 down the cost
26:10 dramatically i was surprised to see how
26:12 much it brought it down but the
26:13 retaining walls that's part of our title
26:16 18 update so that'll be
26:18 completed in this calendar year the
26:20 undergrounding
26:21 was part of the street standards update
26:23 right what's the timeline for for that
26:29 ideally i'd like to have it go parallel
26:31 with title 18 for a couple reasons one
26:34 of the reasons is
26:36 part of the title 18 update requires the
26:39 street standards to be updated
26:41 and
26:42 so that's my ideal world um but then it
26:46 could take a little longer on that one
26:48 but
26:49 very similar time rate but most likely
26:51 this year yes okay thanks
26:56 and uh i had a question just in terms of
26:58 the the
27:00 depth of the study so to speak um it
27:02 looks like we had 47 people registered
27:05 for the engagement and 24 people showed
27:08 up which is about average for
27:11 normal community meetings i was
27:13 wondering
27:14 82 percent of the people that did the
27:16 online survey were city residents um i
27:19 couldn't find how many participants
27:22 total we had it's probably in there but
27:24 i just couldn't find it do you know the
27:26 total number of uh people that
27:28 participated in the online survey
27:30 196 people 196. okay thank you that
27:33 gives me some good background
27:35 appreciate it
27:39 i'll move on to the last slide we have
27:41 um so the direction we needed tonight
27:44 from the console from the committee is a
27:46 direction to move on to move forward
27:49 with the project
27:50 the option one is
27:52 the staff recommended option
27:54 uh committee concurs with the design
27:56 concept with no additional changes
27:58 recommended city console to adopt
28:00 option 2 revise the final design concept
28:03 option 3 delay the project
28:05 thank you
28:07 thank you very much to both of you for
28:09 that
28:10 presentation
28:12 we'll start with
28:13 council questions
28:15 and then
28:16 after that we'll go to
28:18 any comments from
28:20 the public so
28:22 anyone on the committee have additional
28:24 questions at this point
28:35 okay deputy council president hall thank
28:38 you
28:39 uh john a few um weeks ago we had a
28:42 member of the community write in about
28:45 speed limits
28:47 within the design of these roundabouts
28:50 and i was wondering if you could speak
28:51 to that for the committee a little bit
28:54 yes
28:55 so following the email from the
28:57 community member i reached out to the
28:59 design team and
29:01 asked what was the roundabout design
29:04 speed when we had the 2018 concept and
29:09 he had said he had following the washdot
29:12 roundabout design manual and it ended up
29:14 coming to about 16 miles per hour
29:19 that was the design speed for traffic
29:21 inside of the roundabout
29:30 i'll go ahead and ask a question i don't
29:32 know if you'll be able to answer it
29:34 necessarily
29:37 when i was a prosecutor for some of the
29:39 local cities we used to call roundabouts
29:42 kind of
29:43 dui detectors
29:45 in the sense that when people were
29:47 impaired
29:48 they thought the road was straight and
29:50 will often just run right over
29:53 a roundabout which would take out their
29:54 axle or their tires and that our police
29:57 could show up on the scene and
29:59 detain the person for dui
30:02 do you know if there are any sources
30:04 that would
30:05 give us any statistics on what kind of
30:07 crashes we have just in general not
30:09 necessarily dui's alone but what kind of
30:12 crashes we have
30:13 in roundabouts as opposed to
30:16 keeping the road straight in other words
30:18 what's the kind of the apples to oranges
30:20 comparison if you will is it really a
30:22 safety improvement to do a roundabout or
30:24 is it
30:25 merely you know for
30:27 traffic flow and traffic um you know
30:30 congestion mitigation that we're doing
30:32 this if you if any of you know yeah
30:36 the research on the modern roundabout
30:39 says it does two things one it reduces
30:42 the frequency of
30:44 accidents at the intersection and the
30:47 other thing is
30:48 that the accidents are less severe
30:50 because they're more likely to be a side
30:52 swipe or maybe someone tries to enter
30:54 the roundabout
30:55 when they should be yielding
30:57 but
30:59 i guess less accidents and safer
31:02 accidents
31:05 okay and that's because we're going
31:07 we're slowing down into those
31:09 roundabouts and we're operating at
31:12 angles instead of
31:13 potentially being
31:16 t-boned as we're making a left turn is
31:18 that
