||| from Fred Klein |||

Main Street, Eastsound

If you love and appreciate Eastsound, listen up.

If you experience and enjoy the look, the feel, the ambiance of Eastsound’s Main Street as you enter the village…the landscaping, the street trees, the meandering sidewalk as it weaves around the little pockets of on-street parking…if you get a sense that you are entering into a unique, somewhat remote, special place…be prepared for the changes coming to Prune Alley.

If you value the unique sense-of-place which is Eastsound and appreciate it’s beloved village character…be prepared to find a very different streetscape when the proposed improvements on Prune Alley are implemented.

These improvements have always been envisioned, at least in my mind, to build upon the unique character of our Main and N. Beach Road streetscape, to support and enhance the low-keyed, casual, unpretentious ambiance, and continue the emphasis on landscaping. That’s not going to happen if the present transformative design for Prune Alley is implemented.

The east side of Prune Alley will become a four block long stretch of road flanked with parallel parking, a sidewalk, and NO street trees…just a few patches of beauty bark. The west side will be much the same, though interrupted by two pockets of diagonal parking and (thankfully) a few street trees. The design ignores the adopted Eastsound Street Standards which generated Main St., North Beach Road, and a portion of “A” Street with their abundance of landscaping features, street trees, and meandering sidewalks.

But the Main Feature of Prune Alley…and a very real departure from the laid-back, modest character of the village…will be the introduction of quite elaborate treatments of the intersections at Fern, Rose, “A” Street, and High School Road. Spanning up to 70 feet in width, the intersections as designed will include 10 foot wide concrete ramps which raise and lower the roadway by six inches, 8 foot wide decorated concrete crosswalks, and a large central square of decorative brick. (The raising and lowering of the roadway enables the elimination of the usual ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps at the curb.)

Proposed Prune Alley and Fern Street Intersection

The Eastsound Planning Review Committee has unanimously endorsed these elaborate intersections IF the surface of the ramps and the crosswalks can be brick instead of concrete. SJC Public Works has endorsed this recommendation, money not seeming to be an issue.

Our very capable County Engineer concedes that these quite elaborate intersections are completely un-necessary and we have reviewed and agreed that there are much simpler ways to create ADA-compliant sidewalks and crosswalks; he is, however, willing to support the preferences of EPRC.

Whether this elaborate treatment of the street intersections is a thing of beauty or an introduction of an element which is totally alien to the look, feel, and ambiance of Eastsound is up to the observer. Opinions will vary, a wide range of which is rarely lacking on Orcas.

The question for me is whether the treatment of these intersections enhances the sense-of-place which is unique to Eastsound, or whether it diminishes that uniqueness by introducing elements which are trendy and cropping up in communities all over Washington (and beyond).

Years ago amidst much local soul searching about the future of Eastsound, the common cry I heard was, “…we don’t want to become a Friday Harbor…and, for God’s sake, let’s not become another Leavenworth.” Ironically, SJC Public Works showed photographs to EPRC from Leavenworth to help sell these same elaborate intersections, designed by its consultant for Prune Alley.

For me, the pity is that the project’s priorities are askew…with no recognition of the negative impacts on Eastsound’s unique sense-of-place…no money to move underground utilities in order to allow ample room for the roots of street trees and a failure to recognize their aesthetic impact over time…yet plenty of money for small town “anywhere-USA” glitz which our high priced Seattle consultants have foisted upon us.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can do better. We can honor the modest spirit of our village.

I write all of the above after having spent much of the past six weeks studying all documents made available by the consultants at this time, engaging with our Orcas Councilman and County staff, members of the EPRC, and several property owners.
This whole project is not yet a done-deal and won’t become one unless County Council votes in favor (unlikely in the face of an outcry). Here’s an opportunity to express your views on it, and Council wants to know how you feel.

Fred Klein
5 decades experience as Architect and Planner
past member of EPRC, numerous terms
member of the Eastsound Design Review Committee
resident of Eastsound


 

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