Neighborhood Greenways (North Rose Hill, South Rose Hill)

A diverter is a traffic-calming device that restricts the partial or complete flow of motorized vehicles onto a section of a street while allowing the multi-directional flow of bicycles and pedestrians. Its purpose is to reduce the number of motor vehicles that use the street, as well as the speeds at which they travel. Diverters are designed to provide full access to emergency responders. Emergency response vehicles can pass through their gaps and drive over them.  

Automobiles traveling along Northeast 100th Street will be able to turn right onto 128th Avenue Northeast, whether they are heading east or west. However, automobiles will not be able to turn left from Northeast 100th Street onto 128th Avenue Northeast. This is true for automobiles traveling east and west on 100th Avenue Northeast.

Additionally, automobiles traveling along 128th Avenue Northeast will have to turn right onto Northeast 100th Street from both directions.

The diverter’s purpose is to help create a neighborhood greenway where people of all ages, all abilities can feel comfortable using all modes, such as riding bicycles and walking.

To achieve this, the greenway’s design aims to reduce the number and speeds of the automobiles that travel along it—even as traffic counts increase on other streets.  

Kirkland’s transportation staff evaluated several traffic-calming devices for this purpose: speed humps, for example, street-narrowing and traffic circles. At 128th Avenue Northeast’s intersection with Northeast 100th Street, however, the diverter emerged as the most effective and most popular candidate.

During the 2016 design process, residents said they preferred the diverter, in concept, to speed humps. And Kirkland’s transportation planners found that a diverter at 128th Avenue Northeast’s intersection with Northeast 100th Street would be more effective at reducing the number and speeds of automobiles than speed humps.

A diverter at Northeast 104th Street would primarily affect traffic between that street and Northeast 100th Street—a fixed amount. Its effect would be significant on a few people and negligible on cut-through traffic. The point of the diverter at Northeast 100th Street is to ensure that the traffic increases on other streets don’t spill onto 128th Avenue Northeast. Northeast 100th Street is near the greenway's mid-point, which allows community members to the north of the option of using Northeast 104th Street and people to the south the option of Northeast 95th Street. 

Kirkland’s transportation planners expect the diverter to have little to no effect on the number and speeds of automobiles traveling on Northeast 100th Street, from 124th Avenue Northeast to 132nd Avenue Northeast. Curbing those speeds and volumes is outside the scope of the greenways project. 

Kirkland’s transportation engineers expect the diverter to redirect some local traffic onto Northeast 104th and 95th streets. 

Kirkland’s transportation master plan articulates the plan and purpose of a connected neighborhood greenways network. City leaders included greenways in it’s the master plan after dozens of its community members proposed the idea as a viable and cost-effective alternative to expanding automotive capacity.

For decades, the City of Kirkland has executed a transportation strategy that focuses on moving people, not just cars. And with the 2013 adoption of the transportation master plan its leaders re-invested in this strategy.

Since then, the City has been building sidewalks, establishing bicycle lanes and creating more connections to the Cross Kirkland Corridor. It has also planned a network of greenways and designed its first two.