SEATTLE — It’s considered Edmonds' most dangerous road.
“We had communities here and then the state route was built in the middle of these communities,” said Mayor Mike Nelson.
Nelson said that’s why the completion of Phase 2 of the Highway 99 Revitalization Project is so imperative.
“We’ve had issues with pedestrians being hit, we’ve had issues with pedestrians being killed. It’s not just our city, it’s along the entire Highway 99 corridor,” said Nelson.
A new crosswalk, city signage and medians were added to the more than 2-mile stretch.
“It will reduce severe collisions because the problem we’ve had along the corridor with such high volumes is the turning traffic out of the center two way left turn lane,” said City Engineer Rob English.
Between 2017 and 2019, there were more than 650 crashes on the portion of Highway 99 that runs through Edmonds. The new safety improvements are projected to reduce vehicle crashes by 37% and pedestrian related crashes by 45%.
“It caused lots of traffic,” said Hechong Yi, who is the owner of Mana Teriyaki in Edmonds. Yi said the construction was hard to navigate. “Now with everything finished, everybody is happy about that, the customers are really happy.”
The $9.3 million project is funded by Connecting Washington Funds.
The city is also planning to acquire a lot spanning more than 10-acres near Highway 99 with the condition being that at least 75% of the land must be used for something civic minded. That can be anything from public safety to housing and parks.
“It’s all about investing more into this community,” said Nelson.
Over 100 trees have been planted and more than 11,000 plants.