31:19 yes that is correct okay
31:21 appreciate that
31:22 other questions from
31:24 committee members
31:26 okay
31:28 we'll open it back up for public comment
31:30 if there
31:31 is anyone in the room that like to make
31:32 public comment on this project
31:35 your opportunity is here go ahead
31:37 connie marsh
31:39 step up to the microphone
31:44 okay connie marsh again and
31:46 so this is
31:48 being promoted as a mobility project
31:52 so i asked the question of what is the
31:55 speed limit going to be
31:57 and i was told
32:01 which is why i then asked well what's
32:04 the speed in the roundabout because it
32:06 turns out that the statistics seem to
32:08 say that pedestrians are much safer when
32:11 the roundabout speed is between 10 and
32:14 15. now this is a layman reading the
32:16 internet right so i'm just giving you
32:18 sort of a scale of what i saw the slower
32:21 the cars go
32:22 the more likely it is that they will see
32:24 the pedestrians and they will be able to
32:27 get through because
32:28 if you imagine
32:29 you know you're trying to to drive
32:31 through a roundabout and you're looking
32:33 left the pedestrians on the right right
32:35 you turn around and there's the
32:37 pedestrian in front of you that you
32:39 never saw because of shading or some
32:42 such issues so there was a lot of
32:44 information on that the design of these
32:46 roundabouts was
32:48 huge in making them actually pedestrian
32:52 safe
32:53 and
32:56 i don't
32:58 having a roundabout right there by the
33:00 school
33:01 and imagining the crossing guards and a
33:03 roundabout it sort of blows my mind i'm
33:06 not that much of a roundabout fan but
33:09 i'm here to tell you the things that i
33:12 think you need to be cautious about and
33:14 that is the access to these two
33:17 businesses the one is the karate studio
33:21 which from that drawing would be placed
33:24 right as people are accelerating out of
33:26 a roundabout
33:27 and this is where we got into trouble on
33:29 east lake sammamish parkway where you
33:31 have a bunch of turns with people going
33:34 into roundabouts distracted and coming
33:36 out of roundabouts accelerating the hair
33:38 salon who the daughter is you know the
33:42 mother
33:43 of the person who owns it is a friend of
33:44 mine and
33:46 her access looks like it's going to be
33:50 very limited she now uses the right of
33:52 ways for street parking
33:55 and so the impacts to her business could
33:58 be significant i didn't see any of these
34:01 people in any of the meetings and when i
34:03 have reached out to them today today
34:06 they are unaware of the meeting tonight
34:08 and
34:09 neither of them was aware of the survey
34:12 or the other meeting they thought it was
34:15 all information about this development
34:17 that was
34:19 coming out simultaneously so
34:22 uh the human impacts to these small
34:25 businesses that we're actually trying to
34:27 get people to
34:29 need to be
34:31 considered you are looking at this sort
34:34 of silhouette
34:35 and i am concerned that by approving
34:38 this
34:39 diagram
34:41 that will
34:43 that will just push this road forward
34:46 and these people will not get their
34:48 appropriate attention to try to make
34:50 their lives as best as possible and
34:54 i don't understand the process the
34:56 process is not
34:58 outlined that i can see
35:01 i don't understand what the community
35:03 impact inputs will
35:06 and how effective they will be
35:08 if you all just say hey this looks good
35:11 and i don't know if you can create an
35:13 envelope that requires this sort of
35:15 attention to the community they're
35:17 putting the road in
35:19 um so that we actually do get that
35:21 safety and awareness of the people the
35:24 people are sort of worn out and it's
35:25 hard to engage y'all virtually so
35:31 if it feels like that's missing and
35:32 these people are my people
35:35 and they deserve to have great lives not
35:38 lives that are heavily impacted by
35:41 road design and we've we've had road
35:43 design impacts in this town before and
35:45 it can create ugly scenarios for those
35:47 people who are going to have their homes
35:50 taken not in this case but their
35:51 businesses impacted
35:54 and
35:55 so our roundabouts really that safe i
35:57 think you need to make sure that the
35:58 design is slower i think that the speed
36:00 limit should be
36:03 and i think that you need another
36:05 crossing further down between dogwood
36:07 and sunset way to help create that
36:09 pedestrian grid because if you go down
36:11 by the fire station
