Re: “Seattle wants $39M to ease traffic mess on delayed I-5 bridge project” (Feb. 13, Eastside):
Officers in Seattle are proper to contemplate site visitors congestion mitigations through the “Revive I-5” closures, however the article doesn’t start to explain the affect since six different freeway building tasks will restrict site visitors flows on the identical time, creating an enormous public security danger north of Seattle. Drivers who would have in any other case chosen State Route 522, SR 523 or SR 104 will even face delays there. The consequence might be a site visitors excellent storm, inflicting pissed off drivers to elect cut-through site visitors in neighborhoods and close to colleges. Along with the pedestrian security dangers in these areas, emergency autos may additionally face important delays.
Companies ought to be evaluating the cumulative impacts of those transportation points of their environmental opinions. Sound Transit’s bus fast transit mission alongside SR 522 didn’t think about this, regardless of revising their site visitors evaluation in August of 2024, when these different tasks had been well-known. The opposite tasks are principally both underway or are court-ordered fish passage remediations. Since building has not but begun on the SR 522 mission, Sound Transit ought to reopen its site visitors evaluation to correctly think about these cumulative impacts.
John Drew, Lake Forest Park
