A Place Where Every Day's A Bad-Car Day -- Issaquah Traffic So Snarled That Road Rage Is Feared

ISSAQUAH

People like Don Dixon make Issaquah's traffic a mess. But don't blame him. Thousands of other drivers share the responsibility.

Dixon lives in Covington in southeastern King County, works in Bellevue and says his best commute is through Front Street North in Issaquah, where traffic going to Interstate 90 backs up a few miles each morning.

The historic two-lane street has become one of the Seattle area's worst pinch points - not because of city residents but because of outsiders who use it as a shortcut, or, in some cases, the only thoroughfare.

About 34,000 cars a day pass by in each direction, triple the population of Issaquah.

"Front Street's terrible," says John Okamoto, regional administrator for the state Department of Transportation.

Dixon's commute takes one hour, but that's a half-hour quicker than taking the northbound Valley Freeway and Interstate 405. Some days, he'll cruise state Highway 18 northeast to Snoqualmie, then backtrack along I-90 toward Bellevue.

"I would use mass transit if they had any," he says, "but it would take me 2 1/2 hours each way to get to work by bus."

Living in Bellevue is one option, but there's no way Dixon could find a three-bedroom, $150,000 house there like his place in Covington.

"I don't want to raise my family in a condo," he says.

Issaquah was formerly a Native American trail junction nestled amid three small mountains, a lake and a wooded plateau. The topography tends to channel highways into narrow corridors, and Issaquah's traffic arteries are ready to rupture:

-- Building permits for about 400 homes have been put on hold because of a city traffic ordinance passed in May 1998.

-- Police Officer Jeff Johnson stands by roadsides handing tickets to drivers who block intersections. Whenever he's gone, motorists flood the city with cell-phone calls pleading for help because they can't get through green lights. Patrol officers cited 2,091 traffic violators from this January to May, a pace to beat last year's 3,399 infractions. Besides Front Street, there are other backups on the city's west end, at the I-90/Lake Sammamish State Park exit.

-- This summer, the downtown Southwest Newport Way bridge, which allows Seattle-bound drivers to bypass Front Street North, is closed so highway crews can replace it. One motorist wrote to the weekly Issaquah Press that the city was creating conditions for road rage.

"The Issaquah traffic miasma is epic in comparison to any of the surrounding areas," the motorist wrote.

-- Last month, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) startled city officials by suggesting they experiment with tolls at the city limits rather than try to build their way out of gridlock.

By 2002, Issaquah hopes to have a north-south bypass connecting Issaquah-Hobart Road to the soon-to-be expanded I-90 interchange at East Sunset Way and a new street up the Sammamish Plateau.

But during an environmental review of the bypass project, the EPA sent a letter May 13 suggesting that Issaquah consider something called "congestion pricing" to get people out of their cars instead. A toll might be one of those methods and could be charged by electronically scanning computer chips affixed to cars.

Elaine Somers, the EPA employee who wrote the letter, says cities routinely set their sights on road construction and then dismiss other options. "If you don't present alternatives," she says, "you'll never do anything more sustainable and less environmentally damaging."

City officials show no interest in tolls and say the EPA's request likely will delay a crucial road by requiring months more of study.

"We want our downtown back," says city project director Pamela Fox, weary of seeing Issaquah's old shopping district choked by nonshopper traffic. She says more growth is coming whether roads are ready or not. The Park Pointe development, with up to 586 homes, is proposed on the southern slope of Tiger Mountain and would benefit from a bypass. South of the city, areas such as May Valley and east Renton are designated for urban growth.

More important, cities can't charge tolls in Washington state, although Somers suggests asking the Legislature for permission.

The regional council, in fact, is studying toll roads as one of many ideas for a traffic plan due in 2001. "You can't just do it in one area," says the Department of Transportation's Okamoto.

Somers, of the EPA, maintains that Issaquah's location as a regional conduit for cars makes it an ideal place to experiment with congestion pricing.

Issaquah officials expected nightmares during the Southwest Newport Way closure, but their publicity blitz seems to be keeping some drivers away. Traffic has worsened only about 15 minutes a day, by Don Dixon's reckoning.

Driving north in his red pickup one recent Friday morning, he passed two dented vehicles as he approached the end of the traffic line, two miles south of I-90. As he stopped, he veered to the right part of his lane, signaling others behind him to slow down.

Next came Joanna Pintar, who lives just south of Issaquah, taking her 4-year-old son, Andrew, to a day-care center on her way to work in Kirkland. She skidded a few feet, ending up a few inches shy of Dixon's pickup. She stretched her arm toward the back seat to brace Andrew.

Then a lawn-care truck crumpled her car's rear and knocked it into Dixon's pickup.

So much for getting to work on time.

The boy watched the tow truck with curiosity, and the backup stretched for two miles. Sometimes it stretches another three miles south, says Johnson, the police officer. Two crashes, five vehicles, nobody hurt.

"Traffic's pretty good today," the officer says. "This is cake."

Mike Lindblom's phone-message number is 206-515-5631. His e-mail address is mlindblom@seattletimes.com