Thursday, October 16, 2014

Letter: Traffic in Redmond has become a nightmare


Hi,

I am hoping you can communicate this information via your blog and/or other channels.

I think the traffic in Redmond has become a nightmare.  Last night was horrible with cars lined from redmond middle school down the hill to the community center.  Downtown is a slow grind, Willows Road and Redmond Woodinville Hwy are parking lots, and don't even get me started on Avondale.    Today I called the city out of frustration.  They asked that I pass along Susan Byszeski's phone  number 425-556-2882.  She is collecting community feedback.

Thanks

Karrie Guymon

8 comments:

  1. I concur. Granted that the downtown street construction isn't helping things at all.

    I live in the Grasslawn neighborhood and I try to avoid downtown Redmond as much as possible. If I have to travel across town to go to Fred Meyer/Target/Home Depot, I get on 520 and bypass the entire mess.

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  2. I agree. I'm not sure what the rationale of the City Engineers was reducing the lanes on 166th this has definitely the traffic worse, as you've stated, backing up traffic from the Junior High all the way down the hill. There is no easy way in, out or around Redmond during morning and evening commute time.

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  3. Agreed. Last night I needed to go to the high school for the football game. I would have walked but had a car full of booster meal things in my car. At 5:19 PM the road (166th) northbound was backed up PAST 95th. Fortunately some nice person let me out of my street on 97th. It still took me 15 minutes to get to the high school.

    And most mornings during 8 - 10 AM 166th is blocked southbound from the bottom of the hill all the way up to 110th. Just try to get off the hill to drop off for preschool or elementary school or deposit a check.

    Eventually the residents on the back roads (171st, etc.) are going to get sick and tired of all the traffic on their roads. Of course the City will decide to install traffic circles to calm those areas.

    Sigh.

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  4. The City does not have the best interests of its citizens in view; that's clear. They seem to serve two opposing viewpoints, which leads to total frustration for all: trying to be green by reducing car traffic (by making it impossible to drive freely) and needing residents to live here to give them a tax base (nice homes, that are hard to get here). Do they want us all to work from home and shop from Amazon???

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  5. So let's see - we had two lanes in each direction on 166th and traffic flowed just fine up and down the hill. Now we have 1 lane in each direction and traffic crawls.

    It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that 2 lanes carry more cars than 1 lane. Obvious solution: put back the old 2 lanes in each direction NOW!!!

    Do we really have to call the city and provide "community feedback"? Don't they already know that everybody hates this -- except the 7 or 8 bicycle riders per day who love the new road design.

    The traffic consultant who advised the city that this new plan would work should be required to pay to fix the problem. The mayor and city council should act on this NOW, not a year from now.

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  6. I agree! It is now nearly impossible to turn left onto 166th from 95th during the morning and evening commute. This did not used to be the case. I can not use the center lane to turn into while waiting for my lane of traffic to clear,because there is an island there and only room for one car!!! I often have to turn right instead and "turn around" on one of the neighboring streets. It was working fine before! Please return it to the way it was!!!!

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  7. I wished they would hurry up and finish building Redmond so we can enjoy a decade or two of just existing without being under constant construction. Getting fed up with all the lanes blocked , big trucks in the way , always something under construction.. Build it and let us live in peace for a while. Go develop the valley if you really want to build.

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  8. I'm actually OK with changing 166th from two to one lane, for a couple of reasons:

    1. Traffic along 166th is pretty elastic, and commute hours include a lot of cut-through traffic trying to avoid Avondale or Redmond-Woodinville Rd. Hang out on the corner of 116th & Avondale during rush hour and count the cars with Microsoft parking placards turning West onto 116th: they're all headed to the main campus, and they could use Avondale, but historically 166th has been faster. If you constrict traffic along 166th, over time people will stop cutting through and traffic along 166th will decrease. I've seen this firsthand: prior to the changes along 166th, 172nd was regularly backed up from 111th up to 116th every morning. Corollary: If you want to reduce traffic along 166th, improve traffic flow along Avondale and Red-Wood Rd. 166th was never meant to be a commuter route, and this will become even more important when 172nd is opened up to the hundreds of homes in English Hill in a few years. Do you want to invite all that traffic into the center of Ed. Hill?

    2. On occasion I like to bike to work. From a bicyclist's perspective, 166th was a deathtrap. Not saying this is a major issue for me as I don't bike every day, but sooner or later someone was going to get badly injured with the old design.

    Having said the above, I agree that there are some aspects to the design that are not super-well-thought-out and are impacting Ed. Hill resident's ability to turn onto 166th across traffic, especially toward the bottom of the hill during rush hour. I would like the city to look into whether some of these issues can be fixed.

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