Bothell unveils new markers for its doorsteps

Bothell City Council is looking at ways to better mark and announce the major entryways into the city.

Bothell City Council is looking at ways to better mark and announce the major entryways into the city.

At its last meeting of the summer in late July, Deputy Mayor Joshua Freed and others said council made no final decisions.

But Freed also said council generally seems to find acceptable a gateway sign design put together by staff and a citizens committee.

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As planned presently, the gateway signs will go up at three locations: State Route 522 at Wayne Curve; Interstate 405 at State Route 527; and, at I-405 and SR 522.

The first sign likely will go up in the spring at Wayne Curve as part of the overall reconstruction of the intersection of SR 522 and 96th Avenue Northeast.

According to information released by the city, the three potential sign locations were chosen based on traffic volume.

Mayor Mark Lamb said there is some interest on council to include on the signs the Bothell slogan “for a day or a lifetime.”

According to Lamb, the slogan previously welcomed Bothell residents and visitors who entered the city from I-405 near the University of Washington, Bothell. State construction workers removed the sign as they constructed the 405/SR 522 ramp to the college campus. Lamb added that the sign was not in very good condition and was destroyed by WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation).

Again according to information released by the city, any slogan added to the gateway signs would be obscured by decorative vegetation planned to surround those signs. Further, the cost of adding the verbiage to the sign was estimated at between $500 and $2,000.

In the end, the administration’s recommendation is that the slogan be put on a separate sign to be placed at a location to be determined.

Councilmembers also looked at designs for median strips to be installed on SR 522 in the area of Wayne Curve and, eventually, the revamped intersection of Bothell’s two state routes and Main Street.

For the Wayne Curve project, the highlight of the city’s design is probably an 18-inch-high decorative barrier that will sit on top of the median.

Designed by staff and the same public committee that came up with the entryway signs, the medians include plantings, stamped concrete and grillwork.