Mayor Dave Earling and members of Edmonds' Public Works Department were on hand for Thursday's ribbon-cutting ceremony dedicating the new .
After the short ceremony was over, Ed Sibrel, engineering technician in the city of Edmonds’ Engineering Division, removed the retractable concrete bollards that keep the road accessible only to pedestrians and bikers the majority of the time.
It wasn't just for show. The temperature is hovering around the freezing mark and ice is expected.
The access road is the result of years of negotiations with city officials and residents of Pioneer Way portion of Shell Valley, called Shell Park II. Residents live in a deep bowl whose only access in the past has been the steep and winding southern end of Pioneer Way off Bowdoin Way.
Icy and snowy conditions made it challening, to say the least, for residents to enter and leave their neighborhood.
The new 15-foot-wide emergency access road connects the north end of Pioneer Way to Main Street. The Public Works Department will decide when the road is to be opened.
The road is constructed of porous asphalt, where rainwater can soak through, be cleaned of roadway contaminants in a filter gallery below, and reintroduced to the wetland.
The emergency access road project is funded by a state appropriation of $250,000, a Washington State Department of Ecology grant of $100,000, and by the city of Edmonds.
The road's fence has one gap in it, the result of a falling tree. The Public Works department will repair the fence.
