KIRKLAND, Wash. – There's a big debate brewing in Kirkland about what shape a popular trail should take years down the road. The 5.7 miles of the Cross Kirkland Corridor runs from 108th Avenue Northeast to Totem Lake Park.
Jan Young, part of the Save Our Trail initiative, said Thursday that the group has already collected 1,700 signatures opposing a plan to make the trail a transit corridor.
"We feel like [the trail is] unique and it fits the Kirkland feel here," Young said. "We've seen quail. We've seen deer. We've seen rabbits...even coyotes."
This week, Kirkland City Council members reaffirmed their position in a letter to the Sound Transit Board that the area should considered a possible transit corridor for light rail or low-emissions buses.
The gravel trail is 10 feet wide. The entire corridor is generally a hundred feet wide.
"I've done many transportation projects in my career and to have a hundred foot wide right-of-way is incredible," said Kathy Brown, public works director for City of Kirkland. "The only way that we'll solve our traffic problems is through a multi-model approach, better walkability, more use of bicycles, and most importantly efficient transit. The way to make transit efficient is to take it off of the streets that are already congested."
Brown said there are exceptions at five pinch-points.
"In those locations the corridor is 70 feet wide and they're pretty short," she said. "It's about 5 percent of our entire Cross Kirkland Corridor."
She said Kirkland, like many other municipalities in this area, is very north-south constricted.
"Our city is growing very rapidly and we're projecting a tremendous amount of traffic increase in the future," Brown said. "We took a look at what it would take to widen our streets to improve traffic flow and it would mean hundreds of millions of dollars. It would mean taking of hundreds of people's property...maybe thousands of people's property."
Santos Contreras, who's lived in Kirkland for 41 years and opposes putting a transit corridor along the trail, said part of the discussion should be linking this area with the Burke-Gilman Trail.
"We should preserve for our grandchildren this kind of amenity," he said. "Rail and buses should go where they belong and that is on the freeways and on the streets."
There are months of public comment ahead about ST3 before it goes before voters on the November ballot. There are three potential candidate projects within Kirkland, including bus rapid transit along I-405.
The entire Eastside Rail Corridor is 42 miles long, running from Renton to Snohomish County. Sound Transit purchased an easement for the entire length of the corridor, including the segment that's in Kirkland.
