Anger Erupts over Navy Federal Credit Union's 9-Mile Road Overpass.....Part I

Angry Beulah Residents are now enraged over this NFCU Overpass--and some are saying they regret  moving here over this proposed initiative and the way it is being steamrolled over them...This is not the way projects should be developed!

"The proposed extension to Nine Mile either over or under for Navy Federal needs to go to the North side sooner, where there are no homes impacted.  The existing proposal has Federal Way coming across Nature Trail property and behind Salt Grass, impacting our quality of life.  The raised Nine Mile (25’) impacts those homes backing up to Nine Mile.  Surely we are a smart enough people that we can come up with a different solution.  The way it is now, DOT and whomever will just TAKE Nature Trails property across the street from the existing exit/entrance on Federal Way to NFCU.  This is something that residents of Nature Trail voted down last year.  We do not want to give up that buffer.  Now, if NFCU or the County wants to buy my home at “fair market value”, great.  Either way, we will be moving as soon as we can to get away from this mess.  We moved into our home Dec 2013…heard about the widening of Nine Mile a few months after that and then heard about the expansion of NFCU.  IF we’d have been informed that these “improvements” were going to happen, we have purchased a home elsewhere."  ---District 1 Constituent

"I just moved here with my husband three months ago...had I known about this issue and that now there is going to be an overpass built on 9-mile road, and even more construction--we would have never bought this house.  Who can I call, who can I write?  I will write the Governor and our state senators because this is not right!"  ---Angry new District 1 Constituent and Beulah Resident

 " my wife [and I]are against this project, to [at] least not taking 60 days to study this project.   Many of those owners will be in the meeting room for Thursday’s BCC Meeting.  Many of them have written their representatives.  Our neighbors along Nine Mile Rd and across all of Beulah also have a vested interest in whether this project, that significantly improves the commutes for NFCU employees who come here and leave here but one time, five days a week but does not do much for the residents.  The residents who drive this road daily who have learned to work around the impact of these NFCU employees on Nine Mile Rd, trying to be good neighbors. This is a 25 ft. high elevated roadway, although some in leadership positions have tried to sell this as an underpass, that will alleviate any benefit that the 15 ft. high Sound Walls provide.  This is a $72,000,000 project that is being fast tracked, steamrolled, through the process without any studies, public meetings or any of the normal process items.  All to benefit NFCU, but have a very large financial impact on the residents


of 
Nature Trail and Beulah.  Just think if you lived along Nine Mile Rd and found the view you had in your backyard now changed to the elevated roadway, not to mention the safety impact of trying to bring NFCU traffic on to Nine Mile Rd at the on-ramp to I-10. We have not even finished construction on Nine Mile Rd to opened the four lanes to see the impact to traffic and for that matter building the elevated road means that the monies spent for construction on Nine Mile Rd were for nothing.  A great waste of resources.  If this project is approved then the funds for the Beulah Bypass with an interchange at Beulah Rd will probably go away.  That would be the best solution for all traffic on Nine Mile Rd and it would provide another exit and onramp to I-10 at Beulah Rd.  It would move the traffic that comes south on Highway 29 to Nine Mile Rd to go around and hit Beulah Rd and come south to Nine Mile RD alleviating a lot of  the traffic backup that exists today.

It was not the residents that decided not to build the infrastructure to support NFCU prior to allowing NFCU to build their complex.  It is also not the residents that will turn NOF 8 into a light industrial complex, again without building the infrastructure to support it.   Completing the Beulah Rd Bypass with the additional exit and onramp for I-10 would support both of these.

Were here acting as if NFCU employees are the only people in the world being impacted by this traffic.  Every resident of Beulah is being impacted!"  ---Angry District 1 Resident and Property Owner

"I fully support your concerns with the way this was rushed onto the agenda by Commissioner Robinson, and the way it was done behind your back.  But most of all, I am concerned that once again Commissioner Robinson is pushing a path he favors with as little public involvement as possible.  And he is saying, as he did with the OLF 8 swap, that we just need to move this down the road, to get it in the funding pipeline.  No time for publicly vetting the idea, no time to decide whether we should do this at all.   Once the BCC signals approval, the FDOT will be able to proceed.  And I have seen how their public town halls are handled.  They are mainly information sessions to tell you what they have decided already.  I am also concerned that the millions that would go into financing this, while they might be state or federal dollars, ultimately do come from the federal and other taxes we all pay.  Chuck Marohn, in his book "Thoughts on Building Strong Towns", says that if you do whatever engineers propose for roads, they will bankrupt you.  Those dollars may be wasted, when a much simpler solution is possible." Concerned and active District 1 (Beulah) Resident