In mid-February, the Save Our Trail organization distributed a letter to the Kirkland City Council. The letter detailed environmental issues associated with mass transit on the Cross Kirkland Corridor Trail. A Save Our Trail representative and Kirkland citizen then emailed Mayor Amy Walen to ask about whether the City’s transit plan for the trail was still the best option. This is Save Our Trail’s response to her email.

In the mayor’s response to the citizen, she states that “Wherever transit is built, environmental mitigation is part of what must be done.”  However, the city’s own regulations state that, in the case of development in an environmentally sensitive area, avoidance is the first priority. If avoidance is an option, which with ST3 is certainly the case by using I-405 bus rapid transit, then mitigation is not the required or even recommended option.

The mayor also states that the “Corridor provides an enormous opportunity to be the greenest corridor in America.” Perhaps that is the case if the CKC trail is compared to concrete transit thoroughfares but it certainly will be degraded from its current natural condition after removal of many trees and the replacement of wetlands with a wide swath of concrete. That sounds like going from green to grey to us.

The mayor also mentions the corridor will “…actually clean surface water, before it reaches the lake.” However, do we really need to build an incredibly expensive transportation corridor to resolve a water issue?

The mayor states that the CKC “…is a transportation corridor, not a greenbelt” and that says it all. Save Our Trail sees a CKC that serves as both a non-motorized trail and a greenbelt with all the advantages of both. Her letter also includes the statement that “I’ve been working on this corridor since 2009 and we always envisioned transit along it.” A vision is great but when data and facts don’t support your vision, isn’t it time to look at other options, which in this case also seem to have the added benefit of being less expensive while moving more people?

Finally, the mayor mentions that the CKC doesn’t call for “one giant concrete pathway” but “three separate pathways” incorporated in some yet to be determined fashion.

Sound Transit’s mission is not trail building, so the routing and grade of the walking and biking pathways will be secondary considerations. Adding transit will result in the degradation of a beautiful natural setting which, once destroyed, cannot be replaced. At the March 1 Council meeting, we asked the City Council to reconsider their decision.

Rose Dennis, Kirkland (Save Our Trail spokesperson)