36:13 there's no way to get across unless you
36:16 would go up to the roundabout or down to
36:18 sunset
36:20 that is my input for
36:23 the moment thank you
36:27 okay thank you um
36:30 i'll just take notice that uh for the
36:33 school zone they do have to
36:35 slow down to 20 miles an hour and um
36:38 mr mortensen will the
36:41 20 mile an hour school zone be
36:44 before
36:46 the school as we're going southbound in
36:49 other words if we're coming from target
36:51 heading down toward
36:52 ive that first roundabout is there and
36:56 if i
36:57 can envision it the 20 mile an hour
36:59 speed limit starts before
37:01 the positioning of the roundabout in the
37:03 map is that going to
37:05 stay the same as have you talked to the
37:08 internally about that the school zone
37:10 limits won't change that those are
37:12 driven by state law and where they
37:14 start and stop
37:17 and am i correct that
37:20 as i look at it
37:21 the school zone for 20 miles an hour
37:23 starts before
37:25 the roundabout on hawley
37:28 my memory is correct you are correct
37:30 okay
37:31 um so if the speed limit is down to 20
37:35 and we think the average
37:37 speed is somewhere in there that we're
37:39 not going to see
37:42 big difference in the the kind of
37:44 conditions that we have for
37:46 crossing in terms of speed limit
37:48 but we do need to think about how we are
37:51 making pedestrians visible going across
37:53 there
37:54 what have you learned as we've
37:57 examined the 43rd street
37:59 and east lake samantha's parkway design
38:02 for
38:03 pedestrian safeway and
38:05 safety excuse me and access
38:09 a great question one of the things that
38:11 we've learned is speed that traffic was
38:13 driving through that roundabout too fast
38:15 and
38:16 i i think it might not have been
38:19 noticeable at first but once all the new
38:22 homes got built on the other side of the
38:24 so you'd have the king county trail on
38:26 the lakeside and then you had the new
38:28 development started going in what we
38:30 started noticing
38:31 internally through the
38:34 was before we had c-click fix and i i
38:36 think is reported concerned that we
38:38 would get a lot of complaints about
38:40 those crossings
38:41 that cars weren't stopping they were
38:43 going too fast
38:45 and that so what we did was we narrowed
38:49 the lanes up
38:50 and added some different
38:52 replace the curb put in the rectangular
38:54 rapid flashing beacons
38:57 and
38:58 doing that to improve the the crossing
39:01 i would add that
39:03 some of the things that we're going to
39:04 look at are
39:06 whether it makes sense to do the
39:08 rectangular rapid flashing beacons
39:10 i think
39:11 at a minimum we would go with the
39:13 rectangular rapid flashing beacons
39:15 but it might even make sense to do a
39:18 pedestrian
39:20 signal where there would actually be a
39:22 red
39:23 especially next to the school zone those
39:25 are things that we'll evaluate does it
39:27 make sense to do a raised crosswalk
39:29 instead of having it at level in order
39:32 to help slow down cars and
39:34 those are just a few of the things that
39:36 we're
39:37 getting ready to look at for that
39:38 crossing those crossings great thank you
39:40 very much councilmember d michelle
39:43 uh i'll just jump in here and say you
39:44 know we have a double um roundabout down
39:48 by sunset elementary
39:50 on the west lake and i know that's not
39:52 in the city
39:54 but uh that
39:56 roundabout has been operating
39:57 successfully for
39:59 quite a long time 12 years 13 years
40:01 something like that
40:02 so i would think when we start the
40:05 dialogue with the school district that
40:06 they would be able to share some of the
40:09 things they've learned about
40:11 safety for students down there i think
40:13 that's mostly a school where kids come
40:15 in on the buses and don't walk to school
40:18 i imagine they have a few walkers but
40:20 not very many
40:22 so it may not be exactly appropriate to
40:24 issaquah valley elementary but it at
40:27 least in terms of the bus traffic going
40:29 in there
40:30 that was another one of my concerns was
40:32 in the morning and in the afternoon
40:34 we're going to have a lot of school
40:35 buses going back and forth on that road
40:37 and going in
40:40 into issaquah valley elementary but at
40:42 any rate i would say let's look and see
40:45 how that double roundabout is working
40:47 there and what kind of safety measures
40:50 they put in for students there because
40:53 i i am not aware of any um
40:57 student
40:58 accidents that have occurred there so
