In case you're hesitant about downloading 25 pages of the Preliminary Draft EIS and you haven't made it to one of the 4 in-person viewing sites for this doc, we've transcribed a few key passages. The sections excerpted below appear on pages 1-23 through 1-25, where the Hospital's consultant summarizes significant adverse impacts. Highlighting and our brief comments (in red) have been added.
Noise
Even with the mitigation measures identified above, construction noise would result in short-term and temporary significant unavoidable adverse impacts.Hospital administrator Ruth Benfield predicts continuous construction from 2009-2022. Is 13 years really short-term?
Update: Hospital architect Karl Sonnenberg told a neighbor that the Hospital's current buildings will have exceeded their useful lifetimes by the time the new towers are finished. Thus, by 2022, these existing buildings will require replacement. This will add (roughly) another 10 years of continuous construction, for a ballpark total of 23 years.
Housing
Currently there are 649 multi-family units in the Laurelhurst/Sand Point Way CRA. Multi-family or attached housing provides a more affordable hosing option for many of Seattle’s residents. Through the loss of 136 units at Laurelon Terrace, Alternative 4 would reduce the available amount of multi-family housing in the Laurelhurst/Sand Point CRA by approximately 21 percent. This would be a significant loss of moderately priced housing available in the area that would be difficult to replace.To put this another way, 1 out of 5 multifamily (aka moderately-priced) housing units in the Laurelhurst/Sandpoint area would be eliminated.
Transportation
The build alternatives would accommodate additional amounts of future development at Children’s and the Hartmann site, which would contribute to additional travel demand and congestion along arterial corridors including Sand Point Way, NE 45th Street, and Montlake Boulevard. The additional development also would increase traffic accessing and circulating in the area. This added congestion would contribute to measurably poorer performance of the transportation network, in terms of increased delays along several of the corridors and at some specific intersections. The increase in traffic and pedestrian and bicycle activity due to development would result in more conflict points and increased hazards to safety.
Traffic Volumes
Future (2030) growth in the area would result in increases in regional and local traffic within the study area both without and with the project. In addition, the build alternatives would increase area-wide and local traffic on routes serving the site. Although Children’s would implement strategies to reduce its overall traffic, this impact is considered a significant and unavoidable adverse impact since Children’s would likely not be able to reduce its traffic volume contribution to zero, and therefore, would increase traffic volumes on roadways even with mitigation. While strategies to reduce travel demand and related impacts have been identified, a residual increase in traffic to the street system attributable to Children’s is likely.
Traffic Operations
Vehicle delays and queues along access arterials (i.e., Sand Point Way NE, NE 45th Street, and Montlake Boulevard) would increase due to additional Children’s traffic. Implementation of mitigation measures such as traffic signals and signal timing optimization would reduce Children’s impact at several locations (e.g., Montlake Boulevard/NE 45h Street, 40th Ave NE/NE 55th Street, and 40th Avenue NE/NE 65th Street). However, impacts to the intersections would be significant and unavoidable because mitigation measures would not be feasible, or would be out of the control of Children’s. There are no feasible mitigation measures to implement at the NE 45th Street/Union Bay Place NE intersection; however, reduction of Children’s SOV traffic would reduce impacts at this intersection by decreasing traffic. Mitigation of the Montlake Boulevard/Eastbound SR 520 Ramp intersection would require approval and implementation of the SR 520 Project; the timing and funding of this improvement is unknown at this time.
Congestion would increase along key corridors providing access to Children’s, with or without the expansion of Children’s, including Sand Point Way NE, NE 45h Street, and Montlake Boulevard. Even with the mitigation measures reducing Children’s traffic within these corridors, there would still be some increase in delay and queues due to Children’s. Future regional growth in traffic volumes both with and without the addition of Children’s expansion traffic would result in increased congestion, longer travel times, and reduced speeds along these corridors. In addition, due to congestion along major corridors, it would likely become increasingly difficult for traffic on side-streets at unsignalized intersections to enter the traffic stream.
Traffic Impacts from page 1-13
Children's traffic would increase by approximately 8,400 vehicle trips per day; 850 trips during AM peak hour and 680 trips during PM peak hour.
