DOCUMENTS: Controversial Park & Ride Proposal to Be Discussed at LFP Council Meeting Monday

A controversial proposal to build a Park & Ride in the Sheridan Beach/Brookside area will bring opponents out in force again to the Lake Forest Park City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Monday.

Back on Aug. 23, Sheridan Beach and Brookside residents took to the microphone at a Council meeting to voice their displeasure over the proposed Park & Ride.

Tonight, in addition to taking more public comment on the proposal, the Council will discuss a preliminary engineering report and commuter parking alternatives.

Opponents have been circulating petitions in the 41st Ave. area and in the Brookside neighborhood (see attached PDFs). About 200 people have signed the petitions.

Back in August, 30 people took the microphone during the meeting’s public comment period, and nearly all expressed their opposition with the proposal, which would allow for commuter parking on residential streets, in particular on 41st Ave. NE between 165th St. and Bothell Way.

“We’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go, and this is the worst,” Wally Sandvig, who’s lived in Lake Forest Park with his wife Joanne for 55 years told the Council in August. Sandvig lives on 44th Ave. NE, another possible Park & Ride site in the Brookside neighborhood.

Residents have expressed doubts over everything from the ability for emergency vehicles and garbage trucks to navigate the narrow streets, to why their their streets were chosen in the first place.

But, the council also stressed that a solution will need to be found.

“We already have commuter parking, we need to find a place to put it,” said Councilwoman Sandy Koppenol, at the Aug. 23 meeting.