Burnside project manager Bill Hoffman visited with the NW District Association transportation committee last week at their request to give an update on the Burnside project.
As previously reported, the project is now modeling a new set of alternatives. Bill indicated that the results would be communicated at two meetings later this month:
July 17th for “key” stakeholders (not sure who else is on the list)
July 26th for the full Stakeholder Advisory Committee
I have invitations to both meetings and you can expect word on the results of the modeling to appear here after the first meeting.
Bill did give one small hint into the results: the 2 west/one east option for the area west of I-405 is performing better than the 1/1/1 option (one lane in each direction and a center turning lane). This was my prediction and I pushed Commissioner Adams to get the 2/1 option into the modeling. Still unrevealed however is the amount of diversion of traffic into the neighborhoods that any 3 lane option creates compared to the 4-lane configuration that exists today.
One response to “Next Chapter in the Burnside Saga to Unfold Next Week”
As a pedestrian and bus rider who lives very
close to West Burnside, I feel that any 3 lane
option will be a disaster.
A decent compromise which I saw advocated by
someone was to keep the outside lanes at 11 foot
width for commercial traffic (i.e., buses) and
to reduce the inner lanes to 10 foot width, used
primarily by private automobiles. This would add
one foot in width to each sidewalk without
gumming up traffic. Also, traffic lights could
be jiggled to slow traffic down somewhat for
safety (but not unreasonably so).