41:01 thanks yeah if i could just comment i
41:03 had the pleasure of
41:05 going to the timber lake neighborhood
41:07 for national night out on
41:09 and
41:10 was able to talk to a number of the
41:12 citizens there and they were
41:14 currently working on a an easement issue
41:16 that they were
41:18 having with a neighbor and they have a
41:21 fair number of
41:22 children from that neighborhood that do
41:24 walk
41:25 through there and they stay off the main
41:27 road using this easement and then cross
41:30 over to sunset so i can't say that it's
41:32 in the hundreds of students but it
41:34 certainly is more than um 10 or 15
41:36 perhaps in the 25 area they do use it so
41:39 it has been working as you point out and
41:41 there are students that do walk to
41:43 sunset so as we
41:45 just kind of file that away as a fact
41:48 that we've discovered so it's because
41:50 we've done our community outreach um to
41:53 the community to the different
41:54 neighborhoods
41:55 mr morrison do you have other comments
41:58 anything anything that we've talked
42:00 about thus far
42:04 none other than i thought that was a
42:05 good idea to check in on the
42:08 other roundabout by the school i hadn't
42:09 thought of that thank you
42:12 okay
42:14 we are still in the public comment
42:15 period
42:16 if there's anyone else in the room that
42:19 would like to make public comment now is
42:20 your opportunity
42:22 i'll look to deputy clerk to see if
42:24 there's anyone online that would like to
42:27 give a public comment this evening
42:30 councilmember joe uh we have one
42:32 attendee but no virtual hand raised at
42:34 this time okay
42:37 with that in mind we'll go ahead and
42:39 close the public comment on this topic
42:42 and move on to council discussion
42:46 would either you'd like to start
42:53 i'll start by saying thank you to staff
42:55 i'm this is a long long-term project and
43:00 i thought the summary of the
43:02 all the things we've gone through was
43:03 very well done and i thought the public
43:06 and community engagement was very well
43:08 done and i was pleased to see the number
43:09 of people that
43:11 were involved i love the question about
43:14 is it just right or too much or too
43:16 little
43:18 when you see how many people think it's
43:20 just right that sort of
43:23 tells me that this is a project that can
43:25 go forward with community support
43:28 i do support the project the way the
43:30 concept does it's been presented
43:32 [Music]
43:34 i think you heard my comments we have
43:36 there were people that were worried
43:37 about
43:39 the juniper and holly round about being
43:42 too close to each other and again we've
43:43 got double roundabouts in many other
43:46 places in our community and they seem to
43:48 be working just fine so i don't think
43:50 that that
43:51 worries me
43:52 i think safety is always a concern about
43:54 roundabouts and so um but i think we can
43:58 go ahead just being sensitive to that uh
44:00 concern from the public and especially
44:02 when it's around in elementary school
44:06 let's see um
44:10 i was my concern about can we include
44:12 bus stops because i have a feeling as
44:14 growth occurs down there that we're
44:15 going to want some bus stops on newport
44:18 and um other than that i the other
44:20 common i have is
44:22 approving the concept is a big step
44:24 forward and then you start getting into
44:27 the details of of the plan so
44:30 i think approving the concept doesn't
44:32 mean that we stop talking to the public
44:34 doesn't mean that we stop adjusting the
44:37 the plan as we learn more because that's
44:40 uh that's the reason we approve the
44:42 concept so we can start proving whether
44:44 or not it's going to work so
44:47 i think that i am ready to prove the
44:50 concept and uh then we will learn as we
44:53 go along what parts of it work and what
44:56 parts of it we might need to adjust a
44:57 little bit
44:58 i do think that reaching out to the
45:00 businesses that are along there will be
45:03 a important part but i think it's pretty
45:04 early actually to be doing that and we
45:07 can i think we need some more
45:08 information to share with those
45:10 businesses before we're ready to have
45:12 that discussion with them and what
45:14 mitigations we might be able to offer
45:16 and so forth so i am ready to approve
45:19 the concept and i really commend staff
45:21 for the work that you did especially
45:23 gathering all the comments from the
45:25 public which i read through
45:27 and they're always very very interesting
45:30 and thank you for capturing those so
