Mukilteo wants update on ferry, train projects

Published 11:01 pm Sunday, January 13, 2008

MUKILTEO — The future of the waterfront in Old Town Mukilteo is as clear as mud.

Plans for a new ferry terminal in Mukilteo are on hold indefinitely. Residents have lost their easy access to the beach. A road once connecting businesses in Old Town to Mukilteo Lane was removed, and a replacement road may not be built.

The Mukilteo City Council wants some answers.

Today, council members plan to sit down with representatives from the Port of Everett, Sound Transit and Washington State Ferries to hear status reports on the various projects happening on the city’s waterfront.

“We kind of want to get an update to start off the year,” City Councilwoman Jennifer Gregerson said. “We want to make sure everyone on the council has the same basis on where we are with the projects on the waterfront.”

The biggest questions regarding Mukilteo’s waterfront hinge on the plans for a new ferry terminal — a project considered by city officials to be the lynchpin for future development on the waterfront.

Construction on the Mukilteo ferry terminal was expected to start this year and cost up to $156 million. The state already had secured $148 million in state and federal funding.

However, the discovery of the remains of an American Indian village where the terminal was planned and other complications have delayed the project until at least 2011. The new terminal is now expected to cost as much as $310 million.

And recently, some of the money earmarked for the Mukilteo ferry terminal was diverted to pay for building new ferries for the state’s aging fleet.

If construction of the ferry terminal is going to be delayed any further, the state should take other measures — such as adding traffic signals on Highway 525 — to help residents cope with traffic backed up in the ferry holding lanes, Gregerson said.

“We deserve to have something done, no matter what happens,” she said. “Especially if it’s going to take that much longer.”

Sound Transit is building its new Sounder train platform on the waterfront. The platform was designed to be connected with the ferry terminal by a pedestrian bridge. However, the ferry terminal will likely need to be moved east along the beach, meaning the two facilities could be separated by more than a quarter of a mile.

Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said his agency has done all it can to communicate with other agencies that control land on the waterfront.

“It’s been an extremely challenging project for us to get going there, just because of all the moving parts we have,” Gray said. “I think everyone has been doing their best to keep on the same page, but you just have so many folks involved in the work down there.”

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.

City Council work session

Mukilteo City Council’s work session is 6 p.m. today at Mukilteo City Hall, 4480 Chennault Beach Road, Mukilteo.