QUILCENE — Residents of Quilcene hope to develop a strategy to encourage motorists traveling through this small south Jefferson County town on U.S. Highway 101 to slow down and observe the speed limits.
“There are a lot of hazards on this stretch of road,” said Linda Herzog, an organizer of a community meeting to discuss the topic.
“People traveling through town have a disregard for slower cars and people walking along the side of the road, so we need to get the ball rolling in order to create a way to make this safer,” she said.
The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. tonight (Thursday) at the Quilcene Community Center, 294952 Highway 101.
Herzog said concern centers on a 1.2-mile stretch of the highway that is designated as a 35-mile-per-hour zone.
The entire commercial district of Quilcene, an unincorporated village that stretches along Highway 101, is about three-fourths of a mile long, she said.
Herzog said the purpose of the meeting is to identify and describe the problem through citizen comments more than to discuss possible solutions.
“We want to hear what people think about the traffic problems in downtown Quilcene,” Herzog said.
“Developing ways to fix it is the job of engineers who are the experts,” she said.
“They are the ones who can determine the best and most efficient way to get this done.”
One hazard occurs in front of the Peninsula Food Store at 294682 Highway 101, she said.
There, southbound motorists often attempt U-turns to head north.
As a demonstration Herzog created a staged video of the hazard, viewable at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-UTurn.
The impetus for the meeting is to take advantage of a June 2012 $884,165 grant from the state Department of Transportation.
The money is designated for the Quilcene Complete Streets project. The idea is that streets are not complete until they provide for the safe mobility of motor vehicles, bikes and pedestrians, Herzog said.
Herzog hopes the meeting will help to start the project’s development phase, for which $26,800 of the grant is earmarked to develop a design.
This will include a design charette, a process where different possiblities are presented to the public for input.
Herzog said she’d like to get the process started sooner rather than later since inflation in the construction industry has eroded the buying power of the grant by more than $90,000 and that the funding is now worth only 89 percent of its original value.
“No one thinks this project will be without its challenges, but there is also no question about the safety hazards along this section of Highway 101,” Herzog said.
“Quilcene citizens need and deserve the safety improvements promised by the Quilcene Complete Streets project and further delay is dangerous and unacceptable.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
