PORT ANGELES — Clallam Transit will not run the No. 14 bus around Lake Crescent during the planned four-hour closure of U.S. Highway 101 next Thursday, Sept. 7, and subsequent four-hour shutdowns, an agency official announced.
Instead of sitting in traffic during the 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. closures, the No. 14 Forks commuter buses will turn around, wait for the right time and return to their points of origin, Clallam Transit Operations Manager Steve Hopkins said Monday.
The idea is to maintain the best possible service along the Port Angeles-to-Forks route during the four-hour closure next Thursday and the yet-to-be-scheduled closures on the week of Sept. 11, Hopkins said.
“We’re not negatively impacting, for instance, a customer that wanted to go from Sappho to Forks,” Hopkins told the Clallam Transit board Monday, “or someone in Beaver who needed to get into Forks to go grocery shopping.
“They’ll still be able to do that without being impacted by a closure 50 miles away,” Hopkins said.
The National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration are managing the $27.5 million rehabilitation of a 12-mile section of U.S. Highway 101 and East Beach Road at Lake Crescent.
During the first four-hour delay next Thursday, the eastbound lane will be open to Barnes Point and westbound traffic will be stopped near milepost 229, where rock scaling has begun, park officials said.
Four-hour and six-hour delays will be announced two weeks in advance, according to Penny Wagner, interim spokeswoman for Olympic National Park.
Clallam Transit adjusted the No. 14 bus schedule earlier this year to lessen the impacts of the three-year Lake Crescent road construction project.
“If we had not changed the schedule, the schedule would have completely failed,” Hopkins told the board.
“We would have had operators in the wrong place. We would have had two buses stuck in blockages at the same time.
“It is a good thing that we changed the schedule in March; otherwise, it would have been even worse than it is,” Hopkins added.
For information on Clallam Transit, go to www.clallam transit.com.
For information on the Lake Crescent road construction project, go to www.tinyurl.com/PDN-lake crescentwork.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
