MONROE – The city has figured out how to tackle its notorious traffic problems over the next 23 years. The City Council last week unanimously adopted the biggest transportation plan that the city has ever created. The plan lists about 40 projects, valued at $43 million. They would improve intersections and add roads, sidewalks and bicycle lanes in the growing city of about 16,000 people.
“It gives us predictability,” City Councilman Geoffrey Thomas said.
The plan itself cost the city $165,000, said Hiller West, the city’s community development director. It also outlines how the city plans to collect fees from developers and state money to pay for the proposed projects.
The plan focuses on heavily used roads such as U.S. 2, 179th Avenue and Chain Lake Road.
Traffic is the biggest issue in the city where three highways – U.S. 2, Highway 230 and Highway 520 – carry thousands of vehicles daily, City Councilman Mitch Ruth said. He supports the new transportation plan, but it’s not ambitious enough, Ruth said.
“I’d like to see the plan completed in 10 years,” he said.
The city has earmarked about $13 million, including fees from housing developers, for the proposed projects. Most will be spent to improve traffic around the North Kelsey Development, a 34-acre development anchored by a Lowe’s hardware store in the city’s center north of U.S. 2.
The city’s traffic plan relies on – but doesn’t include money for – a U.S. 2 bypass.
The city hopes the state will route the highway around Monroe. The bypass is the key to easing the city’s traffic problem, Ruth said.
Voters in Monroe and other areas of Snohomish, King and Pierce counties are expected to decide on the first phase of the proposed bypass in November as part of a larger roads and transportation measure. The first phase of the bypass project is expected to cost $40 million.
The city can’t wait any longer to start fixing its traffic mess, Ruth said.
“Our need is now, not 15 or 20 years from now,” he said.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
