520 "vortex" swallows time

Billie Cross avoids it by taking back roads. Cheryl Burris misses it by opting for the early shift at work. Larry Baumgartner won't even go near it.

Some consider it the "Vortex of Hell."

It may lack the notoriety of the agonizing creep through the Interstate 5/Interstate 90 interchange and the name recognition of the "Kirkland crawl" along Interstate 405. But this place, where Highway 520 ends in a messy series of junctions with Highway 202 and Redmond's Northeast Union Hill Road and Avondale Road Northeast, has become one of the region's most frustrating bottlenecks.

"I'm dead on my feet the second I get home. You don't even want to leave again," said Jana Garland of Gold Bar, one of the thousands who slog through daily en route to jobs, school, shopping and, eventually, back home.

In many ways this beleaguered spot is a poster child for ballooning traffic headaches in former bedroom suburbs throughout the region that have become population and employment centers in their own right, such as Bellevue and Kent.

Despite the best intentions of urban planners, government leaders and voters, the "vortex" offers up daily, often excruciating, evidence that the region's road network can't always keep up.

Improvements coming


The state Department of Transportation, King County and Redmond and Sammamish are trying to improve traffic flow around a series of intersections at the end of Highway 520 in Redmond. Here are some projects expected to be completed in the next five years:

2006: The state's Highway 202 widening project adds a lane in each direction between Highway 520 and East Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast, and improves the intersection where the parkway meets Highway 202. Redmond adds a right-turn lane from southbound Northeast 76th Street to Redmond Way (Highway 202).

2007: A new flyover ramp connects westbound Highway 202 directly to westbound Highway 520. Redmond, King County and the state integrate traffic-management centers and install video cameras along Avondale Road Northeast and Novelty Hill Road.

2008: Redmond widens Northeast Union Hill Road from Avondale Road to 178th Place Northeast. It also hopes to extend 185th Avenue Northeast from Northeast 80th Street to Northeast Union Hill Road, completing the corridor between Redmond-Fall City Road and Northeast Union Hill Road. King County starts improving the intersection of 238th Avenue Northeast and Northeast Union Hill Road, possibly with a roundabout. Sammamish hopes to begin improvements along a three-mile stretch of East Lake Sammamish Parkway.

2009: King County begins widening a section of Novelty Hill Road. The project's design and parameters are under study.

2010: The state's Highway 202 widening project adds two lanes, noise walls, bike lanes and sidewalks from East Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast to Sahalee Way and replaces bridges at 196th Avenue Northeast at Evans Creek.

2011: The Highway 520 widening project expands the roadway from four to eight lanes from West Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast to Highway 202, including carpool lanes in both directions.

Ahead: King County intends to add a two-way left-turn lane, shoulders and walkways along Avondale Road from Northeast 165th Street to Woodinville-Duvall Road when it obtains funding.

Sources: State Department of Transportation, King County, Redmond and Sammamish

The state, King County, Redmond and neighbor Sammamish say improvements are coming: new ramps, wider roads, longer turn lanes and coordinated signals. But it will be years before fixes are in place.

In the meantime, drivers complain and cope. And hope.

Vortex (vôr' teks) noun: A situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it.

How did we get here?

Planning for most of the needed fixes began more than a decade ago. Improvements to the end of Highway 520 were all but approved in 1992, but funding fell through after voters called for an end to the state's motor-vehicle excise tax and opposed higher gasoline taxes.

In 2003, voters agreed to raise gas taxes by a nickel, and the Legislature approved a gradual 9-cent gas-tax increase last year. Now the state is playing catch-up on projects.

Likewise, King County lost millions in transportation funding when Initiative 776 eliminated the $15 vehicle-license fee in 2004. The county decided to focus its resources on projects that improved safety or kept existing roads and bridges open and to postpone others that would primarily ease congestion, said Paulette Norman, the county's road engineer.

Meanwhile, the number of drivers kept growing. Developments such as Redmond Ridge, where plans call for an eventual 4,750 homes, sprang up in the woods east of Redmond. Road signs hawked new homes along formerly rural Highways 202 and 203.

Businesses also grew. Redmond, a city of nearly 50,000 residents, already doubles in size during the day when workers arrive at businesses such as Microsoft, Honeywell, Nintendo and Genie Industries. Microsoft announced this month it will build or buy 14 buildings with space for thousands of new employees in the coming years.

The state's Growth Management Act requires local governments to make sure there will be enough road capacity to handle new residents and workers before permits are granted.

But it's up to local governments to decide what "enough" is, and they aren't required to take into account how more commuters could affect traffic on nearby state highways.

The result? Traffic along the stretch of 520 between West Lake Sammamish Parkway and Highway 202 grew 46 percent from 1996 to 2004, from 45,000 cars on an average weekday to 66,000 cars, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).

