More than 30 local residents attended the Lakeview Trail Open House at the Ballinger Lakes Golf Course Clubhouse Sept. 26 to hear alternative plans, ask questions, view maps and diagrams, and provide input for the plan to redesign Lakeview Drive in the Lake Ballinger neighborhood.

The Lakeview Trail Project will build a combination of sidewalks and bike lanes, shared-use trail, or cycle tracks for pedestrians and bicyclists between the Interurban Trail at 228th Street Southwest, along Lakeside Drive, and then on to the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center at I-5 and 236th Street Southwest. The improvements, to be built on existing right-of-way and city-owned land, extend a distance of approximately one mile. The open house included a presentation of the project goals and alternatives by the design firm, Parametrix, and city staff.

The biggest concerns raised by attendees included loss of some on-street parking, the potential for increased vehicular traffic and costs. With the possible addition of bicycle lanes and wider sideways, some curb parking on Lakeview Drive will be removed.
An unrelated project by the City of Edmonds to extend 228th Street Southwest west of 76th Avenue West to Highway 99 is expected to add 70 percent more vehicles to Lakeview Drive, traffic engineers concluded. But even with the expected increase in traffic, Lakeview Drive will still be utilized at only 50 perecnt of its designed capacity, said Janet Hall, Mountlake Terrace Traffic Engineer.

The Lakeview Trail project is funded by three grants obtained from the Federal Highway Administration for $2,580,276, or about 83 percent of the design and construction costs. The City of Mountlake Terrace is contributing $526,034 to meet final project costs.While comments from residents were collected on forms provided during the open house, the city is accepting additional comments from the general public for a few more days.

Mailed comments must be postmarked by Oct. 8, 2012. Comments may also be emailed, phoned in or hand delivered until Oct. 10. Once the comments are received, preliminary design and environmental review of the preferred alternative will proceed during the fall of this year. The resulting preliminary design will be presented at a second open house this coming winter.