I feel Bellevue is being destroyed (Seattle, Shoreline: apartments, power lines, condos)

[JandN4ever]

I am third generation to live in this city. I have been here all my life, my parents all their lives and my grandparents all their lives. So we have seen the city go from the farming days to today's mess. It really saddens me to see a once beautiful and nice to live in city turning to an overcrowded gridlock mess. It now takes me 5-10 minutes to be able to take a left turn out of my neighborhood. Many times I have no choice but to make a right and have to back track and that's picking my kids up from school at 2:30pm! Not even rush hour. Forget rush hour, cars will be gridlocked from one intersection to the next. This is really sad. Every street seems to be building new apartments or condos and I ask were does the city think all of these cars are going to go. And than because of all the new building, now puget sound energy says we need to cut down a bunk of tree for new power lines. Yep, let's just clear out the land for new apartments and hack down the trees for new power lines and turn Bellevue into another ugly overcrowded city. Trying to get from Bellevue crossroads area to the street Redmond way at 5pm on a weekday was a huge mistake. Took me almost an hour! Takes me 45-50 minutes at 6pm on a weekday to drive from 156th ave ne to Newport way to take my son to basketball practice. This is absolutely rediculous. I don't know how many more people the city thinks they can pack into here. Are we going to end up like Seattle soon. Past couple years I now notice my entire house smells like smog in the summer if I open the windows. Well that never used to happen. Goodbye fresh air. I absolutely dread the future and the completion of nearly 1,000 new apartment and condo units just less than .25 of a mile from my home. And that's just 1/4 of a mile from me. There are plenty more within a mile or two. Anyone considering moving here you better enjoy nasty traffic and tail gaters. It's bad already and it's only going to get worse. Goodbye the Bellevue I used to love. You've seen better days.

[j_k_k]

That's been going on for a very long time. I used to work at good ol' Computers & Applications in downtown Bellevue, and I always marveled that anyone managed to find their way into our parking lot. (I lived in what later became Shoreline, and took the bus to work.)

[perigee]

I get that this is a rant and we all need a place to vent, but next time you are stuck in traffic, meaning next time you leave your home, remember it is better to be living in a place with growth then a place that has people fleeing, like Detroit or anywhere in the Rust Belt. Hopefully you own and are building equity.

Finally, I find classical music is the best way to handle homicidal levels of road rage.

[mhays25]

The housing doesn't necessarily add traffic. It lets people live closer to work, and many can walk instead of driving.

[Thom52]

Originally Posted by mhays25

The housing doesn't necessarily add traffic. It lets people live closer to work, and many can walk instead of driving.

The average person will walk about 2 blocks maximum to walk-commute to a job.
My recent job was 1.5 miles from my house and people were amazed that I biked or walked to work about 90% of the time year round.
So a house "close" to work does not usually cut down on traffic on side streets. That being said.....It is getting to be a necessity to live close to where you work in the greater Seattle area (includes Bellevue) to avoid commute times measured in hours.

The world is getting to be a more crowded place. Areas with good job prospects are taking the brunt of that, and Bellevue would be in that category, especially with jobs combined with a very nice setting to live in.

My wife and I raised our kids in the outer fringes of Kirkland (unincorporated King county when we bought our house) moving here a mere 30 years ago, and I can't really argue against the OP's statements. But it's a new crowd coming in, with a different viewpoint and standards of what they want or will accept.
Ranting is a good stress reliever, but unfortunately the only way to "fix" the changing situation, is to move.

Moving along is our solution. Our house on a tiny chunk of land, that now looks like a huge estate compared to the new lot sizes is going on the market in a month or two. We already bought a house in an area that is a very different environment, but reminds us of the "feel" of Kirkland 30 years ago. Of course people there are ranting about how the place has changed in the last 30 years, and how the traffic is so bad now...which all of us transplanted Seattleites just laugh and say "you have no idea...."

Of course there are no jobs where we are going. Unemployment is an issue. That does seem to be a tradeoff. Luckily I am retiring.(actually kicked out of my career by age discrimination....but that is another forum...)

[deezramblin]

....and so begins the exodus.......

[Thom52]

Originally Posted by deezramblin

....and so begins the exodus.......

Not necessarily.
A lot of people are going to like the more urban and dense place, and will consider it "exciting", and will consider the traffic and crowding just part of the price of admission.

People freaking out about housing being too expensive, and assuming the prices will top out and the bubble will burst, have never experienced the Bay Area, where the prices never did back down significantly. Even in the Crash, Bay Area prices just slowed down a little bit.

People left LA and the Bay Area due to unaffordable housing and crowding. Other people moved in. People will leave Bellevue area, others will move in. There is just a lot of people and they all have to go somewhere.

I do wish Kirkland was the same as when we moved here 30 years ago....but that is just not life in a thriving area.

I would be surprised if this is a start of a significant exodus.

[mkarch]

So it's basically like Seattle except without all of the drug and crime problems?

[deezramblin]

Originally Posted by Thom52

Not necessarily.
A lot of people are going to like the more urban and dense place, and will consider it "exciting", and will consider the traffic and crowding just part of the price of admission.

People freaking out about housing being too expensive, and assuming the prices will top out and the bubble will burst, have never experienced the Bay Area, where the prices never did back down significantly. Even in the Crash, Bay Area prices just slowed down a little bit.

People left LA and the Bay Area due to unaffordable housing and crowding. Other people moved in. People will leave Bellevue area, others will move in. There is just a lot of people and they all have to go somewhere.

I do wish Kirkland was the same as when we moved here 30 years ago....but that is just not life in a thriving area.

I would be surprised if this is a start of a significant exodus.

I know. I was being a BIT dramatic, generally speaking. And I'm also speaking from the Seattle side.

I agree with you that this will continue to get closer to emulating the Bay Area before we see any any indicator of a plateau of growth and affordability. I give it 8-10yrs to reeeeaaalllly build that bubble up. But who knows, Trump wins and media stokes riots, ring of fire 'big one', more foreign policy 'Blowback'....who knows......

I digress...

There's exponentially more 'white collar' growth in the I-5 corridor than there is 'blue collar' exodus into the outskirts for now.

I work in Downtown Seattle behind a bar, and I hear from a looooooot of locals. Blue collar locals. Long-time Seattle-ites. Fixed income locals. The grumbling has been going on for last 2 years. Now that grumbling has been slowly changing to people taking action and moving. I'm doing it myself.

Sort of hijacked a Bellevue posting, but looks like the same thing may be happening there, too.

Bell/Kirk/Seattle can continue to go the way of San Fran, but expect there to be some SERIOUS growing pains and more insane city mandates on small business owners and landlords to attempt to 'level the playing field' THEY created. The big factor: this region is about 40 years behind the ball on transportation and infrastructure. Trying to make up for that all at once is a recipe for some turbulent times.

[Tall Traveler]

i'll take Bellevue's trajectory of more great jobs, increasing housing prices and wealth, etc. over the trajectory of a place like Detroit or rural America where nobody wants to live and people are doing what they can to get out of there. Gates and Buffett have problems, but unemployed workers in Flint drinking chemical water have more to gripe about I'd say.