The $50 million Issaquah traffic dilemma

We all know that Sound Transit is making a big ask this November – $54 billion to expand light rail across the Puget Sound region. But a lot of cities, such as Issaquah, are making significant requests of their voters for transportation projects, too.

Issaquah has a $50 million bond measure for what the city council says are much-needed improvements to the street system.

This project to connect SR 509 to I-5 will take a decade

“We have projects that add capacity to our roadways,” Deputy City manager Emily Moon said. “We have projects that improve the ability to get around outside of a car – like on bike or on foot. And we have projects that enhance safety in our community.”

Moon said they went to the public and asked about which traffic projects they wanted to fund and narrowed the list to four. There were originally nine projects on the list, with a price-tag of more than $71 million. And there is little or no funding available from the state.

“Traffic has been our number one issue on our citizen satisfaction survey, in our business retention surveys,” Moon said. “That has put a keen focus on trying to solve or at least mitigate some of those issues.”

Issaquah traffic solutions

Some of the projects this $50 million would fund include major improvements to Newport Way between downtown Issaquah and the shopping district to the west. There would be improvements on Sunset Way. There are sidewalk and bike lane projects as well. Turn lanes would also be added in certain spots, allowing residents better access to their neighborhoods.

Moon estimates that this tax increase would cost the average Issaquah homeowner about 33 cents on every $1,000 of assessed value or about $165 a year for a $500,000 home.

Opponents of this property tax increase say the proposed improvements won’t do anything to improve Issaquah traffic. They say it is too expensive and will continue the trend of making Issaquah less affordable for the average person.

Opponents also believe these improvements should be paid for by the developers, not the public. They want those developers to shoulder more responsibility for infrastructure.

Newport Way could really use some of the proposed improvements. There are capacity issues across the board in Issaquah that need to be addressed. However, this bond measure doesn’t address Issaquah-Hobart Road, which a lot of daily commuters wish would get some attention.

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