Annexations have added more than 115 miles of existing roads to Kirkland’s street network in the past few decades. Private development has added a few new street around the city in recent years.  To find the last road Kirkland added to its network by physically building one, however, you’ll have to visit Northeast 100th Street, where, for the purpose of emergency access, the City connected the Highlands and North Rose Hill neighborhoods—and Spinney Homestead Park and Slater Avenue Northeast—with a bridge over Interstate 405.

A few decades later, the city of Kirkland is opening one more new road—the Northeast 120th Street extension that connects Slater Avenue Northeast to 124th Avenue Northeast.

The community will be celebrating its opening with a 10 a.m., Nov. 19 ceremony. The Kirkland City Council will be there to celebrate the new road with residents and county and state officials. Cascade Bicycle Club will be there, as will the Lake Washington High School’s drum line.

One of the benefits they’ll be celebrating is what the road will do for the community. This 800 feet of roadway will ease pressure at three nearby intersections—124th Avenue and 124th Street, 124th Avenue and 116th Street, and 124th Avenue and Slater Avenue Northeast.

“’Competing movements’ are movements that are competing for green time at the intersection,” says Thang Nguyen, one of Kirkland’s transportation engineers. “Let’s take a left-turn and through: They are competing movements. Those are movements that cannot run at same time. One has to wait for the other through signal phasing in order to get through the intersection. This road will reduce those at each intersection.”

The need for the 120th Street extension was first articulated in the Totem Lake Neighborhood Plan.

“Over the past decade, the Totem Lake Neighborhood has experienced one of the highest rates of traffic growth in the city,” the plan says. “Road improvements have not kept pace with this growth, contributing to significant peak hour traffic congestion.”

Car-commuters benefit. But so do people riding bicycles and walking. The road features a pair of five-foot bike lanes and sidewalks that reach up to 12 feet in width. Aside from the signal improvements, construction crews have spent much of the recent weeks building and defining these features. Last week, they striped bike lanes—and travel lanes—as well as mounted the handrails to the retaining walls. A few weeks ago, they completed the sidewalks.

After the opening ceremony on Nov. 19, Northeast 120th Street will be fully open and ready for the public.  For project information, go to www.kirklandwa.gov and search NE 120th Street.