Next month Sammamish City Council will review historical data to aid their decision in retaining or removing the 42nd Street barricade.

And the data, albeit a decade old, supports barricade removal.

After numerous packed city council meetings, with several dozen residents asking for a decisive stance on the Opticom gate, council members asked city staff to rehash previous studies on the barricade. Yet, the council voted on Feb. 17 not to remove the barricade within the current budgetary biennium, which leaves it in its place for at least another two years.

City Manager Ben Yazici has pled staff workload issues in asking the council to postpone the issue. Even still, council asked staff to continue investigating the issue, admittedly at a slower pace than may be desired.

The most recent city evaluation, produced in 2003, states doing away with the barricade would not negatively impact surrounding neighborhoods, as many residents fear it would.

Deputy Mayor Kathleen Huckabay expects this study to carry weight in the council’s decision.

“It will have a lot of impact[on the decision],” she said. “It was a serious study.”

The city contracted through Gray & Osborne Inc., in 2003 to identify the impacts of barricade removal on vehicle and pedestrians.

It shows that removal would have a low impact on pedestrians.

Traffic counts would remain below a weekly average of 2,000, which is the upper comfort limit for traffic volumes in residential neighborhoods, the city report states.

The data used to evaluate pedestrian and traffic impacts relies on subdivision traffic conditions from November 2001, a 1998 William Popp Weber’s Ridge and Chrysalis Estates traffic forecast for 2003 and traffic counts from October 2001 and April 2003.

There are several engineering issues residents have brought to council, from improperly-built roads to blind corners. Council expects city staff will need to further research mitigating these issues seen throughout the neighborhoods.

Council member Ramiro Valderrama-Aramayo would not be content to approve barricade removal until such issues are addressed.

Mayor Tom Vance expects this process to take some time. He reiterated public works’ workload issues, citing the possible Klahanie Annexation, Snake Hill improvements and stormwater regulation projects.

“This sort of has to wait its turn,” he said.

The barricade was installed before the city was incorporated, per a conditional agreement between King County and three residential plats, the Chrysalis Estates, Webers Ridge and Old Mill Point. The barricade blocks a direct route, cutting through Timberline and Hidden Ridge neighborhoods, from Sahalee Way to SR 202.

The King County Hearing Examiner approved the barricade in the late ‘90s on the condition that its placement be re-evaluated  after various neighborhood street improvements and SR 202 improvements were made.

These improvements included the installation of a signal at the intersection of Northeast 192nd Drive and SR 202, which has been completed.

Moreover, the time and energy neighborhood groups put in protesting the connector route “is perhaps the most eloquent testimony as to the essential intractability of the congestion problems along SR 202 itself,” Deputy Hearing Examiner Stafford L. Smith wrote in the 1996 report.

Smith clearly stated, on several occasions, that the neighborhoods would not be affected by outside traffic looking for a short cut, as residents had feared.

“(T)he proposed road design for the neighborhood collector route (the internal roadway system linking Sahalee Way to SR 202) contains a number of features, both natural and artificial, which impede thoroughfare use and discourage cut-through traffic,” Smith wrote.

The Timberline and Hidden Ridge neighborhood groups of 1996 strongly opposed the thoroughfare — much like current residents advocate to retain the barricade.

If the barricade is removed, well, there goes the neighborhood, current residents say.

Their reservation stems from various safety concerns and a deep desire to retain the original neighborhood character.

Dozens of residents have spoken out at recent council meetings. They cite issues like dangerous road conditions in adverse weather, speeding issues and high pedestrian usage.

“(T)he existing pedestrian facilities within the impacted northeast neighborhoods are sufficient to safely accommodate the increase of vehicular traffic if barricade is removed,” Sammamish Traffic Engineer Steven Chen wrote in a July 2003 summary of the Gray & Osborne evaluation. “(R)emoving the barricade would not increase volumes such that pedestrian crossing gaps would be affected.”

The barricade remained in place in 2003, waiting the completion of SR 202 widening project from Interstate-520 to Sahalee Way. That project was completed in the late 2000s.

In mid-February, city council asked for a more recent study of the barricade and related issues, but without reworking the 2015-16 budget, it would not be possible to allocate staff time and funds to the issue. As a compromise, the council will review previous information before moving forward with asking staff to compile mitigation costs and a possible timeline.

The city has received several signature petitions to remove and retain the barricade over the years.

Eastside Fire and Rescue, Sammamish Police Chief and City of Redmond Fire Department indicted their support for barricade removal to increase response times.

Several years ago, the city installed the Opticom gate, which allows responders to open the gate remotely, to help relieve that issue.

The exact date council members will discuss the study in May has yet to be determined.