A statewide transportation package passed by the Senate Monday includes $75 million to construct interchange ramps at 132nd Ave Northeast in Kirkland’s Totem Lake neighborhood.
As of Wednesday morning, all of the transportation reform bills that the Senate passed have also been passed by the House, according to Kirkland Intergovernmental Relations Manager Lorrie McKay. However, the House will need to pass two separate bills, one for bonds to fund transportation and the other for additive transportation funding and appropriations that includes the interchange ramp project, for it to be included in the final transportation package.
Kirkland City Manager Kurt Triplett said they are optimistic that the final package will contain the ramp project as local representatives had indicated that inclusion is likely.
“That’s a great sign and pretty remarkable to where we started which was not being in the package at all,” he said.
Triplett attributed the project’s inclusion to the united effort by Kirkland’s representatives in both the House and the Senate.
“The neat thing was our entire delegation was supportive,” he said. “All of them were very supportive of this, which is one the reasons it happened.”
According to Triplett, the proposed funding for the project as currently written would have construction start around 2019.
“We’re actually very happy with that, because the transportation package is a 25-year package,” he said. “The concern is that they’ll put it in but have it in 2030.”
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) project, originally approved by the state in 2005 but postponed and moved to the unfunded list, is considered by both the city and businesses in Totem Lake as a vital update to Kirkland’s infrastructure in anticipation of the Totem Lake Malls redevelopment project by CenterCal Properties, among others.
According to a joint statement from legislative transportation leaders on the revenue package agreement, it will include $8 million in funding for the 2017-2019 biennium, then $54 million in 2019-2021, followed by $13 million in 2021-2023. The $16.1 billion package is funded by an 11.9 cent gas tax increase and various fees. It allocates $8.8 billion to state and local road projects, $1.4 billion to maintenance and preservation, and nearly $1 billion for multimodal projects.
Triplett has previously expressed the need for the interchange ramp for the Totem Lake area, when they will be facing traffic problems caused by new developments. CenterCal representatives, now calling the project The Village at Totem Lake, hope to have the development open by late 2017 or early 2018. According to Planning Director Eric Shields, CenterCal will have a conceptual design conference with the design review board on July 6. The city has actively lobbied local legislators representing the 45th District, as well as other state legislators, to support the project, claiming conservatively that it will bring in $140 million in state tax revenue.
“This project couldn’t come at a better time for the Totem Lake area,” said Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell. “With redevelopment plans already underway to the Totem Lake Mall, the area is set to be transformed into a beautiful and modern shopping district.”
As Triplett and other city officials see it, the project is necessary to relieve traffic congestion, in part due to growth Kirkland has absorbed under the Growth Management Act in which urban centers such as Totem Lake are given higher priority for infrastructure investments. The city has spent $50 million in the last four years in the Totem Lake neighborhood, according to Triplett, and millions more will be spent under the current draft of their transportation master plan. Additionally, their redevelopment agreement with the property owners for the Totem Lake Malls promises $15 million in public infrastructure improvements under certain stipulations, along with up to $10 million in Totem Lake Park.
