Road Warrior

The in basket: Years ago, before I began writing Road Warrior, I used to cut across the white tapering lines, called gore lines, that converge as one enters a freeway on an on-ramp. I never was stopped, and I didn’t know it was  illegal until research for the column after its 1996 inception set me straight. 

I have since reported its illegality numerous times, saying it’s considered driving off the roadway. 

Early in March, Q13 television mentioned it in its morning newscast, but it said the penalty is $411. Most infractions carry a $124 fine. I asked if Q13 was correct.

The out basket: Yes, says Trooper Krista Hedstrom of the state patrol office in Bremerton. It’s considered crossing a physical barrier, and is penalized under the following state law, RCW 46.61.150, driving on divided highways:  

“Whenever any highway has been divided into two or more roadways by leaving an intervening space or by a physical barrier or clearly indicated dividing section or by a median island not less than eighteen inches wide formed either by solid yellow pavement markings or by a yellow crosshatching between two solid yellow lines … every vehicle shall be driven only upon the right-hand roadway unless directed to use another roadway by official traffic-control devices or police officers.” 

I might have known that would be the relevant law. This is not the first instance in which it has been interpreted to mean the opposite of what the words say. 

As odd as it seems for a painted stripe to be deemed a physical barrier, it’s no odder than interpreting the same law to mean the area between double yellow lines is not an “intervening space.” 

That long-time interpretation allows drivers to turn left across double yellow lines. It’s lucky it does or tens of thousands of Washington state drivers wouldn’t be able legally to turn into their own driveways. But despite the seemingly contrary meaning of the words, the law remains unchanged.

Krista says it’s the width of the gore lines that make them a physical barrier. They are wider than other painted stripes. It still seems to me that a physical barrier really should have greater height than a painted line does.

In the real world, a trooper can opt for the $411 physical barrier ticket, or a $124 citation for unsafe lane change or improper lane travel, she said. She has written it both ways, and on occasion simply warned a driver who has done it. 

It often depends on how heavy traffic is, whether other drivers were endangered or the driver has been stopped for it before, she said.

She also said that turning left across the areas designated in the law, with cross-hatching or a solid 18-inch painted area, also carry the $411 penalty.

Remember this whenever you enter or leave a freeway, or in the daily backup on southbound Highway 3 in Bremerton, where drivers entering from Loxie Eagans Boulevard regularly cross the gore line to get to an opening in the backup  in the through lanes.

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The in basket: My friend Linda Verbon of Las Vegas tried to book a trip to Seattle-Tacoma Airport aboard the Kitsap Airporter recently. She wanted to travel that very day and pay cash. She was refused, and told to use a credit or debit card.

That didn’t seem right, she said. She’d paid cash to ride the Airporter before. 

So had I, I told her. I went looking to find out if something had changed.

The out basket: No, says Dick Asche, founder and still owner of the Airporter service.

Linda’s problem, he said, was the unfortunate confluence of making a same-day reservation and wanting to pay cash.

Thirty years in the business has taught him that a high proportion of such reservations become no-shows, he said. 

People on limited budgets and without plastic often make reservations in case they can’t catch a ride another way, which they often do.

Giving a credit or debit card number also is an incentive to call to cancel if their plans change, he said.

No shows cost him a lot of money, he said. Even if there is another paying passenger at the stop the no-show designated, so the driver hasn’t gone out of his way unnecessarily, his dispatchers may have turned down other would-be riders on that bus because the reservations taken say the bus will be full after its last stop before the airport. 

A no-show also keeps a driver from departing early when all other reserved passengers are aboard, a safeguard against unexpected delays later in the trip.

And, as anyone who has ridden the Airporter knows, boarding is a lot quicker when the driver doesn’t have to take cash, make change and write a receipt.

The Airporter’s brochures and Web site (kitsapairporter.com) strongly encourage making reservations one to seven days in advance and paying by debit or credit card. 

Dick said Linda’s inquiry has caused him to add the following to the Web site, when his Webmaster can get it done:

“Cash payments for same-day reservations to the airport are generally discouraged.”

