City of Shoreline:

The City of Shoreline has been busy developing the preliminary design to update 145th Street (SR-523) from Aurora Avenue North to I-5. This new design will improve safety and ensure that this critical corridor can effectively serve Shoreline and the growing number of travelers who rely on it every day.

The timing is planned to coincide with the opening of the Jackson Park Link station in 2024.  Don’t let the word “multimodal” get you too excited.  Bike lanes will be “off-corridor” (e.g. greenways), and there won’t be much in the way of bus priority (there’s only one, peak-only bus, the 304, on this section of 145th).  Also the sidewalk will still be right up against the street, at least in one direction.

Note that this project is separate from the Sound Transit 522 BRT project, which will also use 145th east of I-5 and which will have dedicated bus lanes.

It will take nine years to plan, design and build the 1-mile Aurora-to-I-5 corridor, over three phases, at a cost of $63M. You can comment online by May 1.

Previous coverage: TOD at 145th, Fixing 145th, SR-522 BRT

44 Replies to “Shoreline Looking for Feedback on N 145th”

  2. the post, in describing the corridor between SR-522 and Link states: “which will have dedicated bus lanes”. this seems over stated. they may have some BAT lanes.

  3. Fun side fact: The northern half of N 145th St – from Lake Washington to Greenwood Ave N – was never annexed by the City of Shoreline, so a (roughly) 30-foot wide strip of unincorporated King County exists between Shoreline and Seattle.

      1. It is not that necessarily that easy. In 1989, state law was amended to require that cities annex all of none of the right-of-way (RCW 35.13. 300-330). Prior to that, cities could annex to the center line. The City of Seattle annexed to the center line of 145th in 1954. By the time Shoreline incorporated in 1995, including the northern half on 145th within the city limits was not an option (the same applied to Lake Forest Park when it annexed land in the mid 90s). Thus, the unincorporated right-of-way. The available options to resolve the situation are 1) Seattle annexes the unincorporated right-of-way or 2) Seattle de-annexes the southern half and Shoreline incorporates all of the right-of-way. With Shoreline preparing for improvements to the roadway, it does not appear that Option #1 is in play.

      2. Yeah, I’m aware of the history here as I moved to Seattle in the late 80s. I also have some friends from Shoreline who live very close to this area, so I’ve traveled down this corridor many times. Nevertheless, I appreciate your detailed reply about the history of how the ROW ended up this way. Thanks.

      3. Couldn’t this jurisdictional problem be resolved by some legislator taking the initiative to do it? It would seem to take only creating a consensus on giving it to Shoreline, and allowing for de-annexing Seattle’s claim to its half — then writing a new bill to allow it. Letting it just hang out there as an issue seems lazy and irresponsible among the legislators that represent the area.

      4. @Al S. There’s really nothing special that needs to happen here legislatively to resolve the jurisdictional complexity that exists today. Shoreline just needs to follow the process to annex the entire ROW from King County and the city of Seattle. The rub is in the interlocal agreements, i.e., the funding and cost-sharing arrangements for various capital and operational expenses that Shoreline would be taking on. From what I know about the situation, Shoreline has been in discussions to do this at least as far back as 2012. King County and Seattle have not been as interested to resolve the matter however.

        If you really want to get some historical context on this, then I would suggest reading a couple of staff reports on the annexation issue presented to Shoreline’s city council during hearings dated 2/27/12 and 10/15/12. You can find those documents using the following link (or just google the subject matter). I found the reports to be pretty informative.

        http://www.shorelinewa.gov/government/council-meetings

        And if you really want to get into the weeds about the various annexation options that cities of the first and second classes as well as code cities have at their disposal under current state statutes, this source covers the topic pretty well and has additional links to other informational resources.

        http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Legal/General-Government/Annexation.aspx

    2. It also means that the 145th/Lake City Way intersection is under 6 different jurisdictions when planning the BRT project – ST, Seattle, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, WA State, and unincorporated King County.

      1. Oh geez. Having dealt with the major annoyance of an intersection redesign with 3 jurisdictions before, your comment made my butthole pucker :(

  4. Tye 304 might be the only bus on that corridor today, but at some point, this has to change, or Shoreline is going to find itself cut off from Link. Buses to 185th don’t do any good for people that live south of 185th.

    1. Metro’s 2024 plan extends the 65 on 145th-5th-155th-Aurora-160th-ShorelineCC. That connects Link to the village at 155th & Aurora, just not to west 145th. That may be OK.

