Few are disputing the need for high capacity transit in Kirkland to overcome the Kirkland crawl. But plopping it on the corridor with ST3 is a council-generated idea. For validation of these plans to put buses or trains on the corridor, the city council leans heavily on the community-vetted Kirkland Corridor Master Plan – which, upon close reading, actually tells a quite different story.

In the Intro (Section 1.0), where community requests are listed, trains and buses aren’t even mentioned. In Section 2.5 where it gets into details, transit on the corridor IS mentioned…like this:

• “may one day include high capacity transit.”

• “If and when the corridor is determined to be an appropriate home for transit… the city is committed to welcome it.”

Now, if you listen closely to the Kirkland Public Works presentations, you hear phrases like “high capacity transit on the corridor was always a priority” and “a main reason for purchasing the corridor.” So ultimately, what we have is a recent public promise to approach corridor transit one way and a city council that is already pushing heavily another direction – to the point of arbitrarily funding its own conceptual design document for Sound Transit lobbying with $250,000 of your tax dollars. Apparently, determining whether transit is even appropriate on the corridor isn’t for Kirkland residents to decide.

With or without BRT on the corridor, Kirkland will need priority city lanes for frequent buses that don’t get stuck in car traffic. So build them, Council. That alone will improve traffic! And everyone else, it’s time to dust off what we agreed to about the corridor to keep the facts straight. Everyone should have a copy: http://www.kirklandwa.gov/Assets/Cross+Kirkland+Corridor/Cross+Kirkland+Corridor+Master+Plan+Final.pdf

Bob Forgrave, Kirkland