CARLSBORG — Ninety-one collisions, including four fatal wrecks.
They happened on one short section of U.S. Highway 101 between December 2005 and November 2008, according to the state Department of Transportation.
That two-lane stretch, the 3.5 miles between Shore and Kitchen-Dick roads, was the topic of an open house at Greywolf Elementary School on Thursday.
It was a teaching moment for Transportation: a presentation of newly revised plans to widen this part of Highway 101, build “indirect left turns,” replace the McDonald Creek bridge and, engineers hope, build a pedestrian walkway under that bridge.
Start in summer 2012
The project, planned for a summer 2012 start, is expected to use some $83 million in federal and state funding to make the highway a safer, more freely flowing artery.
Some 19,000 cars and trucks travel this two-lane stretch every 24 hours, Transportation has reported; so where Highway 101 intersects with Kitchen-Dick Road, Dryke Road and Shore Road, vehicles tend to back up and bottleneck.
“People get tired and frustrated,” project engineer Rafael Reyes said.
“They make decisions they wouldn’t have” if they weren’t forced to sit and wait so long.
So Transportation designed the widened stretch to have indirect left turns — loops that start with a right turn and finish with a U-turn back onto the highway — between Shore and Barr roads, at the Dryke-Pierson intersection, between Pierson and Sherburne roads and between Pierson and Kirk roads.
Median
Fuchs also noted that a grassy median will be added, to reduce the risk of head-on collisions.
All of this means motorists won’t be able to turn left just anywhere on Highway 101.
They will have to drive up to the indirect-left loops — something many local residents protested during another Transportation open house last October,
At Thursday’s event, Fuchs and Reyes sought to explain that while the indirect lefts will take drivers a little longer, they’re the best solution for safety and congestion relief.
“You’re moving the whole time,” Reyes said. So “you’re not getting impatient,” waiting at an intersection.
Traffic on Highway 101 between Port Angeles and Sequim will only get busier, Fuchs added, and this portion of road is the last remaining two-lane section between the city limits of Sequim and Port Angeles.
Accommodate growth
To accommodate growth over the next 20 years, the plan is to widen it to four lanes — while mitigating the impacts to the 32 wetlands along this stretch.
An environmental assessment is under way, Fuchs said, while state and federal regulators urge Transportation to design the highway for maximum protection of the streams and marshes.
Hence, most of the widening will happen to the south of the highway, where builders will cut into the hillsides rather than fill in the lower-elevation north sides.
Comments received at the October open house spurred changes in the design, Fuchs said.
The changes include:
• Replacing the McDonald Creek bridge as part of the widening project and having motorists use the old bridge while a new one is built.
• The indirect left turn at Kitchen-Dick Road has been moved to the west near the top of the hill, to make it safer in heavy traffic or icy conditions.
• A left turn lane will be added on Highway 101 for Kirk Road, to provide better access to Atterberry Road and from South Boyce Road.
• A left turn will be added on Highway 101 for Shore Road, to accommodate traffic.
Path under bridge
The proposed path under the McDonald Creek bridge would serve people who ride Clallam Transit buses, Fuchs said.
Today, if you’re riding the eastbound bus around the Barr Road intersection and your house is off the north side of the highway, or if you’re headed west and your place is on the south side, you have to rush across the road.
Clallam Transit passengers would use the bus stops at Barr Road and then walk under, not on, the highway.
Later this summer, if progress continues as hoped, Transportation will start purchasing real estate along the highway, the environmental assessment should be approved by the Federal Highway Administration around March, and if the project starts on schedule in summer 2012, it should be done in summer 2013.
More information including maps and a comment form is at http://tinyurl.com/yl2t3ks, while Fuchs can be reached at 360-570-6660 or FuchsS@wsdot.wa.gov.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
