Kirkland To Host Open House For Totem Lake Pedestrian Bridge

From City of Kirkland: Residents, commuters and stakeholders will get their first chance to evaluate several sketched concepts for the Totem Lake Connector bicycle and pedestrian bridge during a Thursday, March 16 open house at the Kirkland Justice Center. The drop-in event begins at 5:30 p.m. and ends at 8 p.m.

At the open house, which was originally scheduled for March 8, the design team will also be discussing a series of other topics with the public, such as preferred bridge width, connectivity to roads and businesses, and what makes one bridge concept more attractive than the others. This discussion will influence the final design, which the City Council should decide by late spring.

Kirkland’s project team of engineers and architects has, since fall, been developing and exploring concepts for a bridge that will connect the two ends of the Cross Kirkland Corridor currently severed by Northeast 124th Street and Totem Lake Boulevard.

The development of these concepts is part of a process that will contribute to a final design which, among other benefits, can help make the bridge more competitive for state and federal grants. Those grants will help pay for part of the bridge’s construction.

The March 16 open house is the second of three open houses the project team will host. At the third open house in May, the design team is planning on discussing the three or four preferred concepts that emerged from this process.

More than 50 residents came to the first open house in early February to learn about the project and to offer their own perspectives by answering a short series of questions. Residents are continuing to provide their perspectives by taking the survey online.

Without the bridge, getting from one side of the Cross Kirkland Corridor to the other just 200 feet away currently requires a willingness to navigate one of Kirkland’s most complicated intersections. For that reason, many people avoid the crossing, creating a premature dead-end to the Cross Kirkland Corridor.

“It’s difficult,” said Finn Hill resident Beriah Osorio “Too many lights. Too many intersections. Too many cars making left-hand turns; right-hand turns and not paying attention to you in the crosswalk.”

The bridge will resolve this problem, while connecting Totem Lake Park, and the new mall to the Cross Kirkland Corridor, a trail King County plans to extend into Woodinville’s wine country when it develops its own section of trail along the Eastside Rail Corridor.

For more information, visit www.kirklandwa.gov/totemlakeconnector or contact Christian Knight at (425) 587-3831,cknight@kirklandwa.gov

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