GARDINER — Friends of Judy Cates, who died in a March 1 car crash as she slowed to turn from U.S. Highway 101 into the Discovery Bay Resort, want to make it safer to turn left to get home.
Saddened and angered by the unexpected loss of their friend, Nicki Sexton and Lynn Kauffman and other residents of the recreational vehicle resort plan to approach state Department of Transportation officials later this spring with a plan.
They want to improve safety on the often traffic-snarled Highway 101 that fronts the park’s entrance in a speed-prone stretch west to Wild Birds Unlimited.
They’re talking about a left-turn lane, perhaps, an idea that has been broached before but which would be expensive for the resort, which is on a private drive.
Or at least some signs could be erected — something, anything, to lessen the possibility that someone else will die.
“We need to do something,” Kauffman said.
Cates was preparing to turn left on U.S. Highway 101 into the Gardiner lease-hold RV park when a motorist clipped her 2002 Saturn four-door sedan’s right rear corner, spinning it into the oncoming lane where it was hit hard from behind by two other cars.
Cates, 59, died at the scene. Three others received minor injuries in the three-car crash, the State Patrol said.
Many park residents had believed it was just a matter of time before such a horrific fatal crash occurred.
“Last summer, we had one of our RVs hit out there,” Kauffman recalled Friday.
An educator and administrator for 30 years in Houston, Texas, before she retired to the park, Cates had managed its office since June 2009.
“There’s still a lot of anger yet, a lot of frustration,” said Sexton, park manager.
Sexton, Kauffman and other park and community residents who conducted a celebration of Cates’ life at Gardiner Community Center on Wednesday hope to turn their anger into productive action.
Warning signs affordable
Warning signs might be the affordable answer now, said Kauffman, who is forming a committee of park and community residents to approach Transportation officials.
“We’ve got a group of eight, five within the park and three Gardiner residents,” Kauffman said.
“I’m going to try to schedule a meeting at the end of March or the beginning of April and maybe expand the committee by two or three then.”
She said another 50 park residents, most of them snowbirds, would return this spring.
She and Sexton want to hear their thoughts on solving the 101 traffic problem in Gardiner before they go to the state with a proposal.
It wouldn’t be the first time that residents of the resort and other community members have taken action about the highway.
Stopped passing lane
In 2008, they stopped a Transportation plan to add a truck-passing lane on 101 from the Wild Birds Unlimited shopping center to a point past the entrance to the park.
They feared that the $3 million project to widen a 1.4-mile stretch of 101 for the truck-climbing lane would only encourage cars to speed up, further endangering local motorists turning into the recreational vehicle park and the Wild Birds Unlimited shopping center.
In October, 2008, State Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, and Transportation’s Olympic Region Director Kevin Dayton announced to applauding Gardiner and recreational vehicle park residents that, because of their opposition, the passing lane proposal would be scratched from the state’s work plan.
Left-turn lane
Installation of a left-turn lane is historically the preferred solution.
But it would be a great expense for resort owners who under state policy would have to split the cost of widening and adding the turn lane with the state because it would serve a private driveway.
Van De Wege — who represents the 24th District which includes the North Olympic Peninsula — said Thursday that the private driveway was one problem and a serious pinch on state highway improvement dollars was another.
“It’s really unfortunate that that happened,” Van De Wege said of the fatal crash, “and if there was something I could do, I would.”
He said the State Patrol should at least crack down on motorists passing on the right when vehicles are stopped and waiting to turn left.
Kauffman said it is understood at the park that every private entity can’t have a state-built left-turn lane.
Caution signs
But she believes one or more caution signs warning eastbound 101 motorists to stop for left-turning vehicles might improve traffic safety.
She estimated the cost of such signs at $800, and said that she was sure park residents and others in Gardiner would be happy to chip in to get them installed.
“We would have no problem raising that money to put two to three signs out there,” she said.
“Everybody here is having a real hard time with this.”
State open to suggestions
State Transportation officials said they are open to suggestions for possible solutions.
“Frankly, I am not sure what we are going to do,’ said Steve Bennett, traffic operations engineer for Transportation’s Olympic Region.
Bennett and Lisa Copeland, Transportation spokeswoman, said the department has received a couple of e-mails about mending the Gardiner 101 traffic threat.
“We are more than happy to work with them,” Copeland said.
Bennett said the highway could be double yellow-striped, which would prohibit passing on the 101 segment fronting the Gardiner resort.
But that would mean residents would be banned from turning left into the park and would have to drive some 15 to 20 minutes out of their way to safely turn around and come back in the westbound lane.
Copeland echoed Van De Wege’s concern about expensive widening of 101 to accommodate a left-turn lane.
“You’ve got a lot of these situations on 101, but we don’t have the funding,” Copeland said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.