45:32 i think those are my comments
45:35 thank you councilmember d michelle
45:37 deputy council president hall
45:39 sure thank you um big thank you to the
45:42 two you and everyone else who
45:43 contributed to this effort
45:45 it was a fantastic memo and lots of
45:47 great supporting materials that were
45:49 good to read
45:50 and i agree with the level of community
45:53 engagement that's been done so far i'm
45:54 very satisfied with that and that there
45:56 you know there's no reason to continue
45:59 um doing forms of community engagement
46:01 where that makes sense in the process
46:02 still um so some thoughts on kind of
46:05 what i was looking for going into this
46:06 and then some thoughts on next steps
46:08 based on our conversation and on public
46:10 comment um today um you know going into
46:12 this what i was looking for was that you
46:14 know we have a merged design concept
46:17 that brings this resolution between the
46:19 2011 concept and the central is called
46:22 concept so i'm glad to see that you know
46:24 we have a proposal there so that meets
46:25 that box
46:27 aligned with our plans and our standards
46:29 so definitely the mobility i mean you
46:31 had several pages in the memo that
46:33 showed how this was aligned with
46:35 different goals of the mobility master
46:37 plan and the climate action plan i
46:38 really appreciated that when i started
46:40 reading the memo i got out my copy of
46:42 the mobility master plan so i could do
46:44 that but then i got to that page and
46:45 it's like why'd i do all that work but
46:46 anyways thank you for doing that so
46:48 clearly it's aligned with those plans um
46:51 i was also looking that it would be
46:53 responsive to community needs and
46:54 feedback and in a number of ways the
46:56 concept has changed in response to
46:58 community needs so i appreciate seeing
47:00 that
47:00 especially with the media and so on and
47:02 so forth
47:03 and also that the design you know
47:05 supports our multimodal vision for
47:07 newport way northwest while also
47:09 balancing
47:11 roadway improvements for drivers and
47:14 supporting safety improvements which
47:17 is a four month forefront
47:19 in all of this work
47:21 so i am too uh in favor of the current
47:25 design concept that's here before us um
47:27 some thoughts that have come up today
47:30 is that it would be good to get some
47:32 feedback from the school district on on
47:34 where the crossings
47:36 would end going that seems like it's
47:37 kind of down the line a little bit there
47:39 um also maybe i i also agree that we
47:42 should have some feedback or
47:44 communications with businesses
47:48 near where the roundabouts are going to
47:49 be in the very least but also all along
47:51 newport and i think maybe the earlier
47:53 the better especially if we haven't
47:54 really
47:56 finished the design or the concept of
47:58 the roundabouts in general it might be
48:00 good to get their feedback to help
48:02 inform that design
48:04 and will help us avoid mistakes that we
48:06 learned on southeast 43rd um
48:09 designing another you know important
48:12 thing to be mindful of is that you know
48:13 we have to design our roundabouts with
48:15 intention to encourage pedestrian pros
48:18 pedestrian crossings which you mentioned
48:19 john so i know that's in the forefront
48:21 of your two brains um and then also with
48:24 intention of these turn-offs and um as
48:27 you enter exit around about that it's
48:29 not you know discouraging people from
48:31 actually being able to merge in
48:34 to the road because the roundabout is
48:37 too close i thought that was a good
48:38 point from a public commenter thank you
48:39 for bringing that up
48:40 um i don't think it's necessarily the
48:42 role for council to approve a design of
48:46 the roundabout i think the only reason
48:48 this is really here is because
48:51 there was the conflict between the two
48:54 concepts so
48:56 you know i i trust staff to take the
48:58 feedback here tonight and
49:00 you know
49:01 work on those designs
49:03 but not necessarily imagining it coming
49:05 back to council again i'm assuming i'm
49:07 seeing some nods from staff
49:11 yeah so with that those are my comments
49:14 i agree with approving the concept as
49:19 shown here tonight and thanks again for
49:20 all your work
49:22 thank you for those comments
49:24 i will also
49:27 thank the two of you for
49:28 a fine presentation tonight
49:30 and please pass on our thanks to the two
49:33 or three people
49:34 that helped you
49:35 put it together
49:37 an army concept is it takes about 10
