Pickering Place resident Joan Hitchner and her neighbors know Newport Way can be a busy road.

Residents there peer down on the arterial road from the hillside and it’s homeowners like Hitchner that the City of Issaquah is glad to see at a Nov. 12 open house for a road construction project that could significantly expand the road footprint and traffic capacity.

Traffic engineers were on hand at Issaquah Valley Elementary to welcome public comment on redeveloping a long segment of Newport Way N.W. from Front Street South to N.W. Maple Street. The preliminary plans were spread across the lunch tables in the school cafeteria as city engineers served up their latest project to a few dozen visitors who had questions about the proposal. Refurbishing the entire length of the road from Bellevue to Olde Town has long been a priority of the city for improving traffic flows and use the opportunity to promote alternative forms of transportation under new “Complete Streets” guidelines.

With improvements to East Lake Sammamish Parkway nearing completion in December, City Public Works Director Bob Brock said it was time for his department to draw on public input to guide their planning process. The city hasn’t yet authorized funding for construction and a final design hasn’t been selected, so Brock and his staff have crafted preliminary drawings of two options: a significantly widened 3-lane option with traffic signals, or a much smaller expansion in a 2-lane scheme with roundabouts.

“There’s three options, I suppose, if you count ‘no action’,” he said.

According to city traffic engineers, several problems exist on maintaining the roadway. Limited traffic capacity and a subsiding road bed forced the city several years ago to re-route north- and southbound semi-trucks with weights of over 30,000 pounds to use East Sunset Way. A lack of alternative transportation modes and an earthen ditch for stormwater management continue to cause environmental concerns. And then there’s the moderately dangerous intersections with Juniper, Holly and Dogwood streets which have seen 54 car accidents since 2000, according to the Issaquah Police Department. The intersection with Juniper is also currently failing city traffic concurrency standards, while Holly is listed as “close to failing”.

The Newport Way rebuild east of SR 900 is 14th highest in priority on the latest city Transportation Improvement Plan, and cost estimates range from $8 to $11.1 million, depending on the design. And according to Brock, who called the project “controversial”, a road project that passes through a developed area is always sure to generate attention.

“Sometimes, people don’t like change,” he said. “I think that’s just human nature.”

Approximately half the project is within a school zone, Issaquah Valley Elementary, which mandates that the road’s 30 mph speeds are kept down to 20 mph during school hours.

Nearby resident Hitchner, a mechanical engineer for the City of Seattle, spent the better part of half-an-hour carefully listening and reviewing the plans. She was sympathetic to the many issues the city must face in the road re-design and clearly indicated her preference for the more modest 2-lane plan with roundabouts. She liked the lower impact of a smaller road footprint mitigated by a landscaped median, sidewalks and bike lanes, and expressed concern that nearly doubling the size of the road in the 3-lane plan would further damage the hillside behind her home. She also favored the lower cost of installing roundabouts to control traffic flows.

“I find roundabouts fun to drive through,” she said, “though some seem confused on how to drive through them.”

Newport Way has been studied with an eye to rebuild it for some time. In 1985, the city realigned the road’s western connection between 12th Ave. N.W. and Maple Street. Those changes spurred the city to study widening the road to four lanes from Maple to East Sunset Way and add bike lanes and sidewalks in the 1990s, but those plans were ultimately shelved.

Also waiting in the wings is further redevelopment of Newport Way between SR 900 and Bellevue. The project has a higher priority than the eastern half but is still in a study phase of development.

For more information on this road project, visit the city’s Web site or call the city’s Department of Public Works at 425-837-3400.