City of Bellingham Approves San Juan Boulevard Connector
The city will spend more than $4 million to build a long-sought-after San Juan Boulevard connection, but developers will have to improve it before they can build houses nearby.
The city intends to connect San Juan Boulevard from West Pacificview Drive to 40th Street near Elwood Avenue, in the north Samish neighborhood.
It’s a project the city has sought for more than 15 years and one planners say will relieve pressure on some of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, including Lakeway Drive, Samish Way and Lincoln, Alabama and Iowa streets.
Lakeway Drive, for example, sees as many as 25,300 vehicles a day, and Lincoln Street sees as many as 10,500, according to 2005 Public Works data.
At the same time, the extension would increase traffic near Samish Way and Lincoln Street.
The city has set aside $4 million for a road extension, but it can’t afford the extra $5 million needed to include sidewalks and bike lanes, Public Works Transportation Planner Chris Comeau said.
“We don’t have anywhere near enough money to make the connection to full arterial standards,” Comeau said.
So the council Monday night voted to build a two-lane, twoway street with one four-footwide paved shoulder for bikes and pedestrians — and require developers to add bike and pedestrian facilities before they can build houses nearby.
Developers must improve the entire stretch before they can get building permits.
The decision came as part of the council’s 5-1 approval of the Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program, a document that lays out which street projects the city plans to pursue in the next six years.
The list’s largest project is an $11.5 million widening and improvements to Sunset Drive from Woburn Street to city limits, near McLeod Road. The project will begin next year.
Councilor Barbara Ryan voted against the six-year plan because she believed money was available to buy bike and pedestrian facilities for the San Juan Boulevard extension, especially if it was taken from the Sunset Drive widening.Councilor John Watts was absent from the meeting.
Some neighbors worried that if the city had relied on current law, requiring developers to improve only the street next to their projects, the connector would be a patchwork of sidewalkless stretches. The new rules require developers who rely on the extension to work together to pay for the improvements, Comeau said.