The first-tier suburban city of Shoreline, just north of Seattle, began its ambitious redevelopment of the heavily used Aurora Avenue North corridor just three years after the city’s incorporation in 1995. Before reconstruction, Aurora Avenue North was an automobile-centric highway featuring gas stations, shopping centers, convenience stores, adult clubs, and tobacco and alcohol stores. The four-lane road had an average of 40,000 to 45,000 vehicles and 7,000 bus riders per day and one of the highest crash rates in the state, at nearly one per day and one fatality per year.

The city knew that the redevelopment of Aurora would take a long-term commitment, and for the next 18 years, Shoreline worked to address land use and safety issues and to improve the conditions of the corridor and the surrounding neighborhoods. The three-mile project was completed without debt in 2016 using a mix of 21 different funding sources, including Shoreline’s capital improvement program as well as county, state, and federal funding.