    2. North 155th Street would be a better choice for east-west transit; it would connect well with SCC and the Sears site; it has less congestion; 5th Avenue NE could be used to reach Link. note that east-west service could be on NE 125th and North 130th Street for the NE 130th Street station. North 145th Street could have a car focus.

    3. This is the route that Mike is talking about: https://goo.gl/maps/HMbwsTQ3E5j7DCyk7. You can see this on the long range plan (http://www.kcmetrovision.org/wp-content/themes/kcmlrtp/LongRangePlan/#). Select the “2025” radio button, and then look for a line on 155th between Link and I-5. Select the line, and you should see a bus route called “1019”. This is basically an extension of the 65 (through the station and on to Shoreline College).

      As others have said, this is the best way to get to the college. I would still add service for 145th, but I’ll admit I can see why you wouldn’t. There is no obvious place to go (one option would be to run the 28 all day, and extend it just a bit farther to the station). Even if you did that, though, the place to add bus lanes would be on 155th (and 5th).

      1. So why are people complaining about no 145th Aurora to I-5 bus lanes in Shoreline’s plan if there’s not going to be an all-day 145th Aurora to I-5 bus?

      2. Yeah, I suppose given that the 145th St. station is really several blocks north of 145, 155th is the better transit route, since avoids the I-5 on ramps and the left turn off 145th into the station, which would likely entail a several-minute-long red light.

        That said, there are people that live around Aurora/145th or Greenwood/145th, and their options still look bad. Maybe they either walk to Link or take a different bus that goes to 130th St. station. Fortunately, the sidewalks in the picture look quite a bit better than the sidewalks today, but there’s a lot of details they aren’t showing. Will the new 145th be lit well enough to make people feel safe walking down it after dark? Will it be possible to cross I-5 without playing Frogger with a bunch of freeway ramps? Will there be a sidewalk on 5th between 145th and the actual station?

      3. “So why are people complaining about no 145th Aurora to I-5 bus lanes in Shoreline’s plan if there’s not going to be an all-day 145th Aurora to I-5 bus?”

        I think people see 145th station and 145th street and think there should be a grid route, and don’t realize that 155th would be more generally useful and is in Metro’s plan. There’s also the fact that Stride is right there and could be extended a short distance at low cost, and it seems a shame not to. However, the station won’t be right at 145th, but at 147th or 148th. So there would be significant resistance to having Stride stay on 145th and people walking two blocks to the station, because it’s supposed to be their replacement for the 522 to downtown and they don’t want a cumbersome transfer in the middle. If the 65 goes north on 5th it will go right past the station.

        Metro’s 2025 plan has no route from 5th to Aurora but it does have a route from 5th to Meridian (Greenlake-Mountlake Terrace). The 2040 plan has a route from 5th to Greenwood (Smith Cove-145th). So there will be routes both east and west of 5th, just not crossing it.

        The urban villages on Aurora are centered at 135th and 155th. 145th is a lower-density area between them.

        (Note to RossB: so that’s one route that crosses the Ballard Bridge post Link. It avoids a 3-seat ride from parts of Ballard to parts of Magnolia.)

      4. That said, there are people that live around Aurora/145th or Greenwood/145th, and their options still look bad.

        I agree. That is why I would have a bus run on 145th. It just wouldn’t run it as often as the bus on 155th or the bus on 130th.

      5. Can it run just to the station or does it have to run all the way from Aurora or Greenwood to Lake City Way?

      6. I consider the station at 145th to be like a transit center (similar to Northgate) while the station at 130th is similar to Capitol Hill Station. Buses will go by NE 130th, while buses can just end at 145th. With the 522 BRT running from Bothell Way to the station and the 65 running from essentially Lake City Way to the station, I don’t think we need another bus crossing from one side to the other. I would run a bus from the station to Greenwood Avenue via 145th and that’s it. I suppose it could be paired with another bus (as some of the Northgate buses are) but I wouldn’t consider it essential.

  5. When will cities start create visualizations that are in the real world — lots more traffic! This looks like Sunday at 8 am.

  6. There doesn’t seem to be much of a transit angle here, though it is nice for Shoreline and Seattle that ST will contribute a lot of money towards 145th road improvements for cars. It would be nice if transit money went for transit, alas.

    Looks like there will be some ped improvements. I don’t know if I believe Greenways are big improvements, but some extra paint and signs won’t be awful.

