PORT ANGELES — Clallam County will seek $3.4 million to build a Deer Park Road overpass across U.S. Highway 101 east of the city.
Prospects for the project are uncertain because the state’s Intersection and Corridor Safety Solutions program usually approves grants of only $100,000 to $150,000, Rich James, senior traffic planner, told county commissioners Monday.
The program has $20 million to spend statewide.
But the plan meets the program’s qualifications both as a troublesome intersection and as a traffic-corridor problem, James said.
The crossing handles 26,000 vehicle trips per day.
Since 1999, it has seen 37 crashes involving 62 vehicles, a pedestrian death in 2001, and three vehicular fatalities in August.
Thirteen of the collisions involved left turns across the intersection.
Concrete barrier
If the state builds the overpass, it also would make room for 3,600 feet of concrete median barrier from Deer Park Road to the end of the westbound curve into Morse Creek canyon.
Such barriers were proposed after an Aug. 3 collision on the Morse Creek curve killed three men.
The barriers were rejected because of insufficient room.
“If both of these improvements had been in place prior to 2001, it is possible that the four fatalities in this area could have been prevented,” Don McInnes, county road engineer, wrote in a memo to commissioners.