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The in basket: Jim Thomsen of the Kitsap Sun editing staff says, “About a month ago, a traffic sign with a lighted digital readout displaying each driver’s speed was installed on Illahee Road, halfway between

Third Street and the Illahee boat launch heading south toward Bremerton.

“It’s the kind that blinks out a warning if you exceed 25 mph, which is the speed limit on that portion of the road.

“I live near there and pass it a few times a day. It’s a good bit of behavior modification, as it’s a downhill straightaway that lends itself to the temptation to travel around 35-40 mph.

“About a week ago,” Jim said, “it stopped working. I noticed that the sign has what appears to be a solar panel atop it.

“My question is this: How fragile are these signs? How quickly can the county repair them — and is the holdup one of a backlog of work, or possibly prohibitive cost.” Jim said the sign was working again a couple days later. 

Finally, he asked “Where else in Kitsap are these installed?”

The out basket: I can’t say why the one on Illahee was briefly not working, but Jeff Shea of Kitsap County Public Works had answers to most of the other questions. 

“Kitsap County owns two of these signs,” he said. “We placed them on Silverdale Way in Central Kitsap and Salmonberry Road in South Kitsap. The Port of Illahee has purchased one that we installed and will maintain on Illahee Road.”

The city of Port Orchard has one on westbound Mile Hill Drive, but it’s trouble-prone and not working at present. Police Commander Geoff Marti says he has asked city public works to get it operating again, if possible. 

It’s hard wired to electricity. The three signs maintained by Kitsap County are solar powered, Jeff says. “The two that Kitsap County owns are portable. They are designed to move to locations on other arterial roads where chronic speeding is a problem. 

“As to reliability, we’ve only had them out for a couple of months.” he said. “Time will tell how reliable they prove to be.” The county had one on loan most of last year, evaluating it in both the Silverdale and Salmonberry locations where it has deployed them now that it has bought two of its own.

If there are any others in the county, aside from the ones on wheels that may or may not still be in service, I’m unaware of them.

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The in basket: John Veatch of Bremerton writes, “Whoever is behind (Kitsap)  County’s installation of blinking left turn lights in Silverdale needs to be congratulated for an intelligent idea and awesome traffic management.  

“Is there any chance that the same improvements will be done by the City of Bremerton along Wheaton Way at the Riddell Road, Sylvan Way, and Sheridan Road intersections?” he asked.

“When you are southbound on Wheaton Way and in the left turn lane for Sylvan Way, there is almost always a long gap in the northbound traffic….  There is a long period there in which southbound left turners could make a left turn if there was the system similar to that in Silverdale, but right now everybody has to just sit and waste the opportunity.”

Wally McKendry makes the same request at the John Carlson and McWilliams intersections farther north on Highway 303.

And Karen Johnson would like more said about what the yellow flashers mean. Too often, she says, a driver has taken it to mean he or she has the right of way, when they really mean the driver can turn but must yield to oncoming traffic. 

“I now find myself slowing down and creeping into an intersection when I know another driver has a flashing yellow turn light because I am not confident they are going to give me the right of way,” she said. 

The out basket: I often get kudos for the county’s new flashing yellows, now that drivers are getting used to them. They eliminate a lot of waiting to make a left turn, saving gas and reducing pollution as a byproduct. There are many of them in South Kitsap too.

They do mean the driver must yield to oncoming traffic and pedestrians but can turn when it’s safe to do so.

But I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to show up other than on signals operated by Kitsap County.  

Don Anders of  the Olympic Region signal shop that maintains most of the signals on state highways here, says their policy is that once an intersection has only protected lefts (turns only on a green arrow) they won’t go to a lesser level of control without some significant improvements in that intersection. Lesser control means more accidents, he said.

The Highway 303 lights Wally asks about are state-owned but those at at Riddell, Sylvan and Sheridan are the property of the city of Bremerton. The city, because it has a population of more than 25,000, could adopt the flashing yellows on any signal within the city , Don said. But Larry Matel of the city street engineers says yellow flashing turn lights aren’t high on their priority list. His staff has agreed to check out the county’s flashing yellow lefts informally when they are in Silverdale, he said. 

