Most homeowners who find themselves snuggled up close to I-5 in Everett are clamoring for the state to erect sound walls as part of a plan to widen the freeway.
But not every homeowner wants the noise walls.
More than half the folks who own homes along a four-block section of Summit and Highland avenues in the north Everett Riverside neighborhood would rather keep their view of the Cascades than block freeway noise.
“We normally build sound walls, but we don’t want to do it if (the residents) don’t want it,” said Victoria Tobin, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.
Funded by the 5-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax the Legislature approved in 2003, the $221 million widening project will extend a carpool lane from Highway 526, the Boeing freeway, north to U.S. 2, and add an all-purpose lane from 41st Street SE to U.S. 2. The lanes will be added northbound and southbound. Construction is scheduled to start in June and could finish by the end of 2007.
The state plans to build three miles of sound walls where there are high concentrations of homes along the route. That leaves out folks such as Pat Parkins, who lives just east of I-5 in the sparsely populated Sylvan Crest neighborhood.
Parkins said traffic on I-5 has become so bad that she chokes on noise and exhaust “every day.”
“I’ve lived here long enough that I can shut (the traffic) out – I just tell myself it’s the ocean,” Parkins said. “It’s mainly those semis with their brakes. When they go off in the middle of the night, you come straight out of bed.”
The state allows the property owners of the two rows of homes closest to the freeway to vote on whether they want sound walls if there appears to be dissension in a neighborhood. The results of just such a vote were presented to two groups of Riverside property owners at a meeting Wednesday night.
Homeowners who live south of 23rd Street overwhelmingly support building a sound wall south to Everett Avenue, but the folks who live north of 23rd Street aren’t so sure they want a wall planned for 23rd Street to 19th Street.
“I can’t believe the people in my neighborhood would want a wall,” said Doris Vanderway, a Riverside resident who lives along the proposed north wall.
She fears her view of the mountains would be obstructed. She also worries about her property value.
A decision will likely be made by the end of the year, said Roland Benito, Transportation Department engineer on the project.
Sound walls reduce traffic noise by at least seven decibels in homes closest to the freeway, and can often reduce noise much more if the homes are especially close, said Lawrence Spurgeon, an environmental engineering consultant for the Transportation Department.
Spurgeon said noise on I-5 in Everett ranges from 55 to 75 decibels. At 67 decibels, it starts to become difficult to hold a conversation with someone standing next to you, he said.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
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