  7. I would expect/hope that there will be more than one peak-only bus route on that section of N 145th once the station opens, so that’s not a particularly good excuse for limited bus priority. Of course, I also think that ST missed the proverbial bus by not running the 522 through to Shoreline CC, but that would have meant building their station much closer to 145th than 148th.

    I’ll definitely expect to see better cross-town bus service to the more critical station at 130th, which will serve Lake City and Bitter Lake/Broadview, and hopefully the station design will minimize the transfer from these through buses.

    1. I think the general plan is to send a bus from the station to Shoreline CC, but via 155th, basically like so: https://goo.gl/maps/HMbwsTQ3E5j7DCyk7. Metro has this on their long range plan as an extension of the 65. This sounds like it could work out just fine.

      That being said, I would still have service along 145th, but I can understand why Metro considers it optional.

      1. That’s not horrible, although were I looking to live (or work) in the area I’d definitely gravitate towards 125th/130th or 155th. The station at 148th definitely becomes a suburban bus termination and drive-to station whilst 130th if designed correctly should be as simple as get off the bus, walk down to the platform, catch the train. Lake City would be no more than 10 minutes by bus and Bitter Lake less than that. Fifth is quiet enough there north of the station that provisions for kiss-and-ride and rideshare drop-offs could be made as well.

        Thank goodness the station at 130th was added, or the densest neighborhood north of the U District would have no reasonable bus service at all to Link save a line through a 2-lane street to the traffic zoo that is Northgate, having to cross the entire Northgate area to reach the station. People who live in Lake City would never drive that way unless they were actually going to Northgate; it would be insane. If bus line 1997 is frequent and there is any sort of priority, 130th will be an extremely successful station. Both Lake City and Bitter Lake are primed for upzoning and growth. The idea of leaving it out nearly cost ST my future votes.

        I would think that there would be at least some demand to go to Shoreline CC from LFP and other areas north of 145th; those people will have to take two buses. (I also note that there will be no reasonable transit service to a Link station along the north end of 35th NE – the Sand Point route goes to 130th but the new 65 would only serve Husky Stadium and 145th. Good luck convincing anyone along there to get out of their cars or to upzone. I wouldn’t.)

      2. I agree with most of your points, however:

        I would think that there would be at least some demand to go to Shoreline CC from LFP and other areas north of 145th; those people will have to take two buses.

        Not necessarily. Plenty of people will take two buses, just as plenty of people take two buses right now. The difference is that those buses would be a lot more frequent. Meanwhile, some people — especially those in Lake Forest Park — will be able to take one bus. They can take one bus right now — the 331. This also serves Kenmore. The long range plan keeps the basic idea, but the bus leaves Ballinger Way a little bit sooner, and makes a more direct path towards the college (it doesn’t go as far north). It is the only bus on Ballinger Way, so you can see it fairly easily on the long range plan (it is called 1215). In general I would say the bus route looks very good. It connects much of the area directly with the college. I would tweak it just a little bit by sending the bus over 185th, then Meridian to 175th, but that is a minor change (and more about traffic than anything else). Overall I would say that the route looks very good.

        Metro also proposes sending a bus on NE 130th over to the college as well. This is where I differ, fairly dramatically. Having three buses (the 5, this 1215 and the extended 65) all serving the college seems sufficient. I would have a bus start from the far end of Lake City Way (145th) then drive by the station at NE 130th, continue to Bitter Lake and then head south on Greenwood. If done right, it would connect neighborhoods like Greenwood and Ballard with Lake City really well. It would still be a two seat ride, but both buses would run frequent and fast (by avoiding the Northgate mess). I plan on writing a proposal (a Page 2 post) about this, but Page 2 doesn’t seem to be working for me right now. I’ve had my (hopefully last) write up about a Northgate based restructure in “Pending” mode for a week. I don’t want to publish something about a Lynnwood Link based restructure before finishing that one.

      3. Look forward to reading your Northgate post, Ross. I spent several decades in NE Seattle (my family even longer) and I know you’re also quite familiar with the area.

  8. I haven’t read the complete list of documents, but what I’ve read is encouraging. Two pieces from the section closest to I-5 stand out:

    1) An eastbound 145th Street to northbound Interstate-5 button-hook ramp so that vehicles will be able to turn right and loop under the bridge to access Interstate-5 northbound. This will mean fewer cars on 5th Avenue, north of 145th as well as a shorter light cycle. Both of these should help bus flow in the area.

