By Pepper Fisher
CLALLAM COUNTY – The online open house and public comment period ends Thursday for WSDOT’s proposed safety solutions along Highway 101 from Simdars Road to Palo Alto Road east of Sequim (click here).
We’ve now learned that $30.5 million to pay for the project has been earmarked in the transportation revenue package submitted by state House and Senate Democrats this week in Olympia. State Representative Mike Chapman said as much this week on the Clallam EDC’s Coffee with Colleen podcast.
We did get approval for up to 30 million dollars right now for the Sequim to Blyn corridor project, and they’re still going through the design phase. So I know everybody wants to know, exactly, you know, what’s going to happen. Are we going to have roundabouts? Well, they’re still working through that.”
Proposals along that corridor range from roundabouts, to sweeping on-and-offramps, to bypass roads that would allow local traffic to avoid the highway altogether.
WSDOT spokesman Mark Krulish told us Thursday that public participation in the open house has been vigorous.
“Public comment has been extensive. At this very moment that we’re speaking, we have received 773 responses. And opinion has been really, you know, all over the place. We’ve had a lot of different opinions coming through.”
Roundabouts appear to be an unpopular option with many drivers who think they will slow traffic too much and be problematic for commercial truckers. But Chapman says they’re being used more and more for these situations.
“We do seem to be a state that’s moving more and more toward roundabouts as a way to keep goods and services and people moving. So I do think you probably need to expect to see some roundabouts through that area.”
Krulish says the proposed roundabouts are much bigger than the ones you see in local neighborhoods.
“I can tell you, we are working on a lot of these kinds of roundabout projects. I mean, roundabouts are really designed to promote a continuous flow of traffic. There’s no stoplight. There’s no stop sign. If nobody is in the roundabout, you are not required to stop. So you can keep going. The curbing is mountable, so the trucks can easily navigate them. So no worries about trucks just being stuck in roundabouts for, you know, three, four, five minutes at a time. That’s just really not the case.”
Krulish expects DOT officials to review public input and get a report with recommendations out sometime this spring.