FORKS — City Council members have passed a resolution calling on Olympic National Park to restrict West End impacts from a project to improve U.S. Highway 101 along Lake Crescent.
The council voted 4-0 on Tuesday, with Michael Breidenbach absent, to approve the resolution and submit it to the National Park Service by the comment deadline of June 7, said Rod Fleck, city attorney and planner.
The resolution states that the city does not support any option that includes closing the heavily traveled route for more than a few days and that the Park Service must find a way to mitigate economic and social impacts associated with the long-term project that would start in 2017.
The park, along with the Federal Highway Administration as a cooperating agency, plans to replace sections of road bed, remove rock-fall hazards, repair or replace failing retaining walls and rotten guardrails, and repair culverts on 12.3 miles of the tourist and commuting route around the lake.
“Without rehabilitation, catastrophic failure of portions of the roadway could occur, causing an increased frequency of unplanned delays and closures to repair the road,” according to the park’s preliminary alternatives for the project.
The park service is accepting public comment until June 7 on six alternatives for scheduling traffic delays and closures during construction on the stretch of highway, which is within the park.
The park’s options include the required alternative of performing no repairs, three years of 30-minute delays in the construction season from March to November, or closing the lake stretch of the highway entirely for 1.7 construction seasons with traffic rerouted to state highways 112 and 113.
On Tuesday, council members said that under ideal conditions the detour adds 20-30 minutes compared to the more direct one-hour trip on Highway 101.
Some at the meeting suggested ideal conditions were rare, and the Highway 112 drive would be more than the half-hour during bad weather and when slow-moving drivers in RVs are traveling in large numbers, Fleck said.
Access for emergency vehicles was also a concern, he said.
Fleck said a federal highway official who attended the Tuesday meeting assured the city that, as long as there is passable road on the Highway 101 route, there are provisions to allow emergency vehicles access even when the road is closed to the public.
The resolution was initiated by Mayor Bryon Monohon and city staff after the park conducted a public hearing in Forks on May 20 on ideas for handling traffic during the proposed repairs.
The resolution asks that the National Park ensures that Highway 101 remains open with reasonable delays, and quantify economic and social impacts to communities and travelers heading to West End recreation destinations.
Fleck said the city asked last week for the park to release detailed maps of the work planned, so that the public can be more informed about the extent of the work being proposed.
He said park Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum agreed such a map would be a good idea, but that the park doesn’t have the data, which remains with the Federal Highway Administration.
The alternative route is prone to closures due to landslides and washouts, and to rely on it alone could isolate the West End, Forks officials have said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
