PCC building to bring more than 1,200 car trips to East Madison Street

A proposed retail and mid-rise apartment building will bring more than 1,200 vehicle trips a day to and from its location on East Madison Street, according to a traffic analysis entered into city record Monday, Aug. 22.

The analysis, commissioned by Studio Meng Strazzara and released to the architectural firm in June, is the latest step by developer Velmeir to be approved to build a four-story building and parking garage at 2939 E. Madison St., the current site of City People’s garden store.

The proposed building would include 75 apartments, a 25,000-square-foot PCC Natural Market grocery store, 1,600 square feet of specialty retail space and 158 parking stalls.

Everett firm Gibson Traffic Consultants recorded traffic on April 12, combining that with existing traffic data and traffic projections for 2018, then calculating the impact of the proposed building.

The building’s impact was analyzed under three scenarios: one with a single entrance and exit to its parking garage from East Madison Street; one with a single entry and exit from Dewey Place East; and with entry and exit points on both streets.

Studio Meng Strazzara’s design for the building would place the parking garage access portal on East Madison Street.

Perhaps surprising to area commuters, delays at current intersections near the building were not expected to increase by a great deal. The most impacted of the existing intersections, Lake Washington Boulevard East at East Madison Street, would see delays increase from 28.1 seconds to 30 seconds per vehicle, according to estimates by engineer Matthew Palmer.

But Palmer noted that parking garage access would create an entirely new intersection on East Madison Street. Drivers attempting to get in or out of the garage could expect to wait more than 32 seconds to do so.

For that reason, Palmer recommended the creation of an additional left turn lane into the garage from East Madison Street.

“A southbound left-turn lane is warranted based on volume for both the sole access being on East Madison Street and if there is an access on East madison Street and Dewey Place East,” Palmer wrote in his conclusions. “However, the southbound left turn is not required for level of service or existing collision history.”

Engineers estimated the retail space and apartments would add just over 2,000 trips to the roadway accessing the building’s parking garage. However, the report noted that East Madison Street would also lose about 766 trips that would have otherwise gone to and from City People’s.