The City of Kirkland wants to know: Which of these awesome bike/walk bridge designs is the most awesome?
The Cross Kirkland Corridor trail effectively ends today at NE 124th Street near the intersection with Totem Lake Blvd NE, but the city wants to continue it north to connect into the under-development plans in the Totem Lake area and help the trail reach the city’s border with Woodinville near the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery and the Sammamish River Trail.
But to that, they need to get the trail across this big intersection. The Cross Kirkland Corridor Master Plan calls for a biking and walking bridge spanning the two streets and avoiding the high-power lines at the north end. Though the project is still seeking another $5.8 million or so according the CKC website, the city is moving forward with design work.
They have received four bridge concepts to choose from, all of which hope to become an iconic part of the area in addition to carrying people using the trail over the busy streets.
You can let the city know which one you prefer via an online survey. Here are the concepts:
Comments
5 responses to “Which of these awesome bike/walk bridges to Totem Lake is the most awesome?”
Which will get built the fastest and leave more money for improvements elsewhere?
Also, if Kirkland wants to help cyclists, perhaps they could start by actually prosecuting the drivers who kill them? Due to their negligence there, I’m half-inclined to have my first priority be picking a bridge design that makes it physically impossible to drive a car onto the bridge.
suspended ring is the best, but I agree lots of non-bridge safety work needed – i.e. protected bike lanes everywhere.
OK, I originally didn’t see the point of this bridge. What I want is a bike lane at that point on 124 that meets up with the existing 124 bike lane a mile or two towards Woodinville. That gets you to the Winery. Be nice to have a way over I405 on 124, as it is I usually go over to 116, under I405 and round back of Taco Bell to get to that bike lane.
They also want to get you over to Totem Lake though. A bike bridge would make that easy enough, but really they could just re-work the streets. Couldn’t say which would be cheaper.
A bike lane on 124th across that interchange would be pretty tough riding without changing the nature of the merges entirely, which WSDOT is not going to go for. But the CKC crosses 405 pretty close to there, skipping the interchange! I’d really like to see a better connection between the east end of the CKC and the Sammamish River Trail; the stretch of 124th just east of Slater, going up and down the hill, is something I avoid as an experienced rider, and certainly is not a connection suitable for a lot of people comfortable with both the CKC and SRT.
I bike the CKC daily to get to Sammamish/Burke and back to Seattle from the Eastside.
The Totem Lake area is not the issue, the issue is once you get off the CKC and are trying to get to Sammamish, when the bike lane on 124 suddenly turns into a right-turn lane.
It’s a busy street and if the light timing doesn’t work in your favor, it is quite challenging trying to cross over a lane of traffic (of cars that rarely sees bikes).
Instead of building an expensive bridge to fix a non-issue (really? you can’t just use the crosswalk? There is 0 safety issue at Totem Lake, just an inconvenience) I’d like them to connect the CKC and Sammamish entirely. Google Map shows railroad tracks right after CKC ends at 132, possibly to the Woodinville park?