PORT ANGELES — The city planning commission will look anew at whether densely populated Lauridsen Boulevard — the city’s widest street — should be developed as an alternate cross-town traffic route for trucks and other vehicles traveling west on U.S. Highway 101.
Following a May 25 public hearing, Port Angeles Planning Commission members unanimously recommended keeping the Lauridsen Boulevard bypass option intact as part of the panel’s overall recommendation to the City Council to approve a revised comprehensive land-use plan — the first major revision to the plan in 12 years.
But they also voted 4-1 to revisit the development blueprint’s transportation element in 2017.
Chairman Brian Hunter and Planning Commissioners Elwyn Gee, Duane Morris and Andrew Schwab voted to reconsider the bypass option when the commission looks at amending the plan in January.
Planning commission member John Matthews was opposed.
“The city has grown due to development,” he said.
“There is not feasibility for an alternative route.”
Commissioners Chad Aubin and Matt Bailey were absent.
The cross-town route is cited in the comprehensive plan update, which is mandated by the state Growth Management Act.
The 212-page plan contains land use, housing, capital facilities, utilities and public service, and transportation elements.
It addressed how the city will accommodate a projected 5,000 new residents over the next 20 years.
City Council members will discuss the full, revised comprehensive plan June 7 and consider approval June 21 to meet the state-mandated June 30 deadline.
Trucks now make their way west down U.S. Highway 101 — also referred to by the city as Front Street — to the downtown core, trundle noisily along store-packed Front Street where it separates from 101, connect with Marine Drive as it turns industrial and labor up Tumwater Truck Route to reconnect with 101.
The bypass would turn south at Race Street, turn west at Lauridsen Boulevard and then connect with 101.
“Perhaps we should re-evaluate why is it in the plan,” Schwab said at the meeting.
“My concern is it’s been in the plan since 1994 and it’s been de facto [intended as a cross-town route] before that.
“We still seem to be, as a city, hemming and hawing about whether we want to do this or not.”
Starting at Race Street, both routes are about 3 miles.
But Lauridsen-area resident Anne Murray said during the public hearing that Lauridsen has become a “heart” of Port Angeles thick with homes and that includes Jefferson Elementary School and the public library.
“It’s really bad to . . . run a lot of trucks right through the middle of neighborhoods,” she said.
“We have to think out of the box.
“We have to talk about mitigation rather than a cross-town route.
“Let’s strike this route from the plan.”
Regarding the alternate route, the plan says the city “should facilitate the development of an alternate local cross-town route with improvements, which provide full access at US 101 and [state Highway] 117 (the Tumwater Truck Route).”
Improvements should be made to the intersection of Lauridsen at Lincoln and Peabody streets, over White’s Creek, and the Lauridsen Boulevard bridge over Peabody Creek, according to the plan.
One of those objectives was fulfilled since the last major update in 2004:
“The bridge spanning Peabody Creek at Lauridsen Boulevard was replaced with a structure that will allow truck traffic to make the turn and follow Lauridsen as intended for the cross-town alternative to Highway 101,” according the plan recommended Wednesday for approval.
City Associate Planner Scott Johns said that still leaves major, as-yet-unfunded improvements intersections at the Lauridsen-Lincoln Street bottleneck and where Highway 101 meets Tumwater Truck Route.
Since Lauridsen Boulevard was established decades ago, the intention was to make it a cross-town route, said Nathan West, city community and economic development director.
Johns, who owned a business on Front Street, recalls the diesel fumes, chips and sawdust generated by log trucks making their way down the city street.
“Trucks could be routed around downtown that would help the attitude and atmosphere and walkability and neighborliness of downtown,” Johns said Thursday.
He recalled, too, the residents east of the city from outside the city limit who don’t have garbage service hauling their refuse on Saturdays through the downtown shopping area to 18th Street west of the city.
“We would see one pickup after another headed for the transfer station,” Johns said.
“That was a relatively big segment” of traffic, he added.
“It was not a big deal other than it added to the traffic.”
But Murray said turning Lauridsen Boulevard into a cross-town route to divert that traffic would be “irresponsible” because the area draws children to a heavily trafficked area where plans are afoot for a new Head Start facility and a new clubhouse for the Port Angeles unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.
“We know about the toxicity of diesel exhaust,” Murray said, echoing John’s concern.
The comprehensive plan itself notes that Lauridsen, already one of the city’s eight busiest streets, intersects with the densely residential Cherry Hill, Mount Angeles, Civic and Jefferson neighborhoods.
Lauridsen is the only street in the city with a 100-foot-wide right of way, 40 feet wider than most other city streets, Johns said.
“That in itself is an advantage,” he said.
“It’s the only dedicated right of way we have that really is wide enough to make a nice, complete street.”
If the street were developed, a median strip of trees could be added “to calm the traffic,” Johns said.
“We understand trucks do have impacts.
“The question is, do we have the impacts downtown or move the impacts south.
“That’s a judgment somebody is going to have to make before everything plays out.”
The updated comprehensive plan is at www.cityofpa.us.
To read the plan, go to “Meetings & Agendas” on the website’s home page and, under the planning commission, click on “Final” for the May 25 meeting under the column “Agenda Packet.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
