Issaquah residents got a chance to make their opinions known on the potential new design for East Sunset Way at the city’s Sunset Way Open House on the evening of Aug. 10.

The city put on the event to solicit feedback for the remodeling of East Sunset Way, one of the four projects included in the $50 million traffic bond measure on November’s ballot.

If the measure passes, then East Sunset Way, Newport Way Northwest (from State Route 900 to Southeast 54th Street), Newport Way (from Maple Street Northwest to West Sunset Way) and Providence Point will all see transportation improvements aimed at reducing congestion in a crowded city.

While residents have expressed thanks that the city is tackling the traffic, there has been some concern brought up by citizens and council members alike at past council meetings over East Sunset Way; chiefly, residents have shown a desire to see street parking kept so that businesses can have parking for customers and neighborhoods can be free of drivers looking for places to park.

At the open house, the city presented two possible options for the much-debated street that comprised all of the elements citizens had asked to be included in the project. The city had previously set up an online poll asking for citizen’s priorities for the project.

“This is an opportunity for the citizens to engage with the city government and express their thoughts and ideas and share with us their comments,” Mayor Fred Butler said.

The two options both presented street parking, lanes for pedestrians and bicyclists and a center median with shrubbery. The main difference between the two is that Concept A would have street parking on only the south side of the street in favor of a wider sidewalk for pedestrians and cyclists on the north side, while Concept B would see narrower sidewalks and eight feet of street parking on each side. To make up for bike space lost in Concept B, an alternate bike route would take cyclists through neighborhoods.

Deputy City Administrator Emily Moon stressed to attendees that the two concepts are merely suggestions, and that the entire point of the open house was to get ideas for the project from those who will be using the street.

“We’re sharing information and gathering input,” she said. “We haven’t landed on the preferred community concept yet.”

“We think these ideas … could work equally well,” Transportation Manager Kurt Seeman said.

“This is the city trying to say we don’t have this figured out yet …so give us your choices,” said Keith Niven, the city’s director of economic and development services.

Residents visited six different stations where they learned about different elements of the project from city representatives. The final station was a “Build-a-Road,” where citizens could design the street they wanted to see using different sized paper cutouts for lanes, medians and sidewalks.

Many attendees expressed a preference for Concept B, which rerouted the bike traffic in favor of street parking on both sides.

“Biking is really important, but putting bike lanes in the road isn’t necessarily the best answer,” resident Mel Morgan said. He said that he already uses the alternate bike routes suggested by the city, and noted that diverting bike traffic through quiet neighborhoods “would be safer.”

“Slow bikes and families should be on the side streets,”resident David Kappler said, adding that faster cyclists could ride with traffic. “We need to maximize parking.”

Rory Galloway, who owns the business G-Logics, Inc. on Sunset Way, also said that he preferred parking on both sides of the street.

Others, like Office of Sustainability Manager Mary Jo de Beck, expressed an equal liking for both concepts. She advised that “behavior change” was also very important, suggesting that more people could ride bikes or walk instead of drive cars. After all, she said, traffic wouldn’t be a problem if there weren’t so many drivers on the road in the first place.

Niven said that the evening was a success, and that the city had received a “good turnout” of active citizens.

De Beck called the open house “creative but also very practical for our community.”