Along Highway 202, between Highway 520 and Sahalee Way, traffic grew from 23,000 cars a day in 1996 to 27,000 in 2004, a 17 percent increase, the DOT said.

"There is a huge amount of growth occurring to the east out there," said Mike Cummings of the Puget Sound Regional Council, a transportation-planning agency. "They basically have to come ... through that area to get over to the employment areas of Microsoft and Bellevue and downtown Seattle."

Don Cairns, Redmond's transportation-services manager, said he's amazed at how many people move east of the city limits and then call within days demanding to know when someone's going to improve traffic along roads such as Avondale Road Northeast, Northeast Union Hill Road and Novelty Hill road.

"They're appalled and they can't believe how bad it is," he said. "But they're actually part of the problem. They're alone in their vehicle."

The traffic also is coming from the west as Seattle residents head to jobs in Bellevue, Redmond and other Eastside hubs. The 115,000 vehicle trips a day across the 520 bridge are split about equally between Eastside residents and Seattle residents, according to the DOT.

Solution (se loo' shen) noun: The method or process of solving a problem.

Dave Edwards is upbeat about the future as he drives toward Sammamish along Highway 202 on a recent rainy morning. Traffic is sparse in the lull after morning congestion.

Edwards, a DOT project engineer, said drivers should notice several improvements in the coming months. The first stretch of widening along Highway 202 is nearly complete. A lengthier right-turn lane already is making it easier for southbound 202 drivers to reach Sahalee Way at night.

This spring, the state will begin building a ramp that will let northbound 202 drivers avoid waiting through several cycles of the traffic light at the Highway 520 intersection. More widening is to come along 202, 520 and Novelty Hill Road.

Redmond is improving key intersections and working with the county to coordinate traffic signals. And Sammamish is embarking on a $30 million project to improve traffic flow along East Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast.

While none of the projects will eliminate backups, all agencies say the changes should speed things up.

"The combination of all the projects is going to be a measurable improvement," said Don Sims, the state's traffic operations engineer for King County. "But there'll still be congestion during the peak hours."

Cope, verb: To contend with difficulties

Improvements can't come too fast for residents who moved to the Eastside when cities such as Redmond and Sammamish represented the frontier of the metropolis, but close enough to drive to Seattle.

The distance hasn't changed, but city problems, such as traffic, have leapfrogged over Lake Washington to catch up with them.

Thus, fetching groceries from a store a few miles away can mean 45 minutes in the car. Buses and carpools aren't always an option, given their far-flung homes and the lack of convenient bus routes.

So they cope.

Carol Carpenter avoids Highway 202 "at all costs" to reach the downtown Redmond Fred Meyer store from her home in the English Hill area northeast of Redmond. And she carefully times her trips.

"It's bad, but you come out whenever there's not a lot of people," she said after loading bags in her car one recent morning. That's after the morning rush ends, she said, around 9ish, but before the 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. rush of school buses, shoppers and commuters.

Larry Baumgartner, a store manager at Mills Music, arranged his work hours — 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. — partly to shave 30 minutes from what would be an hourlong commute between his Redmond job and North Seattle home. He also drives north around the lake and skips the 520 bridge.

Billie Cross negotiates side streets. On a good day, getting to work is an easy, 15-minute drive. On a bad day — more often than not lately — it takes her 45 minutes to drive the 10 miles from her Sammamish Plateau home to her job at Home Depot in Redmond.

"There's got to be a better way," Cross said. "You just go creep, creep, creep."

Brian Yee, who commutes to Microsoft from his home on Redmond's Education Hill, said he has "sworn off Avondale" in favor of side streets.

Businesses have their strategies, too. United Parcel Service, whose distribution hub is inside the vortex, manages to avoid the entire mess by dispatching many of its trucks in the early morning hours and analyzing traffic patterns via computer to help drivers find the most precise, efficient routes, spokesman Doug Baker said.

Result (ri zult') noun: The consequence or outcome of an action

Even when the changes are made, how long will their benefits last?

Cairns, the Redmond transportation manager, remembers driving through town 23 years ago when he began working for the city. Since then he's seen roads widened, turn lanes added, signals changed.

Yet the backup along eastbound 520 at the end of the day still extends about two miles, hovering around Northeast 51st Street, "no matter how wide we make it or how many improvements we put in."

"A lot of people would like us to just keep widening this stuff," Cairns said. "From my experience with it, the wider we make it, the more traffic that comes into the area."

Widen or not, the people and traffic will come anyway, said Cummings of the Puget Sound Regional Council.

"In many cases in this area we haven't built a lot of roads," he said. "And they're still coming."

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com