    2) The existing sidewalk on the north side of the bridge will be replaced with a new, separate but adjacent non-motorized bridge that will tie into the off-corridor bike network and will connect to the future light rail station.. This will mean that walking to the station from the west will be a lot more pleasant.

  9. Somewhat related: Shoreline is also seeking feedback for N 185th St corridor. The online survey (link below) is open until sometime in May. I thought that options that have protected bike lanes and dedicated bus lanes look good. From the 2nd open house, they noted that most of the current and pending upzone development have been/are for townhouses. No news on the multiacre Shoreline Center, the school district is not in a rush to solicit offers yet.

    http://www.shorelinewa.gov/government/projects-initiatives/185th-street-multimodal-corridor-strategy

  10. Separated pedestrian bridge from the west straight to station sounds pretty sweet! Could make the west side of the freeway more realistically within the walkshed of the station

  11. Perhaps I’m missing something here but the cost estimates for the Aurora to I-5 section (phases 1-3) seem rather high. I’ve only had a chance to glance thru the study and the reports on the linked pages (still reading sections of the Mueller report) so I might have overlooked something pretty important. Is there significant work that needs to be done at both the eastern and westen edges of the project where 145th crosses I-5 and Aurora Ave respectively?

    Additionally, the ROW acquisition needs for this section amount to almost $30M, almost half of the total estimated cost. What exactly is needed to be acquired along the corridor, which I believe abuts largely residential lots. I think this section of the corridor is about a mile in length in total if I’m not mistaken.

    What I’m comparing it to is a road widening project near where I live in urban SW Snohomish County that I’m very familiar with. The county improved an outdated minor arterial that was previously a simple 2-lane road with culverts with a 3-lane road (one travel lane in each direction and a center turn lane), including bike lanes on both sides, curbs, planting strips and sidewalks on both sides, to bring it up to current minor arterial minimum standards. The corridor is about two miles in length and is funded through the county’s dedicated road fund. The project was done in two phases and completed almost five years ago. I believe the entire cost for this road project was just shy of $16M, including the needed ROW acquisitions (which were mostly partial takings to accomodate the wider road and updated standards), utility relocations, upgraded surface water drainage and the aforementioned bike and pedestrian improvements.

    Perhaps the complexity of the freeway and Aurora Avenue crossings as well as the multijurisdictional nature of the corridor add substantially to the cost estimates for the project. Still, the amount seems high to me since the project is half the length of the completed project near my home.

    Anyone have any insights?

    1. They are proposing having a separate bridge for bikes/peds alongside the existing overpass. I imagine that’s a huge portion of the cost for that segment.

      1. Thanks for the reply. I got the impression that that particular element was not part of the phase 1 section of the project, but perhaps that’s not the case. Nevertheless, the construction costs shown for the phase 2 section are actually HIGHER than those shown for phase 1. The ROW cost for phase 1 is shown as a whopping $15.9M, the majority of the cost for that segment.

        By the way, in the pie chart illustration for the three phases highlighted under “Project Implementation” (at the link to the Shoreline project page), the pie charts are actually graphically incorrect. I hadn’t noticed this initially; I’m assuming the estimate numbers shown are indeed correct, but it’s a rather sloppy presentation.

  12. Make cyclists pay for their own lane and paint and signs. The vehicles who pay taxes need more room to ease congestion. Please stop taking away lanes and causing more traffic. The emissions from idled cars is terrible. They need to be able to move without stopping so much so that they can actually run economically. The transition to electric is too expensive for the majority of us. We need to stop making the infrastructure worse, it is already so constricted as it is, if we keep doing this it will take an hour just to get downtown from shoreline. Is that supposed to make people want to live here? When the link gets here, does anybody in shoreline(or Seattle for that matter) is going to be able to get on? I have experienced this in Portland with their light rail. Good luck getting on towards the end of the run. They get so fill so fast that you have to wait for the next one. Then you are late to work. Have you ever tried taking the Sounder train in Edmonds? Pretty tough because it filled it at the previous stops. This isn’t going to do is any good whatsoever. 9 years of wasting money…. That sounds like American government. Give us affordable houses to buy before you worry about how people are going to ride their bike to the link station.

    1. >Make cyclists pay for their own lane and paint and signs. The vehicles who pay taxes need more room to ease congestion.

      ok, call me when drivers start paying the full cost of road construction and maintenance (spoiler: they don’t). also, everyone pays taxes regardless of whether or not they own a car, including cyclists. they are already helping pay for your lanes.

