Focus on Redmond - Spring 2018

Focus on Redmond - Spring 2018

Volume XXXII No. 1 Spring 2018

Redmond

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Light Rail Construction

Norma Leicester Shares Her Redmond Story with the Mayor

Downtown Parking

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Norma Leicester is a long-time resident of Redmond. A retired special education school teacher, she lives at Providence John Gabriel House and can often be

After going away to college, embarking on a teaching career and living other places, you returned to Redmond. What are the biggest differences that you saw? Redmond had changed so much. berry fields along the Sammamish Slough. Microsoft had located its corporate headquarters in Overlake, transforming fields into office buildings. When I first moved here, there were only about 350 people, and my family was four of them. When I returned, a lot more people were living here. Redmond was growing. Do you wish Redmond was still the way it was when you were growing up, or do you prefer the way it is now? People always ask me that question and it’s hard to say. I think back nostalgically of when I was a kid. I knew the people in the neighborhood. I was over at my neighbors’ houses all the time. I wish that were still true for kids now both in Redmond and elsewhere. Everyone these days seems to be in such a hurry. One thing I really like about Redmond now is that there are people from Stores and businesses had replaced the cattle farm and

Updated Park Rules

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Parks & Recreation

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Mayor John Marchione

different nationalities and cultures that were never here when I was growing up. How wonderful and incredible it is that we can experience this in Redmond. While it can sometimes be confusing to hear people speaking different languages or display different customs that we’re not used to, it’s exciting to experience the world through other people’s eyes. That is how we grow as part of a community. You have choices of where you can live. Why Redmond? I have friends here who love me and I love them. A while back, I was concerned that I’d have to move away when my housing costs continued to increase. A serendipitous encounter with someone at the City [government] made me aware that new apartments were being built near City Hall that would be more affordable for seniors. I feel so incredibly appreciative that I am able to continue to live here in Redmond. It’s home.

found at a local coffee shop sharing her zest for living life to its fullest. What was Redmond like when you first lived here? My family and I moved to the area from Puyallup when I was just a young girl. We briefly rented a house on the east side of Lake Sammamish but moved into a big white house in town near Redmond Elementary School to be closer to my father’s business. In fact, the house is still there but is used for a business now. Later on, we moved to a house up on Education Hill that my parents built. I remember putting on skating performances with the girls next door in the basement of their house. During Fourth of July, we’d all get together with the other families in the neighborhood, and there would be a fireworks show. All the families relied upon one another in the neighborhood, creating a real sense of community.

MeetYour City Council Redmond has seven councilmembers who are elected by voters to adopt the City budget, establish law and policy, approve appropriations and contracts, levy taxes and grant franchises.

S O U N D T R A N S I T : Light Rail Construction Moving Right Along

Written by Ryan Bianchi, Sound Transit Community Outreach Division

relocated bus and shuttle stops, demolished buildings and began ground work for the future station platform and 350-stall parking garage. Current work at the Overlake Village Station site includes utility relocations and construction of a stormwater runoff filtration vault. Guideway columns and girders will begin to be visible in Redmond this year. Cranes, excavation equipment and a lot of rebar can be seen in Bellevue, Mercer Island and Seattle. Tunneling crews have excavated more than half of the Downtown Bellevue tunnel, and work has begun to retrofit the I-90 floating bridge for light rail.

Sound Transit’s East Link Extension Project kicked off construction in the Overlake area in the summer of 2017. Though we are still five years from opening day, anyone who travels the corridor can see that the entire 14-mile route is already under construction. East Link – construction from Redmond to Seattle East Link’s most visible work in Redmond started last summer when crews closed the Overlake Transit Center Park and Ride to make room for construction of the Redmond Technology Center Station. Crews

Jeralee Anderson Position #6

Angela Birney Position #5 President

David Carson Position #7 Vice-President

Downtown Bellevue tunnel excavation

Steve Fields Position #2

Hank Margeson Position #3

Hank Myers Position #1

Tanika Padhye Position #4

Learn more about your Redmond City Council at redmond.gov/council .

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Doing something that has never been done before – crossing a floating bridge by train The Homer Hadley Bridge that carries I-90 between Mercer Island and Seattle will soon be the first floating bridge in the world to carry train traffic. Floating bridges are designed to move to accommodate wind, waves and water levels, and though cars and trucks are able to freely roll across expansion joints, rails need to stay in place. To accommodate the bridge’s six different ranges of motion, Sound Transit designed and tested a first-of-its-kind “track bridge.” It is essentially a bridge on the bridge that rests on a series of bearings and plates that keep the tracks in place as the bridge moves. Crews built two full-scale track bridges and tested them at the Transportation Technology Center in Colorado. The track bridge design works so well that Popular Science magazine named it one of 2017’s most important engineering innovations. East Link is not the end of the line – two more Redmond stations are on track for 2024 Just one year after trains begin running to Overlake, Sound Transit will extend more than three miles further into Redmond, opening stations in SE Redmond (including 1,400 parking stalls) and terminating at an elevated station in Downtown Redmond. Since the project began in late 2016, thousands of people have participated in project development by attending open houses, community meetings or via an online survey. Through this outreach process, the community preferred an elevated station in Downtown Redmond and asked for designs

Assembly of a rebar cage for an elevated guideway column along SR 520 in Redmond

“Since the project began in late 2016, thousands of people have participated in project development...”

Site prep at the Redmond Technology Center Station

that respect Redmond’s natural environment and landscapes. The team is now working to design the project to optimize bus connections, bicycle and pedestrian access, vehicle routes and parking, and connections to regional trails. Sound Transit plans to select a design-‑build contractor in 2019.

Learn more about this project at SoundTransit.org/EastLink.

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The Two-way Conversion in Downtown is

Dynamic Messaging Signs With this project, Redmond installed overhead electronic message signs along Redmond Way. These signs are controlled from our Traffic Management Center at City Hall and alert drivers to travel times on Redmond Way, Cleveland Street, and Bear Creek

Traffic Signals Signal timing plans were also

completely revamped with the two- way conversion. We use four different timing plans for different times of day to keep traffic moving.

Complete. NowWhat?

We know traffic can be frustrating. Like the rest of the Puget Sound region, we are experiencing rapid growth. Envisioned in our City’s Transportation Master Plan approved in 2013, we recently completed the Downtown Two-Way Conversion Project. Redmond Way and Cleveland Street both feature two-way travel lanes from 160th Avenue NE to Avondale Way. Pedestrian street crossings are shorter, and as redevelopment occurs, sidewalks will get wider to allow for more active uses. Redmond Way now carries the majority of vehiculars traffic as the main road for Downtown and has a center turn lane to allow easier access to businesses. Cleveland Street is our “main street” with wider sidewalks inviting pedestrians and outdoor dining. SR 520 and Bear Creek Parkway can be used as bypass routes.

Parkway – giving drivers real-time >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16

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