PORT TOWNSEND — In hopes of grabbing a piece of the Obama Administration economic stimulus package for shovel-ready infrastructure projects, Jefferson County commissioners added a $2.5 million road overlay project in Chimacum to the 2009-2014 road improvement plan.
The commissioners on Monday approved the transportation improvement plan, adding an 8.5-mile Center Road asphalt overlay project, 7 miles of which would be on Center Road.
Both roads are used for moving freight and goods, said Josh Peters, county transportation planner.
Talk of stimulus plan
“These are projects that have been contemplated in the past,” Peters told the county commissioners, but were eliminated from the list of more than 20 projects for lack of funding.
“There is conversation statewide, nationwide and regionally for an economic stimulus package. This would be a shovel-ready project. This project is the closest we could come.”
The project required a hearing, but no public comments were made Monday before the commissioners.
The top three transportation improvement projects listed were for the Larry Scott Memorial Trail.
They are extension of the trail’s right of way from South Discovery Road to Four Corners Road at state Highway 20, construction of the trail from Highway 20 to Cape George Road trail head and engineering and construction of the trail from Cape George trail head to South Discovery Road at Discovery Bay Golf Course.
No. 6 on the list is the Rick Tollefson Trail Phase 1 in Chimacum, which would be separated from the roadway from Old Hadlock Road to H.J. Carroll County Park.
Road-improvement projects on the list include Dowan Creek Road restoration No. 4 on the county’s West End, South Discovery Road for about a half-mile and Quimper transportation analysis for the state Highway 116 intersection with state Highway 19 in Port Hadlock.
Other projects include East Price Street upgrades No. 8, Quinault South Shore Road embankment repair No. 9 and Pole Creek culvert replacement on Upper Hoh Road.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