Port Orchard Public Works Director Mark Dorsey and Poulsbo Public Works Director Andrzej Kasiniak both say they’d love to introduce the flashing yellow lefts at signals they control, but don’t have the money.

Bremerton’s signal shop maintains Poulsbo’s non-state lights on a contract, and estimates that it would take about $5,000 per signal to add flashing yellow left turns, Andrzej says.

If they find the money, he would expect the Viking Way-Finn Hill and Lindvig Way-Bond Road signals to be first to get them, he said.

Mark says Port Orchard will have only three signals under its exclusive control after roundabouts replace the two westernmost signals on Tremont Avenue in the next few years. Right now, though, “our 2010 budget is non-existent,” he said.

Bob Thuring, Mason County’s engineer, says the county doesn’t own any traffic signals. All the signals in North Mason are on state highways.

As for further spread of the yellow flashing lefts in Kitsap County, its traffic engineer Jeff Shea says, “The flashing yellow turn arrow is very popular with motorists. We consider using this signal where we can, and as funds permit. 

“Safety is a prime consideration when considering where to incorporate this technology. Cost limits the number of intersections where we can install the flashing yellow arrow. Special equipment is required for the signal, both in the cabinet and on the signal face. 

“We were able to upgrade the intersections in Silverdale by using development mitigation money. As we find funding sources, we will continue to evaluate intersections where we can add this popular signal.”

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The in basket: My old reporter’s instinct kicked in the afternoon of Wednesday, March 3, when I saw a large white State Patrol SUV with four or five cars stopped in a row along Highway 304 leading into Bremerton. It’s not something you see every day and I set out to learn what was going on.

Had they been going the other way, I might have taken it for an HOV lane enforcement, but there is no HOV lane inbound. 

The out basket: Krista Hedstrom of the local WSP detachment said it was a speeding enforcement. The reason it looked like the SUV had stopped so many cars at once is probably that its trooper had help. An unmarked silver WSP sedan also was working the enforcement and it was probably one of the cars that appeared to have been stopped.  

She said the local detachment has a few such large SUV patrol vehicles, used for commercial enforcement and by troopers who are 6-foot-4 or taller.

I know a fellow who says he considers the “real” speed limit between Gorst and Bremerton to be 80 mph, because he regularly does that there without getting caught.

I, myself, regard it to be 55 or 60 mph, for the same reason. The posted speed limit is 50, and 45 where I saw the line of stopped cars March 3.

Then the morning of March 13, there were four WSP cars with speeders stopped on northbound Highway 3 between Gorst and Bremerton. It was an obvious speed enforcement and will serve as a warning to me to watch my speed there. I doubt that the troopers were stopping cars for 5-over (they usually don’t), but you never know. 

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The in basket: I was surprised to read recently in this paper that a roundabout project in Poulsbo was “shovel-ready” and will receive a half-million dollars in federal stimulus money that would get it done this year. 

The story said the money had been granted to Kitsap County, but there was no sign of the project – at Lincoln and Noll roads and Gala Way – in the county’s six-year road plan. I asked where the roundabout came from. 

The out basket: The designation Kitsap County was generic, said Doug Bear of Kitsap County Public Works, and included cities, including Poulsbo, which has the lead on the roundabout. The county itself got $2 million for repaving roads that need it.

Andrzej Kasiniak, Poulsbo’s public works director, says the roundabout is on the city’s six-year road plan, set for three years in the future before the federal money became available. All the right of way is city owned, so work can begin this year.

It will become the first construction to accomplish what the Noll Road Corridor Study, adopted by the city in 2008, recommends.

Noll Road now meanders from Highway 305 to Lincoln Road. The corridor study calls for various improvements, the roundabout included, as money becomes available.

The most dramatic part of the plan calls for eventually rerouting Noll Road traffic to Johnson Way, the next Highway 305 intersection to the north. The rerouting is to begin at the 90-degree turn Noll makes near Bjorgen Creek. Noll from there to its existing intersection with the highway would become a lesser street.  

It’s unknown when that phase may be accomplished, but it would mean a traffic signal that otherwise would have gone in on Highway 305 at Noll will instead by put at Johnson Way.