      >Please stop taking away lanes and causing more traffic.

      kindly look up “induced demand,” adding lanes does not make traffic better

      >When the link gets here, does anybody in shoreline(or Seattle for that matter) is going to be able to get on? I have experienced this in Portland with their light rail. Good luck getting on towards the end of the run. They get so fill so fast that you have to wait for the next one. Then you are late to work. Have you ever tried taking the Sounder train in Edmonds? Pretty tough because it filled it at the previous stops.

      there’s an easy solution for this if/when it occurs: run more trains. much easier than building another freeway lane.

      >9 years of wasting money…. That sounds like American government. Give us affordable houses to buy before you worry about how people are going to ride their bike to the link station

      no one’s gonna “give” you anything, chief. lobby your local politicians to allow more housing to be built. scarcity drives prices up. or if you don’t believe in markets, lobby your local politicians to raise taxes for more public housing.

      1. Full trains are a feature, not a bug – as you say, Pat, you can just add more trains (to a point, although despite what some folks here seem to think there will not be nearly enough demand to require 3 minute headways to Shoreline or Lynnwood for decades). Purchasing trains with open gangways, more standing areas, and no bicycles during rush hours (as Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, et al do) would help a bit with crowding if it ever gets to that point. People traveling the farthest will get seats inbound, and at worst stand for part of the journey outbound until others depart. My guess is that a plurality of riders outbound will leave the train by Northgate or 130th at least until transit-induced growth occurs further out.

        Rush hours by definition jam all forms of transportation. Buses and trains are packed. Streets and freeways are jammed full. Even my walking commute finds sidewalks so full in places that I cannot always walk the speed I wish – much like driving or buses, I have to slow down at times! That’s the same in car-centric cities with tons of highway lanes, and transit oriented cities with a great transport network. When the bulk of people come and go at once, the systems will be stressed. No matter what we choose to build, we’ll never be able to afford to build train lines that provide seats for all at peak times, or roads where traffic is free-flowing at 5pm.

        And think of it this way, Matt – all the people on those crowded trains aren’t sitting in their SOVs in front of you on I-5!

    2. It’s always funny when a MyNorthwest commenter leaves their Dori Monson Approved Safe Space™ and decides to peddle their “traffic would be non-existent if we didn’t give bicycles their own 5 ft” fallacies on a pretty pro-bicycle blog.

      We’ll forgive you for the easily disproven “bicycles don’t pay for their infrastructure” statement this time.

    1. Shoreline is keenly interested in 145th because it’s a larger part of a small city; the center is a mile away and no part is more than two miles away. For Seattle it’s on the outer fringe of three neighborhoods (Bitter Lake, Northgate, and Lake City). Shoreline has been planning to annex the whole thing since the alternatives analysis at least; I don’t know why it’s taking so long. Seattle would probably be glad somebody else will pay to improve it.

    2. It appears that Shoreline’s interest in annexing the 145th St ROW may be waning, at least in the near term.

      The following is taken from the city’s 2019 Draft Comp Plan Docket:

      “Amendments

      Amendment #1 – 145th Street Annexation

      “Amend the Comprehensive Plan for 145th Street annexation and all applicable maps”.

      This amendment has been carried-over on every Docket since 2015 and most recently was carried over from the 2018 Final Docket.

      This amendment will amend Policy LU47 which states, “Consider annexation of 145th Street adjacent to the existing southern border of the City”. The City is currently engaged in the design and environmental evaluation of the improvements to the 145th Street Corridor from Aurora Avenue to Interstate 5. The City is also working on 145th Street Corridor improvements as described in the 145th Street Multimodal Corridor Study (http://www.shorelinewa.gov/home/showdocument?id=29525).

      There are some maps contained in the Comprehensive Plan that do not include 145th
      Street. If the City annexes 145th Street, all the maps in the Comprehensive must be amended to include 145th Street as a street within the City of Shoreline.

      This amendment has been on the Docket since 2015 and the City is no longer in active discussions with the City of Seattle to annex the roadway. Since the process of Seattle de-annexing the street and the City annexing the street could take years, there is no rush or reason to keep including the item on the Docket at this time. When and if the City enters annex negotiations with the City of Seattle for 145th Street, this item can be added to the docket in a future year.

      Recommendation:
      Staff recommends that this amendment not be placed on the 2019 Comprehensive Plan
      Docket.”

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