A lot of people have been upset about the lack of 520 lid maintenance this summer. The online forum Nextdoor had a long thread of comments on the topic. This was up for discussion last town council meeting. What I learned at the meeting was that the town teamed up with our neighbors Hunts Point, Clyde Hill and Medina and we are negotiating about the future maintenance of the lid with WSDOT. The State is willing to pay about $12,000 per acre and year to the cities for us to take over the maintenance. The Mayor said that Yarrow Point’s own estimate of the cost is $30,000 per acre. Maintenance includes taking care of the landscaping , hardscape as well as maintaining the roads. The roads might get very expensive to maintain as they will need new asphalt overlay every 15th year. The Town of Yarrow Point’s responsibility would be the entire west part of the lid including the “kiss and ride” half circle.
We need to be very careful here what we sign up for here. The mayor told me that Mercer Island took over the maintenance of their lids a few years back and they regret it now. The money they are getting from WSDOT is not covering their expenses. My suggestion is to do nothing at this point. Let WSDOT do a sloppy job and we can all chip in to fix the landscaping and pick up trash. At least we are not signing up for any expensive overlay 15 years from now.