Details of the Noll Road Corridor Study can be seen online at www.cityofpoulsbo.com/publicworks/publicworks_eng_projects.htm

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The in basket: Mary Corbin writes about the left turn signal on southbound Highway 305 in Poulsbo, that allows turns toward Central Market at Forest Rock Lane.

It used to be that after a green arrow allowed left turns, others who wanted to make the turn could do so if they stopped and waited for on-coming traffic to clear, she said. 

“Now, since the new road opposite the Central Market store (Seventh Avenue) was constructed, there has been a major change in that turn signal,” she said. “The green arrow is very short, allowing only four or five cars to turn. Then the arrow turns red, and no one is allowed to turn toward Central Market, even (when) there are no cars approaching from the other direction.

“Sometimes the oncoming path is clear for a long time, and still we all just sit there waiting for the light cycle to finish and we get the green arrow again.

 ”Last Saturday was exceptionally irritating,” she wrote. “That light went through several cycles allowing all forward moving traffic to head along Highway 305, but the  turn arrow for Central Market turned green only once out of four cycles.  We sat there for at least FIVE MINUTES (at that point I stopped counting).  Finally some cars simply went through the red turn signal, since there was no oncoming traffic.

 She wondered why the state didn’t go back to the old way.

The in basket: Not going to happen, says the Olympic Region signal shop, which changed  the left turn into what is called a “protected” turn, meaning it can only be made on a green arrow light,  when oncoming traffic has a red light. 

They did it during the widening of the highway, in the interests of “consistency”  in that traffic corridor, they said.

Don Anders, head of the signal shop says that hasn’t changed. 

“The more consistent we can operate a corridor the better driver expectancy is met,” he said. ”This leads to less confusion and better overall traffic movement.  When the fourth leg of the intersection at Forest Rock opened it was best we changed this operation to match the corridor.” 

He also said they have no record of the signal malfunctioning on the Saturday Mary describes.

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The in basket: Dave Dahlke asks, “What’s with the traffic light at the South Kitsap Mall? If a car comes up from the mall to take a right turn onto the highway the light almost always turns green for it without even giving the vehicle driver the chance to execute a free right. 

“The light stays red longer for drivers desiring to make a left turn onto the highway or to go straight through then for those vehicles which have the option of a free right turn. This causes numerous stops to east-west traffic on the highway.

“I have never seen a backup in the right turn lane from this parking lot and have to question why there is even a trigger for this light from the right turn lane.

“I believe the light should not be activated any sooner (if at all) then it is for those cars utilizing the right turn lanes at Long Lake Road, Woods Road and California Avenue,” Dave said.

The out basket: Actually, the lane for straight-ahead traffic and right-turn traffic coming out of the mall parking lot (It’s called Towne Square Mall now) is the same lane.

And that accounts for the detection in the right turn lane, says Jim Johnstone of the Olympic Region signal shop in Tumwater. If they didn’t have it, straight ahead traffic wouldn’t be detected. 

The other Mile Hill Drive signals David cites as preferable have dedicated lanes for right turners in at least one direction. They also belong to Kitsap County. The state owns and operates the mall signal.

I watched it one day recently and found it hard to see whether the time that elapsed between the arrival of a right turner and a green light for that car was attributable to that car’s arrival. 

When there was traffic coming out of the high school complex on the highway’s opposite side, or a car wanting to go straight out of the mall, the count-down to a red light for Mile Hill Drive traffic often had already begun before the right turner even showed up. Pedestrians who had triggered their light for crossing the highway have the same effect. 

Jim says because traffic crossing the highway is light except when classes at the high school end for the day, and because of Dave’s observations, he has put a 7-second delay on the right turn-through signal leaving the mall. A car now has to be there seven second before the light will detect it. It then will take at least four seconds longer for the light to turn green, stopping traffic on Mile Hill Drive. 

“Please understand that this may minimize, but will not eliminate the signal changing to the side street as a right turner departs from the intersection,” he said. 

Seven seconds won’t be enough if traffic heading east on Mile Hill Drive is heavy, I would guess, or when two or three vehicles are waiting to turn right onto Mile Hill (it does happen).

