Library parking woes studied

Published 6:45 am Monday, March 3, 2008

Part of Library Park could be paved over as the city tries to address parking concerns at the Mill Creek Library.

Mill Creek public works director Doug Jacobson is working on three possible solutions to the problem, two of which would involve building a one-way road linking the library’s 33-stall main parking lot with the 14 stalls at library park.

City staff, Library Board members, Mill Creek managing librarian Eric Spencer and state Rep. John Lovick visited the library on Oct. 12 to look at the problem first-hand.

Donna Michelson, the City Council member who represents the elected body on the city’s Library Board, said the proposed solutions are a “Band-Aid fix to a bigger problem.”

Nonetheless, the preliminary plans have support.

“I favor looking into it and seeing if it’s feasible,” said Barbara Masterson, Library Board chair. “The board is concerned about the tight parking situation at the library. People go there, can’t find a space and go home frustrated.”

Masterson said such instances frequently occur during children’s story times, for example.

Michelson said there are public safety concerns with the library’s parking situation as well. If patrons can’t find a space in the main lot and want to park at the auxiliary lot, they have to make a left turn onto Bothell-Everett Highway, crossing two lanes of northbound traffic, drive south to Mill Creek Boulevard, make a left, then make a left at 156th Street SE. just to access the Library Park parking area.

“A lot of people don’t even know there’s additional parking back there,” Michelson said.

Jacobson said any road through the park would be asphalt and would be 16 feet wide, “if not narrower,” and would only be one way. While both preliminary plans for an access road have advantages, one common concern is people using the library and the connector as a shortcut to go from the Bothell-Everett Highway to Village Green Drive. Concerns also exist as to whether or not the connector will truly be used as a one-way road.

So far, no opposition has surfaced against a connector road through Library Park.

“It’s a fair criticism,” Masterson said about the connector road through the park, “but we still need to look at it.”

Library Park consists of a few picnic tables, a children’s play area and a concrete stage where summertime children’s concerts take place. Both proposed routes for a connector road leave most of the parkland in tact.

A third option would be to widen part of 156th Street SE. to have more parallel parking. The city could widen the street’s south end, adjoining the Chelsea Apartments, and add parallel parking spaces with little difficulty since the city already owns the right-of-way in the area, Jacobson said.

The decision will ultimately lie with the City Council as to what fix they want. Michelson said she hopes to get an estimate on construction costs from Jacobson to bring to the Council at its Nov. 15 study session, with the aim of going to the Sno-Isle Library District to split the costs of construction.

Jacobson said there is no money in the city budget to build a connector road, and that in order to finance construction, an amendment of the city’s capital facilities plan would need to take place.