While serving as a traffic engineer for the city of Kirkland during the past 22 years, David Godfrey has seen the city grow and he’s tried to manage the pains associated with it.

Godfrey retired on June 3, and the Reporter caught up with him to get his thoughts on how Kirkland is addressing its transportation issues, and what could be in store in the future.

During his tenure with the city, which began in late 1993, he has worked on various city and regional transportation boards, planned and executed transportation operations for the city and helped draft multiple transportation master plans, the most recent being the 2015 plan.

Overall, Godfrey said the city has adapted rather well to increasing traffic, which he credited largely to the steady approach of the City Council over the years, but said congestion isn’t likely to change much.

“I think traffic congestion was around 20 years ago, and it’s around today, and it will probably be with us in the future,” he said.

A growing acceptance of both transit-oriented developments, like mixed-use buildings and park-and-ride locations, as well as for multi-modal transportation models, which include walking, biking and transit options, also help.

The idea of building more and bigger highways is a popular one with developers, but Godfrey said over the years that idea has fallen by the wayside.

“Twenty years ago, the idea that, hey, you can’t just keep building more lanes and think that congestion will go away was kind of a newish idea,” he said. “I’d say it’s become something that the community kind of recognizes.”

Another hot-button issue is the self-driving cars versus high-capacity transit debate.

Godfrey said he can envision driverless cars revolutionizing how people get around, but also said the city should be taking concrete steps to address congestion and traffic issues now.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to throw all your eggs in one basket and wait for self-driving cars,” he said.

He favors running high-capacity transit, like bus-rapid transit (BRT), along the Cross Kirkland Corridor and said he thinks it would be a better fit for the city as opposed to light rail right now. However, he said preserving a quality pedestrian trail along the Corridor is not mutually exclusive to running BRT along it.

Looking forward, Godfrey said the city will need to continue balancing land use issues, environmental concerns, citizen interest and meeting the transportation needs of a rapidly growing city.

But the biggest strengths he saw in the city during his tenure were the people, both citizens and officials.

“I think the city’s in really great hands, I think the city council and manager are really excellent and have the right idea,” he said. “One of the greatest things about Kirkland is having a group of citizens who live in Kirkland that are so involved.”