PORT ANGELES — Three alternatives for changes to Lincoln Street — which is also U.S. Highway 101 — were unveiled at an open house last week, each of which is intended to improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.
City engineers displayed Wednesday enlarged satellite maps of Lincoln Street with possible improvements to be made along the busy corridor from First to Eighth streets.
Project Manager Jonathan Boehme said three conceptual ideas are being considered. They are:
• Add a dedicated bicycle lane on southbound Lincoln Street and reduce the speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.
• Add bike lanes for northbound and southbound travel and reduce the speed limit to 25.
This option would eliminate the majority of the available parking spaces on Lincoln Street between First and Eighth streets.
• Improve the flow of traffic in and out of Safeway by eliminating left turns near the grocery store. Fourth Street would become a right-turn-only intersection.
“We might still choose to drop (the speed limit) to 25 just because there’s so much going on in this corridor,” Boehme said.
All three options would add a stop light at Lincoln and Third streets.
Flashing crosswalk signs and wheelchair-accessible extended curbs would be added throughout the corridor in each of the alternatives.
“They all have similar things,” Boehme said of the preliminary concepts.
City officials have said safety improvements are needed for the Lincoln Street corridor because of the high volume of pedestrian traffic and the serious or fatal vehicle vs. pedestrian collisions that occurred there between 2012 and 2016.
Since Lincoln Street is part of U.S. Highway 101, the state Department of Transportation would have final approval of any plans submitted by the city.
“We’re trying to do this project to improve safety, but we also have to be cognizant that it’s their facility as well,” Boehme said of the state department.
“We’re kind of equal stakeholders in this.”
The city is seeking a $1.2 million grant from Transportation to pay for the safety improvements. The Lincoln Street project is listed as a $700,000 project in the city’s Capital Facilities Plan.
Boehme said the project likely will be designed next year and built in 2020.
He added that the feedback he had received from the public had been “very positive.”
“Some of them like certain ideas and don’t like other ideas,” Boehme said.
“But everyone’s up on the idea of improving safety out here in some manner.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
