CARLSBORG — Widening U.S. Highway 101 to four lanes between Shore and Kitchen-Dick roads wasn’t what riled many at an open house at Greywolf Elementary School on Thursday night.
It’s the “indirect left turns” — also known as U-turns — that some who use this stretch are questioning.
Clusters of skeptics pressed in on Steve Fuchs, manager of the state Department of Transportation project due to start in summer 2012, demanding to know why access to Highway 101 will become limited at several intersections.
Motorists wanting to go into Sequim from the Kitchen-Dick Road-Highway 101 intersection, for example, will have to turn toward Port Angeles and drive west to Dryke Road, where a new U-turn lane will be built.
There, they will have to move into the left lane, wait for a chance to cross the highway, follow the new U-turn loop around, and stop again to await the opportunity to re-enter the eastbound lane.
Three reasons
Fuchs gave three reasons for the changes: They will make Highway 101 safer, relieve congestion and maintain its 55 mph speed limit.
Some 19,000 cars and trucks hurtle across this stretch between Sequim and Port Angeles every 24 hours, Fuchs added.
And as the north Peninsula’s population and vehicle volumes swell, wrecks could skyrocket if the highway doesn’t adapt.
The state designs its roads with a 20-year vision in mind, said Transportation engineer David Garlington.
With the same highway two decades into the future, “all of these intersections are failing,” along the 3.5-mile stretch from Shore Road to Kitchen-Dick.
“Failing” means drivers have to wait too long for an opportunity to pull onto or off of the highway, “so they start making rash decisions,” Garlington said.
Close calls
Deborah Bell, who lives off Kirk Road, comes home from work in Sequim via Kitchen-Dick Road, so she must find a gap amidst the east-, west- and northbound traffic to get across. She said she’s come close to being hit head-on.
“I do agree with this,” Bell said of the planned U-turn system, “because I’ve been in some situations.”
But she — and any driver who wants to go east on Highway 101 — will have to instead drive nearly a mile west to the separate U-turn lane at Dryke Road, in order to come back east.
“I’m thinking of wintertime, going up that hill and then coming down,” on snow and ice, Bell said.
Rafael Reyes, a project engineer, told Bell that the design of the widened highway is only 30 percent complete.
And if aspects of it prove unworkable, “we will be responsible for fixing the problems,” he said.
According to the current design, motorists coming from Shore, South Barr, Sherburne and Kitchen-Dick roads will no longer be able to turn directly left onto Highway 101.
They will have to use the new turnaround lanes to be built between Barr and Shore roads, between Sherburne and Dryke roads and at Pierson Road.
“It is an inconvenience,” Reyes said. And the changes “won’t eliminate accidents, but they should reduce their severity.”
The $53.8 million state-funded project also includes a 40-foot median dividing the two eastbound and two westbound lanes.
In some segments, there will be a height difference between the new lanes and the old, to minimize the earth excavated.
The start of construction is still three years off; Transportation estimates it will take 18 to 24 months.
For more information about the project, visit http://tinyurl.com/yl2t3ks.
Fuchs, the lead engineer, can be reached at 888-323-7732 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.
