By Sydney Gerrish
The Bellingham
Roosevelt neighborhood is planning to initiate the Alabama Street Corridor
project construction this upcoming spring. Recent updates from residents and small-businesses
bring up mixed reviews about the project which was first proposed in early
2011.
According to the City
of Bellingham official website, the Alabama Corridor project aims to “reduce vehicle
collisions and increase safety for all users.” The 1.7 mile arterial stretches
from Cornwall Avenue to St. Clair Street and will now face a “road diet.” This
includes converting a four-lane arterial to a three-lane, adding bike-lanes,
preventing left-turning vehicles from the moving forward in the travel lane and
reducing speed limits.
The project overview of
ES-466 states that between 2006 and 2011, there was a recorded 262 vehicle
collisions which is almost five times the country average. There are roughly
3,000 vehicles that travel on Alabama each day.
The residents and
businesses that surround Alabama Street have developed a diverse range of
opinions about the proposed construction. Bellingham resident M’lin Avera
comments on the growing nature of the city saying, “For me, the construction is
a good thing, it means there is jobs.”
However, some local
businesses predict that this project will do more harm than good. Yorky’s
Market has been located on Alabama Street since 1939.Cashier Tina Duke shares, “We
cannot reduce any more lanes. Traffic is already bumper-to-bumper at certain times
of the day. Businesses will suffer because people simply cannot get in to the
parking lot.”
With the current
proposal of the project, The Whatcom Transportation Authority will also be
required to take initiative in order to keep buses running on time. Chuck
Boyle, the operations supervisor for the WTA says the Alabama Street Corridor
project “brings up concerns about running times.”
The 331 Cordata to
Downtown Bellingham route on the Gold Line will be affected the greatest by the
Alabama Street project. The WTA plans on shortening the amount of stops made by
buses running on the Gold Line in addition to an increasing the frequency
of buses by having a bus arriving every
15 minutes at each stop along the route.
In 2006, the Bellingham
City Council met to discuss further infrastructure plans for the city of
Bellingham saying, “the city is attempting to focus transportation funding on
infrastructure improvements that will make walking, bicycling, and transit more
viable, convenient, and safe.”
According to the city council website, this
project falls underneath this category, along with several other arterial
improvement projects throughout the city of Bellingham that have occurred in
the last five years for safety reasons.
Duke says, “I think
there will be more accidents and more impatient drivers.” There is also concern
over the level of traffic on the back streets of Alabama, almost all of which
include roundabouts at every intersection. Even with the increased traffic Duke
says, “the roundabouts make driving on back streets difficult, especially for
larger trucks.”
Marcy Plattner, the
30-year owner of the Garden Spot Nursery located on Alabama Street says, “I am
optimistic. I hope that we are so good at what we do, people will come anyway.
If the neighborhood is happy, we’re happy.”
For many of the
residents of Roosevelt, Alabama Street is another project aiming to adjust to
the increased growth of Bellingham. Boyle says, “the city’s growing up and we
simply have to adapt.”
These mixed reviews
have led to several changes in the original design including the removal of the
center curb originally planned. The final design is expected to be released in
November 2014.
In May 2012, Bellingham
received $1,461,824 to solve the proposed problems on the Alabama Corridor.
Bellingham is 1 of 50 cities to apply for federal safety funds through the “Target
Zero Highway Safety Program” created by the Washington State Department of
Transportation.
Construction for the
Alabama Street Corridor is to take place in the spring and summer of 2015. The
project’s federal deadline is in September 2015.
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