Residents, fire marshal warn of ‘traffic perfect storm’ from Sound Transit Stride 3 and concurrent projects

Lake Forest Park residents urged the City Council to press Sound Transit for more testing and mitigation after the agency said construction for its Stride 3 bus rapid transit (BRT) project could take as long as three years.

"I fear that a coming traffic armageddon will have a serious impact on safety and the security in our community," Lake Forest Park resident Julie Tournell said during public comment, citing the Stride 3 schedule and a group of other regional projects she said overlap with construction.

The residents’ concern centers on cumulative impacts: speakers listed six other nearby projects they say will coincide with Stride 3, including lane reductions and ramp closures on I‑5; roundabout and utility work in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park; fish‑passage and culvert replacements managed by WSDOT; and a Kenmore culvert project on Bothell Way. "The bus rapid transit project by itself will be hugely disruptive. But coupled with these other concurrent projects, it is a traffic perfect storm," Tournell said.

Why it matters: speakers said the combined projects could cause sustained congestion on Bothell Way and regional arterials, push cut‑through traffic into narrow residential streets, delay emergency vehicles, and increase noise and air pollution from idling trucks and equipment.

Residents and local advocates provided specific claims and mitigation proposals. John Drew, a Lake Forest Park resident, said construction could force drivers from major arteries onto local streets and estimated that the Lake Forest Park section of the work would require about 5,000 dump‑truck trips and generate roughly 95,000 tons of debris. "Google Maps and modern traffic‑aware in‑car navigation systems don't care about the safety of our neighborhood children when plotting alternative routes," Drew said.

Legal and technical requests: Jeff Snutt, a speaker representing a neighborhood coalition, said the group has retained legal counsel and will ask Sound Transit to assess cumulative environmental and safety impacts. He urged the council to endorse a mitigation package his group favors, which includes delaying or limiting BRT lane construction in a constrained corridor on Bothell Way. "Don't build a BRT lane in Lake Forest Park between 150th and 160th," Snutt said, arguing that omission would save capital costs and reduce local disruption.

Geotechnical and life‑safety concerns were raised separately. Jack Tonkin and other residents described what they called an unstable slope and a bowed bridge between 150th Avenue NE and 152nd/155th, and asked the council to press Sound Transit for additional borings and testing. "If any of you have gone down and walked along that corridor ... that's a cavern. That's a huge 60‑foot drop," Tonkin said, urging a stronger city statement to Sound Transit about potential landslide or slope failure risks.

Support from emergency services: Ryan Burgess, fire marshal for the Shoreline Fire Department, told the council his office is working with Lake Forest Park and Kenmore under an interlocal agreement and said the fire department is monitoring the projects to advise on traffic impacts and emergency response. "We're always very involved with any of the traffic issues that come up so that we can advise our crews as necessary, so that we don't have any delays in response times," Burgess said. He noted he is not a geotechnical expert but that public safety is his office's priority.

What speakers asked the council to do: request additional borings and geotechnical study in the corridor near the bridge, press Sound Transit for cumulative‑effects analysis, pursue mitigation options (including delaying or narrowing BRT construction in the most constrained segment), and publicly back the neighborhood group's legal and advocacy efforts.

City staff response and next steps: there was no formal council action on the matter at the meeting. Speakers said a neighborhood legal letter is scheduled to go to Sound Transit and that a press event was planned; the fire marshal offered continued coordination with city planning and public works if the council directs staff to follow up.

Ending: Council members did not take immediate action at the meeting; the comments were entered during the public comment period and, per council rules, the mayor and council did not debate the remarks on the spot. Residents asked the council to consider directing staff to pursue follow‑up with Sound Transit and state agencies on cumulative impacts and geotechnical testing.