Point Wells - moving people on and off site
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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| Looking south from the road to Point Wells |
By Diane Hettrick
The irony of the planned development at Point Wells by Blue Square Real Estate is that under other circumstances, or other properties, some of us might be pleased to have these developers working in our community. They are environmentally-friendly and they are cleaning up a heavily polluted site. They are builders who have done some beautifully designed projects - Dockside Green in Vancouver is often mentioned.
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| Imagine the tanks and cranes replaced by 6 to 12 story buildings |
Aside from the jarring view of 12 story buildings sticking up from the beach, and thousands of additional cars traveling on Richmond Beach Road, the real challenge is the first quarter mile from the site to Richmond Beach Road.
The street is barely worthy of the name - Lane would be more appropriate. It is solidly built-out on the east side of the lane with houses, yards and the occasional sidewalk right up to the street. On the west side there is a sharp drop-off to the railroad tracks below, then houses, the new Kayu Kayu Ac Park, the new bridge across the railroad tracks.
The developers are talking to Sound Transit and are willing to build a station at Point Wells. That would take care of the commuters. They are talking to Metro about running bus routes to Point Wells. Metro, of course, is cutting and combining routes, but perhaps the developers will set up their own bus company or fund a Metro run.
They could rebuild the road through Woodway to provide an alternate route. This is probably one of the reasons that Woodway has joined forces with Save Richmond Beach. See meeting notice.
The more services they put on site, like shops, police, fire, the more non-residents will be commuting to the site to go to their jobs.
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| Photo courtesy Brightwater |
To my disappointment, no one has floated the idea of a water taxi, float planes, or barges, but perhaps that will come. They are planning to leave the dock.
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5 comments:
While its unfortunate that the people of RB will have to suffer more traffic, it is strangely satisfying to watch the Rich battle the Rich.
Boohoo! Woodway is worried.
Boohoo! Rich people with million dollar views are worried.
Boohoo! Bluesquare Billionaire is hiring its own fire department and police department.
Breaks my heart!
These are reasonable questions and observations, I really like the suggestion about the water taxi.
Sound Transit has stated in the past that they have no interest in either building a transit station at Point Wells, or allowing a private party to build a transit station. Unless this posture has changed, the developer's suggestion of a Sound Transit station is disingenuous.
I have read that traffic on Richmond Beach Rd/185th is expected to increase 1000%! Yes, that is one thousand percent!! Crossing Aurora at 185th is already a mess.
Plus, all tax revenue is in Snohomish County. So Shoreline would provide all the infrastructure amenities with no added revenue?
This is a terrible idea for Shoreline residents.
If you are so upset with traffic at 185th & Aurora already, have you told Will Hall? He is on the Puget Sound Regional Council Transporation Committee, a Shoreline City Councilmember and a staff member to the Snohomish County Council (which by the way engineering the Point Wells decision, something he helped plan when he was in the planning department at Snohomish County) - he doesn't want any NIMBYs to get in the way of the proposed Sound Transit Station at 185th and I-5, which will add even more traffic at the top of the hill.
I love it, all the people at the bottom of 185th who never cared about traffic before up on Aurora and tried to force density up and down Aurora all of sudden care about traffic at 185th and Aurora. Who are the NIMBYs now?
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