2022/06/01 Council Agenda Packet

June 1, 2022 I live at and own a house on Madison Street, Everett, WA with my wife. Our street and house will be directly affected by the Madison Street Bike Lane project should it proceed. We purchased our house in 2019. When we purchased this house, it was with long-term intention. We love our house and yard and have worked hard to improve it, making it our own. We have replaced the original single pane windows, put in insulation in both the attic and crawl space, eradicated the blackberries (and rat problem) taking over the back portion of the backyard, put in a new driveway and driveway apron (per City specifications) and are having our oil tank and furnace replaced with an electric furnace and heat pump this month. We're working to slowly add biodiversity to the backyard to encourage birds, bees, and beneficial insects. Not to mention several other improvements we have done to the interior. There is a plan in place to replace all the parking on both sides of Madison Street with buffered bike lanes. I respectfully ask you to not proceed with this plan. We already expanded our driveway to a barely two car driveway and there is no room for further expansion. We are foster parents and have regular visitors to our house in the form of social workers, case workers, therapists, transporters, CASAs, etc. Additionally, my parents are aging and would like to be able to visit us at our house. All these people in our lives need a place to park when they are at our house. I have been told people can park on the side streets, but there is not parking on the side streets where I live. And it could be quite a walk to find a place to park if they were successful. We only purchased this house because it had parking available in front. Had it not, we would not have bought it, no matter how much we loved it. But at this point, we are not financially able to move — with interest rates and inflation so high, it would not be feasible to buy a new house. But more than that, we do not want to move. We want to stay where we are. I do not understand why the City would consider taking away necessary parking for so many of their residents. In regard to the bike lanes, there are already connecting bike trails on other streets. Almost no one has a long or large driveway, so everyone uses street parking. We moved to Everett because we like Everett. We like that it s smaller and offers a slower pace than a bigger city. Consider, also, how you would feel if this is where you lived. Again, I respectfully ask you to not proceed with the Madison Street Bike Lane plan. Thank you for your time. Katie Langner