49:40 people
49:41 behind a person that's on the line
49:43 with a gun or whatever equipment it
49:46 might be watching
49:48 the the dmz or whatever it might be
49:50 and with city employees i'm sure there
49:52 are two or three people on your
49:55 in your department that helped you
49:56 prepare this as well so please pass on
49:58 our thanks to those individuals
50:02 they don't get enough thanks and city
50:04 workers in general don't get enough
50:05 thanks so we want to make sure that
50:08 that is heard loud and clear from this
50:09 committee
50:12 i appreciate the the presentation
50:14 tonight i'm
50:17 excited that there will be more
50:19 opportunities to cross newport way
50:22 i live just above the
50:24 salmon hatchery and would love to walk
50:26 down to the city and go to
50:30 you know the confluence park
50:32 if i could and you know there's just not
50:35 a great place to cross if you
50:37 are too far
50:39 into newport way and i have seen people
50:42 with their dogs in the morning or people
50:44 with their kids
50:46 going to ive that cross in places they
50:48 probably shouldn't be crossing just
50:50 because
50:50 the length between the crosswalks is too
50:53 long so if we can get three more
50:55 crossings in there that are
50:57 thought out carefully and have good
51:00 design
51:01 um you know i think that's going to help
51:04 you know if we can take people out of
51:06 their cars so they're walking their kids
51:08 to school you get the reduced
51:09 community greenhouse gas emissions uh
51:12 impact that that you're talking about
51:14 and we're getting better connections in
51:16 issaquah we're able to
51:19 cross newport and get into the old
51:20 downtown and other areas that we want to
51:23 get to
51:25 i appreciate the the fact that you're
51:27 going to be as as
51:29 councilmember dean michelle points out
51:31 continuing to
51:32 improve on the concept and learn as you
51:35 go to
51:37 keep an open mind about improvements
51:39 that can be made that will increase
51:41 safety and as you have your
51:43 conversations with the school district
51:45 and other community members
51:47 i think that's going to help make this
51:49 project
51:50 even better
51:53 i would encourage the administration to
51:56 think about
51:57 ways that
51:59 might be appropriate to showcase
52:01 this project in the sense if there is a
52:05 community
52:06 activity going on
52:09 and it might be appropriate to put up a
52:12 board just so the community knows that
52:13 this project is coming
52:16 people from other areas of the city when
52:17 they come to the party the festival the
52:21 concerts on the green whatever it might
52:22 be we'll also have an opportunity just
52:24 take a look at it and you know if
52:26 there's contact information on there
52:27 they can reach out to the see if they
52:29 have questions but i think the more
52:31 people
52:32 uh see
52:33 the the design and and have an
52:35 opportunity to think about it it's going
52:38 to make it an even better project so
52:40 those are my
52:41 comments i also in favor of moving
52:44 forward with this concept back to
52:46 council
52:47 at this time
52:50 any
52:51 questions
52:52 additional information that the
52:54 administration or staff needs from this
52:56 committee
52:58 okay yep yeah go ahead so on the other
53:01 committee i serve on councilmember ray
53:03 is always asking are we putting this on
53:05 the regular agenda are we putting this
53:07 on the consent agenda
53:09 yeah i i do believe this should be on
53:11 the
53:12 regular agenda as it will be an a topic
53:14 of interest to the entire council i
53:17 think and they'll probably be some
53:18 questions and having the opportunity to
53:21 hear from professional staff on on the
53:23 presentation i think would be beneficial
53:27 okay and we don't need any official vote
53:29 coming out of this committee okay
53:34 they don't oh look it's just a
53:36 recommendation consensus of a
53:38 recommendation by consensus is adequate
53:41 okay to put it on the calendar
53:43 very good thank you
53:46 okay
53:49 thank you both for that presentation and
53:52 uh we'll move on to announce oh actually
53:55 last thing before we go um exhibit a
53:58 will be accepted in part of the official
54:01 record unless there's objection from the
54:03 body
54:04 okay please add that to the record okay
54:07 good all right now we're on to
54:08 announcements
54:11 any announcements
54:16 okay
54:18 very good we'll then go to adjournment
54:21 unless there's objection we will adjourn
54:23 at 7 24 pm
54:25 we're out of here thank you