PORT ANGELES — Funding for a $5 million safety barrier on the mishap-prone Morse Creek Curve, an improvement championed by the Sequim mother of a crash victim, is included in a proposed House transportation budget unveiled Monday that could be voted out of committee today.
But Sen. Kevin Van De Wege of Sequim said there is no funding in the Senate transportation budget released Tuesday for the improvements — or any other member requests — in light of the likelihood that Initiative 976, which limits motor vehicle excise taxes and fees, will appear on the Nov. 5 general election.
“Those two budgets are pretty far behind,” the 24th District Democrat said of the two spending plans.
“We’re setting up for a worst-case scenario.”
Democratic 24th District Rep. Mike Chapman of Port Angeles was not deterred, saying it was not uncommon for projects to be in one budget and not the other.
“Then they have a conference report and often accept the projects,” he said in a text message late Tuesday afternoon.
“I’ll keep working hard on it until final passage.”
Chapman, a member of the transportation committee, expects the budget to be voted out of his committee today.
“I expect the house transportation budget to be a very bipartisan vote,” Chapman said.
The House and Senate must reconcile their differences and present a single spending plan to Gov. Jay Inslee for his signature.
John Wynands, state Department of Transportation regional director, said Tuesday the draft House of Representative’s 2019-2021 biennial transportation budget includes $2.5 million that would be used for design and some construction of the boulevard-style barrier on U.S. Highway 101 at Morse Creek east of Port Angeles.
Another $2.5 million in construction funds would be included in the 2021-2023 spending plan that must be approved by that Legislature in another budget cycle, Wynands said.
The design calls for a landscaped median, planted with small-diameter trees and shrubs and bordered with a 8-inch curb, that would divide the two-lane eastbound and westbound lanes on a steep, S-shaped portion of 101.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has ranked the curve, where 19-year-old Brooke Bedinger died while riding a motorcycle on June 2018, at the top of the agency’s list for safety-improvement needs out of 42 urban-nonfreeway locations in the Olympic Region, DOT spokeswoman Claudia Bingham Baker said Tuesday.
The Olympic Region includes Clallam, Jefferson, Pierce, Thurston, Kitsap, Mason and Grays Harbor counties.
Chapman told Peninsula Daily News on Friday in a story published Monday that he had little hope the Morse Creek funding would survive, noting that lawmakers who put the spending plan together had seemed quiet about the Morse Creek Curve project.
The thickly bound budget was waiting for Chapman on his Transportation Committee seat Monday, Morse Creek Curve funding intact.
“I just misread that no news is probably not the best news,” Chapman said Tuesday in an interview.
“It was a surprise.
“Obviously, that the community continued to weigh in really helped the budget team prioritize this project.”
Kim Bedinger of Sequim, the mother of the late Brooke Bedinger, was sad when reading of Chapman’s assessment Monday morning, then uplifted when she learned of the spending plan’s details Monday afternoon.
“It was quite a roller coaster,” she said Tuesday.
“I feel like this is the first time in nine months since the accident that I can actually smile about something.
“I feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
“Most everyone wants to see that road fixed.”
Community members organized by Bedinger communicate via the Facebook page, “Barriers for Brooke.”
They meet monthly at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and have contacted state legislators about making the stretch of road safe.
Brooke would have been right there with them, fighting to make the road safer, her mother said.
“She was always afraid to die,” Kim Bedinger said.
“To save a life, she would just be overjoyed.”
Bingham Baker said Brooke’s death pushed the Morse Creek Curve to No. 1 on the categorized list for regional safety improvements.
It would have been the top priority regardless of the community push for the improvement, Bingham Baker said.
But given that projects compete for money, widespread public support “is always helpful for securing funding,” Bingham Baker said.
Wynands predicted if the Morse Creek Curve improvements are approved by the Legislature, construction would begin in spring 2021.
Public outreach, and possible community meetings, will be part of the process, he and Bingham Baker said.
DOT installed traffic bollards between the lanes around 2007, following a traffic fatality at the curve.
From 2007 to August 2018, about 250 crashes were reported in the area of the curve, according to the State Patrol. Since 2014, seven motorcycle crashes have occurred there, including Brooke Bedinger’s. In the past 11 years, the curve has had four fatal vehicle crashes.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
