Silver Lake development isn’t safe with highway traffic

Published 1:30 am Sunday, August 10, 2025

Why did the City of Everett permit the new eight-unit development at the northeast section of Silver Lake on the Bothell-Everett Highway? I realize housing is in demand, but this is a step in the wrong direction. Garage access for the eight units is in the back, with one entrance and exit off the highway. Traffic in this area can be heavy and fast moving. I’m puzzled how folks who might live there are going to get in and out of that one driveway. I foresee a lot of rear end collisions and traffic tie ups.

The previous building, a restaurant, was run into several times. Drivers think they can navigate the 25-mph turn doing 40 mph, so they end up embedded in the east end wall of the building. The radar feedback speed sign is too often ignored. The barriers put along the sidewalk, to this day, are bent due to drivers hitting them. The barriers will not protect the new structures. When the Bothell-Everett Highway was two lanes, and much slower with less traffic, there was a little store a gas station there. That space has been surrounded by apartments and townhomes, leaving this small patch of useless property.

It’s a tight building site, so houses are quite skinny, and four stories tall. Absurd!

In my view, the lot location is worthless, and now dangerous.

Michael Dahlstrom

Everett