Incidentally, the right turn lane delays on the county’s signals farther east on Mile Hill Drive are 10 seconds, except at Long Lake Road, where there is no traffic detection in the right turn lane.

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The in basket: Ed Runquist asks “Why are the vehicle counters that stretch across the highway some times a single cable and sometimes two cables?  About a week ago when traveling from auto center towards Gorst, there were actually four cables near the last underpass.”

I, too, saw cables on the downgrade where traffic coming out of Bremerton meets the remaining lane of southbound traffic on Highway 3, though I thought there were only three. 

I can’t be sure Ed and I are talking about the same spot in that interchange. There were cables across the through lanes and one on the off-ramp to go into Bremerton, too. 

I wondered if the state was comparing traffic counts coming out of Bremerton and on Highway 3 coming south, a notorious backup scene on weekday afternoons. They’ve said no to suggestions about revising the alignment there in the past, but I wondered if they were rethinking.

The out basket: No, says Steve Bennett, traffic operations engineer for the Olympic Region of state highways. The tubes are counting traffic in preparation for reinforcement safety work on the rocky cliffs near Windy Point between there and Gorst the summer of 2011. The work, to include rock bolting and installment of mesh screens, will require lane closures. 

As for why there are different numbers of tubes stretched across the traffic lanes in these counts, Steve says, “We use two tubes (near one another) on highways, typically, for two reasons.  

“The first is when we have two lanes going the same direction, as we do on (Highway) 3, and we want individual lane counts.  

“The first tube stretches across both lanes while the second stretches across just the near lane.  From this, the tube that crosses both lanes gives us the total count for the highway and the other tube gives us the count for the near lane, thus enabling us to know the counts for each lane. 

“It is done this way to minimize the amount of time personnel have to work in the middle of the highway.

 ”The second reason there may be two tubes on a roadway is redundancy,” he said.  “On high speed/high volume roadways, tubes tend to become damaged and/or non-working at a higher rate than on lower speed/lower volume roads. 

“Doubling up increases the odds that we will get the data we need without having to come back later and/or potentially delaying whatever project we may be needing the data for.”

He also said there are only two tubes on that downgrade where  Highway 304 joins Highway 3. That certainly was true on Feb. 23 when I went back and looked. Either I was mistaken in what I thought I saw earlier or it was changed. Since then, both tunes for southbound Highway 304 have been moved back closer to Bremerton.

When I asked if multiple cables also can record vehicle speeds and the number of axles, Steve said yes.

And when I asked why there are two tubes on the downgrade, but only one on the corresponding off-ramp on the other side of the highway, for traffic heading into Bremerton, it turns out there is one more reason for variety in the number of tubes deployed. 

After putting out the tubes on the on-ramp and the mainline in both directions, Steve said, they only had one left.

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The in basket: Glenda Wagoner, who concedes that she’s the kind of driver who has generated complaints about how she passes (though she says it’s always in a legal manner), thinks there is an explanation of danger on the two-lane stretches of Highway 305 that can be reduced without reducing the speed limit. 

The state has dropped that limit from 55 to 50 mph between Poulsbo and Bainbridge Island.

Even before the announcement of that impending change, she was on the line to me saying there should be more 55 mph signs on 305, because a lot of drivers won’t go higher that 50 or even less. They miss the only sign coming out of Poulsbo southbound raising the limit and keep at the speed they were going while in Poulsbo, she contends. 

 That creates unsafe passing by drivers who know the speed limit and get anxious behind those who stay way below it, she said. 

Put up more 55 mph signs, she said in her first call. Don’t lower the speed limit, she said in her second.

The out basket: Well, says Steve Bennett, traffic operations engineer for the Olympic Region of state highways, more signs she’ll get. But they’ll say 50 mph.

“We plan on placing four new speed limit signs on the corridor next month,” he said.

“As far as the speed limit goes,” he said, “our speed studies did indicate that 50 mph was the appropriate speed limit for the highway given current levels of congestion.  

“In terms of collisions, the major cause of collisions on the corridor is rear-end type accidents, and generally those are caused by inattention on the part of the trailing driver.”

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