Juanita Drive Corridor Improvements

Kirkland’s contractor will detour residents away from Juanita Drive’s intersection with 79th Way Northeast and toward its intersection with 80th Avenue Northeast while its crews upgrade a short section of water main. 

SCI Infrastructure, LLC., plans to maintain the detour until spring 2025, when it completes the improvements. 

Juanita Drive will be open to traffic at all times during the detour. Access to 79th Way Northeast from Juanita Drive, however, will not. 

Northshore Utility District is funding the water main upgrade project. 

SCI Infrastructure will remove at least nine trees along Juanita-Woodlands Park's former frontage with Juanita Drive. An arborist's assessment revealed that several of these trees are in poor condition or, worse, are hazardous because they hang over Juanita Drive.

The trees that will be removed are in a small piece of land the City of Kirkland acquired from King County so it could build the sidewalk. 

The project will remove 110 trees, give or take. Ninety of those trees are viable trees. The other 23 or so are either hazardous or unhealthy. Instead of removing them altogether, the project will convert a dozen trees into habitat snags for wildlife. Generally, the project will replace any tree that it had to remove--mostly with coniferous trees. The contractor will plant more than 60 of those trees along the corridor, where room exists. The City will plant the remaining trees elsewhere in the City.

The project will remove trees where they currently conflict with the designed improvements, including removing trees that are too close to new walls. However, the project will replant as many trees as possible within the project area.

The City of Kirkland is planning in 2025 to continue design on a project that will improve Juanita Drive’s intersection with Northeast 112th Street and 80th Avenue Northeast.

This intersection was previously a feature of the Juanita Drive corridor improvements project that begins March 11. 

The City Council chose to extract it from that project, however, to give the design team more time to acquire necessary right-of-way and, to add a safe crossing across Juanita Drive.

Delaying improvements to this intersection also makes Juanita Drive more drivable during construction and reduces the length of time necessary for construction. 

The 80th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 112th Street project will establish a crosswalk across Juanita Drive, add nearly 400 linear feet of sidewalk along Northeast 112th Street and 80th Avenue Northeast and improve safety at the intersections, by realigning the roadway and redistributing some of 80th Avenue Northeast’s gradient. It will also build a retaining wall at the corner of 80th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 112th Street.

To achieve this, Kirkland is purchasing nearly 700 square-feet of privately owned land within the Hermosa Vista neighborhood.  

Community feedback about the sign did not influence City Council’s decision to delay this part of the project. 

Vibrations, sound and space. The buffer consists of a six-inch wide profiled thermoplastic line along the vehicles' side that will alert drivers with vibrations and a rumbling sound. That line is part of a two-foot-wide, cross-hatched buffer for a six-foot-wide bicycle lane.

The uphill--northbound--direction, will feature a continuous, seven-foot-wide buffered bicycle lane. The lane, itself, will be five feet wide and the buffer will be two feet wide.

In the downhill--southbound--direction, most of the project-area will feature a seven-foot-wide bicycle lane. In some areas, the narrower roadway will taper the bicycle lane down to five feet.

No. That area is outside the scope of this project. However, residents can suggest this project idea through the Our Kirkland system.

Widening Juanita Drive at Northeast 120th Street allows the project to add a southbound slip-lane from Northeast 120th Street onto Juanita Drive. To provide a shoulder and to continue the buffered bicycle lane and sidewalk to the south, the retaining wall will be offset from the pavement's edge.

The contractor is required to establish and maintain these trees for the first year and replace them if necessary.Tree-watering bags are included.

 Yes. The illumination system is designed to provide lighting downward for people who are driving cars, riding bicycles or walking.

The City relies on Washington State Department of Transportation standards for paint materials. The transportation department has updated the requirements to prohibit use of road paints containing diarylide pigments and pigment 83, which are associated with PCBs. The contractor for this project must provide paint meeting these requirements. Per 2023 Washington State Department of Transportation standard specifications section 9-34.2(3): “Traffic paint shall not contain mercury, lead, chromium, diarylide pigments, toluene, chlorinated solvents, hydrolysable chlorine derivatives, ethylene-based glycol ethers and their acetates, nor any other EPA hazardous waste material over the regulatory levels per CFR 40 Park 261.24.”

The thermoplastic used for pavement art is textured and more slip-resistant than typical asphalt and should not gather moss more than a standard asphalt surface would. It would just need to be power-washed like regular pavement if moss did accumulate.

The thermoplastic used for pavement art would be more durable and longer-lasting than typical paint or typical thermoplastic. The City of Kirkland expects 10-plus years before showing any wear, especially since the tactical urbanism locations are not within the driving area. The MMA is ultra-violet stable but you still might see a little color fading over time with sun/weather exposure, but this would take a number of years.

No. The City initially considered this. But has since decided to not use it.

The design(PDF, 112MB) is at 90 percent. Generally, this means the project team can still tweak small details of the design without fundamentally altering the design.

Click here to see the 90 percent plan set. (PDF, 112MB)

The City is currently not anticipating the need for any full detours or road closures. If, at some point, the project does need to set up a detour, Holmes Point Drive would not be a strong candidate for the detour route

No. While an unpaved path might provide a better experience for some, a sidewalk provides access for all--regardless of whether they travel by foot or by wheelchair.

Yes, but not for some time. This project will not extend sidewalks and protected bike lanes to Juanita Beach. However, the 2014 Juanita Drive Corridor Study Master Plan recommends projects that will ultimately connect the length of Juanita Drive between Juanita Beach Park and Northeast 141st Street with a sidewalk and bicycle lanes.

These projects are also highlighted in the 2022 Active Transportation Plan. Implementing additional recommended projects along this corridor will have a relatively high cost due to multiple factors, including steep slopes and limited right-of-way. They are not currently funded in the 2023-2028 Capital Improvement Program.

The current contract allows for 300 working days, which is approximately 15 months of construction if the project does not encounter delays. If the contractor exceeds its allotted 300 working days, the current contract would allow the City of Kirkland to pursue liquidated damages from the contractor. Liquidated damages require the contractor to pay the City for each day it works beyond the 300 allotted work days. Of course, extenuating circumstances, such as weather, a COVID infection or material delays, could force the City to reallocate some of those work days.

Yes. The Juanita Drive Corridor Study provided comprehensive analysis and an ambitious set of recommendations that established this project's scope. The project's traffic analysis is available (PDF, 112MB)here(PDF, 112MB).

(PDF, 112MB) (PDF, 112MB)TRAFFIC-ANALYSIS-Juanita-Drive.pdf(PDF, 3MB) .

No. After completing the State Environmental Policy Act requirements, this project was issued a Determination of Non-Significance.

The City often pays for traffic control as a lump sum; however, many specific requirements are spelled out in the specifications that the contractor must follow, such as full traffic control plans and sequencing. The City must approve all traffic control plans prior to implementing.

To connect to Juanita Drive safely, the project will actually make 80th Avenue Northeast slightly steeper as it approaches the intersection. The resulting intersection will be lower--and will, therefore, require less of a descent onto Juanita Drive. Since there are already steep slopes here, it’s impossible to reduce them all without a significant increase in the project extents and scope. As a result, the design team agreed on a tradeoff between the grades that must be made. At no point, though, will the grade of 80th Avenue Northeast be more than its existing maximum grade.