The Edmonds City Council on Tuesday will meet with the Edmonds Planning Board and Economic Development Commission for the third in a series of Edmonds Strategic Planning and Visioning retreats. The retreats are among the city’s efforts — with the help of a consultant hired to guide the process — to develop a strategic plan that will assist in future decision-making on important issues. You can learn learn more about that process and next steps here.
The meeting, which is scheduled to last two hours, will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers, located in the Public Safety Complex, 250 5th Ave. N., in downtown Edmonds. The meeting is open to the public.
Perhaps the Edmonds Strategic Planning and Visioning retreat people could come up with a simple plan for figuring out (sans a hired consultant) why the streets in Edmonds are worse than old cobblestone streets from the 1800s now. Please consider this an “important issue”. I lived my whole life in an area with over a million people and never saw workmanship on streets like this, nor the amount of time it took to get these streets fixed. This is a small town……All these people working away on the streets……I don’t get it?!
I have had out of town people come to visit and the first thing they make a comment on is how weird the streets are….bits of asphalt gravel and all, streets and some sidewalks, bumps, holes, patches, and there aren’t even that many streets here.
Tere, We already know why our streets are declining. Because of budget pressures council eliminated street overlays about 4 years ago. We have 26 miles of arterials and 119 miles of residential streets. To keep them in good condition requires a repaving cycle of 15-18 years for arterials and 32-35 years for residential streets. This cycle costs about $1.5m annually, so we are about $6m behind in our street overlay work. When the voters had the opportunity to restore a part of the street overlay budget last fall with a 3 year $1m levy it was voted down. The levy would have started overlay work again and put the cycle at 21 and 50 years respectively. The Strategic Planning efforts will be hosting two public meeting on March 14 and 19. Anyone can go to one of these sessions by using the link below register. The more public input the better. Come to a session and make your voice heard.
https://www.edmondswa.gov/homepage/charrette-registration/form/24-strategic-planning-visioning-community-charrettes.html