The Mercer Island City Council will put off discussing the Merrimount and Island Crest Way intersection until September due to an unplanned drop in Capital Facilities funds and vociferous community support for a traffic light at the site. According to City Mayor Jim Pearman, the Council has not ruled out installing a traffic light at Merrimount, yet discussion on the topic cannot begin until the financial setting is solid enough to support such a plan. And this, according to the latest 2009 capital facilities funding estimate, will not be for several months.

“We’re not avoiding discussing the possibility of a light, but we’re going to have to put it off until at least September. Our real estate excise tax is down to $1.1 million. So until homes start selling again, we can’t begin to talk about [installing a traffic light],” the mayor said.

City Finance Director Chip Corder verified that this year’s capital facilities estimates — funded by the Island’s real estate excise tax — have dropped by 330,000 since December 2008.

“Back in December, our estimates were $1.48 million. We’ve since re-forecasted this number to $1.15 million,” Corder said, adding that real-estate tax revenues typically range between $2 and $3 million.

“We first started to see a drop in March of last year because home sales went down,” Corder said.

Due to this shortfall, the possibility of constructing a $1.5 million traffic light at Merrimount anytime soon is out of the question. The city is scheduled to approve its Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) later this month.

Pearman said that cuts would have to be made in the TIP as well, without including Merrimount and Island Crest Way into the equation.

City Manager Rich Conrad echoed this point.

“We realized that we’ll be in a reduction mode this year, rather than expanding street projects. It makes sense to put Island Crest Way off until fall and focus now on discussing the TIP,” Conrad said. “If a decision on Island Crest Way is made in the fall, then we can always modify the TIP later.”

The City Council agreed to postpone discussion of ICW and Merrimount until September at its April 6 meeting.

The fact that the Council is even reconsidering installing a light is news to many.

Two months ago, the Council-appointed Island Crest Way and Merrimount Committee dismissed the traffic light option as too expensive, supporting two road-diet options instead. Their decision was presented to the public on March 3 at a community drop-in meeting.

Nearly 60 Islanders attended the open house, 38 of whom passionately expressed their dismay with the committee’s decision. A four-way traffic light, many argued, is the only solution to reducing accidents at the dangerous Merrimount intersection.

Councilmembers Dan Grausz and Pearman, who serve as liaisons to the Island Crest Way and Merrimount Committee, heeded this call. They agreed that the Council should reconsider plans for a traffic light, despite earlier dismissal of the option. Pearman expressed this wish at the City Council meeting.

“What Jim [Pearman] has asked is to make sure the Council has enough information on both the light and road-diet options. Every time the public speaks, we take it into account,” Grausz said.

Studies have shown that Island Crest Way and Merrimount is one of the most dangerous intersections on the Island.

According to Assistant City Engineer Anne Tonella-Howe, there were more than 25 accidents between 2002 and 2007.

Once the city decided to install the current road barrier set-up in October of 2007, the number of accidents at the intersection dropped: two were reported in 2007, four in 2008 and two have been recorded so far this year.

More significantly, Tonella-Howe pointed out, the barriers have decreased the severity of the accidents at Merrimount.

“The accidents we were trying to correct were the type we consider serious or severe — high-speed angle accidents. We haven’t had these types since installation [of the road barriers],” she said.

Although safety is the City Council’s leading priority for Island Crest Way and Merrimount, the issue ultimately comes down to finances.

“The reality is that tax receipts are way down. Whether we wanted a road diet or anything else, there is no money right now to take on large projects,” Grausz said.