BLYN — Parts of U.S. Highway 101 in Blyn, including a pair of access points, are getting a makeover starting perhaps as soon as next week.
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, in partnership with state transportation and Clallam County officials, are realigning two close intersections into one on the south end of U.S. Highway 101.
The $2.8 million project aims to improve driver safety by reducing two existing, closely spaced intersections at Chicken Coop Road and Zaccardo Road intersections at Highway 101 milepost 271.59 into one intersection of a realigned Chicken Coop Road intersection.
Additional improvements to the highway include a westbound left turn pocket to Chicken Coop Road, an acceleration lane for left turns out of Chicken Coop Road to westbound U.S. Highway 101 and an eastbound right turn pocket in to Chicken Coop Road.
The U.S. 101-Chicken Coop-Zaccardo Road Realignment Safety Project gets underway this month and is expected to be completed by October, according to Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe officials.
Annette Nesse, chief operations officer of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, said construction dates aren’t firm yet because of a permit that needs to be finalized but said Tuesday that “we anticipate starting [this project] next week.”
Tribe officials completed a traffic analysis to support grant applications for the project, which not only detailed crashes in the area but also near-misses and traffic volume, Nesse said earlier this week.
She said the project has been 10 years in the planning and design process.
“There is documentation of a number of rear-end collisions and near misses [in that area], plus the volume of traffic in the summertime,” Nesse said, that spurred the project, along with the potentially dangerous closeness of the Chicken Coop and Zaccardo Road intersections.
During construction, there will be shoulder closures for several weeks at a time while Highway 101 is widened.
There will be daytime closures of Chicken Coop Road and detours for what officials expect will be up to a week while the new Chicken Coop Road connection to Highway 101 is graded.
There will be no lane closures on holidays or weekends, officials said.
Environmental mitigation includes a realignment and restoration of No Name Creek and wetland, and stream buffer plantings; a wider, fish-passable concrete box culvert will carry No Name Creek under the new Zaccardo Road.
During a couple of evenings in late June or early July, construction crews will reduce Highway 101 to a flagger-controlled, one-lane, one-way traffic plan to construct a storm drainage crossing underneath the highway, officials said.
Local utilities are relocating from overhead lines to underground lines through this stretch of U.S. Highway 101, tribe officials said.
The construction of the project is being funded by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Federal Highways Administration and Clallam County.
For more information about the project, contact anesse@jamestowntribe.org or 360-681-4620.
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at editor@sequimgazette.com.
