We once called it “one of the worst missing crossings” on the whole Eastrail. Well, no more! The City of Kirkland opened the new signalized trail crossing at Slater Ave NE last week, the culmination of a project that also redesigned a short section of Slater/132nd Ave NE to calm traffic and provide new bike lane connections. The project also removed defunct railroad signals and in-road tracks.
The city began construction work nearly a year ago, but work was put on pause from September to April due to contractor delays acquiring the signal poles and hardware. So the crossing has been sitting there mostly ready for a long time.
It’s one of those project that, not that it’s open, it will be hard to remember that it was ever any other way. It’s great also that Kirkland doubled the purpose of the project and calmed traffic at the same time, improving safety for all users. Slater Ave NE used to be a five-lane road with a set of very skinny paint-only bike lanes of the disappearing-reappearing type. Now it has one through lane in each direction with turn lanes and better bike lanes.
Sometimes, it takes a surprising amount of work just to make what looks like a small fix. But that’s one more bad crossing down, bringing the Eastrail close to being a complete eastside trail to someday rival the Burke-Gilman.
