The city just posted the agenda for the 4/10 transportation committee meeting.

I had taken a group of action items at our last meeting relating to the Complete Streets projects for this year. After a quick meeting with Gary Costa and Rory Cameron from Public Works Engineering, I felt that enough of our issues were already being addressed that it didn’t make sense to do a formal letter from GAIT or solicit letters from our membership.

I’d welcome feedback about this decision. My rationale is that I want GAIT’s relationship with the city to be collaborative as much as possible. I’m sure there will be cases where we will need to be firm and disagree with some course that doesn’t serve ped/bike/bus needs, but I don’t think this is it.

Anyway, the CTC (Council Transportation Committee) agenda above still refers to the Village Park Drive project, but it’s my understanding that it’s on there so it can be removed from the list of bike lane striping projects.

I plan to attend the meeting this month (5pm April 10th in the Pickering Room at City Hall Northwest). If anyone else can make it that would be a great way for us to start showing the city the depth of support for ped/bike/bus issues in Issaquah.

GAIT will have a table at the Saturday March 8th Hobby and Volunteer Expo at the Pickering Barn.

This event has always encouraged people to have “activities” at their booth to keep things interesting. My thought for an activity was to play “stump the non-driver”, i.e., have people say where they go in Issaquah and talk about how they could do that with less reliance on their cars.

I plan to also have some basic flyers (maybe with a simple map on the back) and a signup sheet for the mailing list.

Here’s the info from the city about the expo. If you would like to help out at the table, or with getting stuff ready beforehand, let me know!

Hobby & Volunteer Expo

• For all ages!

• Saturday, March 8th

• At Pickering Barn

• 10:00am-2:00pm

• FREE admission

Discover local clubs, hobby groups, service organizations, and community activities for you and your family. The Issaquah community has numerous ways to get involved and volunteer!

Here’s Councilman David Kappler who found the route:

The city staff who did a lot of the work:

Some of the first walkers and cyclists preparing to cross Front Street:

Not shown are representatives from the many and varied organizations who supported the trail.

Mayor Ava Frisinger cut the ribbon for the High Point connector this morning. I’ll post some pictures later if any of them turned out, but I’ll have a hard time saying anything better than what local bicycle activist Kent Peterson wrote about the trail.

At 10am on Wednesday 11/28 there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new trail. Given the snappy name of “I-90 Issaquah-High Point Trail Connector”, the new link connects the trails at the Sunset Interchange (exit 18 off I-90) with the East Lake Sammamish Trail where it crosses under I-90. The trail is completely separate from the streets except for a signalized crossing of Front Street just north of I-90.

View Larger Map

This is a largely transportation-oriented trail rather than being strictly recreational. From the Sunset Interchange you can go three (now four) different directions: up the hill to the Issaquah Highlands, east to Preston on the High Point trail, or down along Sunset Way into downtown Issaquah. At the other end, the East Lake Sammamish trail will take you either back into Issaquah or along the east shore of Lake Sammamish all the way to Redmond.

I plan to be there for the opening. There’s more information on the Cascade Bike Club events calendar also on the City of Issaquah website though the details there are buried in a PDF.