morse-creek

PORT ANGELES – Drivers going east on Highway 101 out of Port Angeles will have noticed that work began Wednesday in the Morse Creek area, a stretch of road that has been the site of many accidents and even deaths in recent years.

Washington State Department of Transportation officials told us last year that making safety improvements at Morse Creek had been designated a high priority project, and settled on a design that includes a raised, landscaped median to create a divided highway.

Spokesperson Tina Werner says that project is in the final stages of design and is expected to go forward next year.

“So right now we believe that we will have a contract available for competitive bidding this Fall and construction beginning early Spring of 2021 when the will turn.”

Werner says the work they’re doing now is surface maintenance and not related to the bigger project.

She says the effects brought on by Covid-19 and the passage of I-976, which reduced car tab fees, added up to a half billion-dollar reduction to DOT revenues for the 2019/2021 biennium. Despite that, the Morse Creek project has so far made the cut, though further project eliminations are always a possibility.

“There’s a lot of things that are on the table, but this is one particular project our region, for DOT, for the Olympic Peninsula, we have a deeply vested goal of improving safety at Morris Creek and that commitment hasn’t changed.”

Werner says the public should be able to get a look at the final design in a month or so on their website at wsdot.wa.gov.