More fence, a lot less noise

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, December 28, 2005

EVERETT – From his home on Broadway, Richard Anderson, 50, can see the Cascade Mountains shooting up above I-5.

The view is like fresh air for Anderson, who is disabled and confined to a small house that straddles the Glacier View and Pinehurst neighborhoods.

Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald The chain-link fence that separates homes from I-5 will be the approximate site for a concrete wall that will reduce the noise level for residents between 52nd Street and 75th Street in Everett. This photo was taken looking north at the end of Madison Street as traffic heads south on the freeway.

In a few months, his view will be blocked by a concrete sound wall that could stand as tall as 24 feet.

“That’ll be my only view for the rest of my life,” Anderson said.

The wall is part of a $220 million project that will bring car pool lanes and sound walls between 14 and 24 feet tall along a handful of neighborhoods. At 1.3 miles, from 52nd Street to 75th Street, the wall that stretches along part of the Pinehurst neighborhood will be the longest.

State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Connie Lewis said about 50 homes could be affected by construction, but few will lose views of the Cascades.

Many residents, such as Steve Stoose, 34, live at the top of private driveways that slope down toward I-5.

“My view is fantastic,” Stoose said, looking out his window over the homes below. “That’s why I bought the house. I don’t think my view will be affected.”

The wall will protect the neighborhood from the intense racket caused by I-5 traffic, Lewis said.

Anderson’s home is at the bottom of a driveway, near I-5. He said a natural wall of trees and brush that offered glimpses of the mountains was a buffer for the noise. DOT crews chopped down many of the trees weeks ago to make room for the wall.

“It’s been much noisier since then,” he said.

The noise will continue until March, when the wall will go up over a period of about two months – about four house-lengths each day. DOT crews will yank out a state-owned chain-link fence that runs along the I-5 embankment to make room for drilling for the wall.

DOT spokeswoman Victoria Tobin said many residents rely on the state’s fence to keep pets confined and to stabilize backyard staples such as woodpiles.

“In some cases, private fences are actually leaning against the state’s fence,” Tobin said.

In a brochure Tobin and Lewis hand-delivered to the neighborhood early this week, residents were asked to clear anything that is within 2 feet of the fence.

The fence will be secured underground with concrete blocks, Lewis said. When the fence is pulled, the concrete could damage anything near it.

The state’s actual property line is anywhere from 5 to 10 feet west of the fence, Tobin said. Often, the line hovers somewhere in the middle of a residential back yard, over a shed, patio or landscaping.

That’s a problem in the Lowell neighborhood, where a wall is being erected in a narrow strip between homes and an embankment for I-5. Some residents there are losing portions of their back yards.

In Pinehurst, the wall will go in about five feet east of the fence, Lewis said. That means some neighbors will actually gain usable space.

Elaina Hoof, 19, lives with her family in an apartment down the road from Anderson. She doesn’t allow the family’s young children to play out back, she said, because of the constant roar of traffic and because motorists can see right into the area.

The wall will fix both problems, she said.

“This is something we’ve been waiting for, for a long time,” Hoof said.

Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.