The Kirkland City Council initiated the last step toward the 85th Street Corridor project at the Dec. 10 Council meeting.

The Council’s action authorized city staff to start the bidding process for the construction of essential portions of the project. Those portions include sidewalks, intersection improvements, storm water drainage and an upgraded water main, which will make walking, driving and catching a bus safer and more efficient.

This comes after Transportation Improvement Board granted the city $1.45 million in November. Construction is expected to resume in the spring of 2014 and to be complete in 2015.

Kirkland has already made substantial progress toward the multimodal vision for the corridor. In the fall of 2011, officials upgraded Northeast 85th Street’s intersections with video detection. A year later, Kirkland buried utility lines and removed the utility poles from Northeast 120th Street to Northeast 128th Street. Last spring, Kirkland officials built sidewalks and bike lanes along 124th Avenue Northeast. To achieve all of this, Kirkland first had to acquire more right-of-way. That involved the acquisition of nearly 100 individual parcels.

For project information and to subscribe to receive project updates via email, visit www.kirklandwa.gov and search “NE 85th Improvements.”