Lake Trail issues remain misunderstood; let’s clear them up

Commentary

Reading comments on this blog about the latest East Lake Sammamish Trail events, prompted by a mass email campaign generated by the Cascade Bicycle Club, displays a real lack of understanding about the issues involved.

The emails created by the Club don’t surprise me: all they care about is bicycling and Sammamish Mapnothing else. Some of their members don’t even follow the Rules of the Road while biking on streets, let alone respect the unique issues involved in developing the ELST. Their self-centered myopia is long-standing.

The Club strikes me as particularly hypocritical because most of the time, the bicyclists prefer the streets and roads to the trails.

But the comments from some of those who live in Sammamish and who otherwise are concerned about local development surprise me. Many use the ELST and should see first hand some of the issues involved.

Let’s look at these unique issues.

Continue reading

First candidates emerge for City Council, 45th State Senate seats

City_of_SammamishWe’re only two months into 2017 and already some names are emerging for the November 7 off-year election.

City and County council races occur this year. A special election for the 45th State Senate seat, which includes the north end of Sammamish roughly along a line of SE 8th St., will also be on the ballot.

Sammamish Comment gave a full rundown of the local elections in January. In Sammamish, two City Council Members upended the dynamics of the election when they announced at the Council retreat in January that they would not run for reelection. First-term Council Member Bob Keller and Mayor Don Gerend, who has been on the Council since the first election in 1999, said they will retire at the end of this year.

Continue reading

Sammamish Council inundated by Cascade Bicycle Club campaign on ELST

Sammamish officials faced an onslaught of bicyclists last month in a coordinated, mass-attack email campaign urging them to approve the development permits for Section 2B of the East Lake Sammamish Trail.

City Council members were inundated with emails that said were coordinated by the Cascade Bicycle Club to approve the permit for the center section of the ELST. This section runs from roughly the 7-11 north to Inglewood Hill Road. It is the final section that is at the development permitting stage.

Sammamish, the permitting agency, is resisting the applications filed by King County, developer of the trail, on several grounds. These include environmental, tree preservation, disputes over legal ownership of the trail and past and current problems between the County and adjacent property owners over development of the north and south sections.

Continue reading

Transportation Master Plan RFP green-lighted for Sammamish

City_of_Sammamish

Sammamish Retreat 2017.

A request for proposal for a consultant to create a Transportation Management Plan (TMP) for Sammamish was green-lighted Saturday at the annual retreat.

A TMP for a 20-30 year vision will be a first for the City.

This differs from the Six Year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP), a legal requirement under state law for projects needed for growth and traffic concurrency standards.

It will include connectivity, sidewalks, bike lanes, the possibility of new east-west and north-south routes.

Coordination with Redmond, Issaquah, King County, the State and Sound Transit will also be examined.

Continue reading

County sues Sammamish over Lake Trail

City_of_SammamishKing County sued Sammamish Jan. 3 over a determination by the City that the County’s clearing and grading permit application for development of Section 2B of the East Lake Sammamish Trail is incomplete.

The County asks King County Superior Court for a declaratory judgment that the application is complete and vested to rules in place Nov. 16. Companion permit applications were deemed complete then by the City. The County also asks for unspecified damages.

This is the latest in long-running disputes between the County, City and residents along the trail.

Continue reading