Road Warrior

The in basket: Bea Bull writes, “I was recently driving south on Highway 3 past the on-ramp from Bangor. An ambulance was coming down the on-ramp with its lights flashing and siren going.

“I was quite some distance ahead and in the center lane, so stayed put until I could determine which lane the ambulance would want. When (it) went to the far left lane, I pulled to the far right lane and slowed down.

“I, and the majority of the other cars, pulled to the right lane and proceeded to drive slowly. However, three cars pulled off onto the shoulder and stopped.

“After the ambulance passed, the cars that had pulled to the shoulder and stopped couldn’t safely get back into traffic because 1) all us slow-movers were passing them and 2) behind us were cars traveling at full highway speed because they hadn’t encountered the ambulance.

“So, here’s the question…  When driving on a freeway or large divided highway where there are at least three lanes, do you move to the right lane and slow down?  Or pull off and stop?”

The out basket: Trooper Russell Winger, public information officer for the local State Patrol office, says, “RCW 46.61.210  requires motorists, upon immediate approach of an emergency vehicle, to … immediately move  to the right edge or curb of the roadway, parallel to the road and clear of any intersection and SHALL STOP and remain there until the emergency vehicle has passed.

“On multi-lane roadways, motorists should begin to safely slow and move to the far right as soon as they are aware of the approaching emergency vehicle. In reality, during times of  heavy traffic, not all vehicles will be able to make it to the shoulder to stop before the emergency vehicle passes. All motorists should be at least in the active process of slowing and moving safely to the shoulder and stopping.

“…Motorists(should) be aware that emergency vehicles often  respond to calls with multiple units. These vehicles are not always traveling closely together and motorists should not immediately upon pass of the emergency vehicle start filling in the lanes behind the passing vehicle. There could be two to three more emergency vehicles that still need to pass.

“Take your time,” he said. “No driver needs to be in that much of a hurry.

“Knowing the law, having good situational awareness and using … common sense will help keep everyone on the roadway safe in these situations,” Russell concluded..

The in basket: Greg Salo writes, “I travel about two or three times a week on Paulson Road near Brownsville (in Central Kitsap).

“For what seems to be about a year (probably not that long), there have been covered Detour signs on both ends of Paulson Road in anticipation of the sewer pipe work that will happen some day.  In December there were signs with specific dates stating when Paulson Road would be closed.”

He saw a short article in the Kitsap Sun saying it finally would start Jan. 9,  but it didn’t and now those signs giving specific dates have been turned away from the view of drivers, he said.

“Now it is Sunday, 29 January, and Paulson Road is still open.

What is the story?”

The out basket: The county announced a delay around the first of last month. Doug Bear, spokesman for Kitsap County Public Works says, “We are waiting on materials. The work could start as early as 2/13 but may be delayed again until 2/20. We’ll post updated information on The Road Report as soon as we get confirmation on the delivery of the materials.” The Road Report is found on the county’s Web site under Public Works.

The in basket: I was surprised Wednesday to find a county dig-out-and-patch operation on Mullenix Road in South Kitsap. A grinding machine takes out pavement in rectangular sections and new pavement is put in the hole.

Paving isn’t often done in the winter, due to cold temperatures and rain. I asked if the county does this kind of work in the winter routinely or if something forced its hand.

The out basket: Doug Bear of county public works replied, “Recent winter weather impacted the stretch of Mullenix you mentioned. A high volume of bus traffic from the elementary school and the freeze/thaw cycle during the week of January 16 created large areas where the road surface was damaged.

“While we don’t routinely patch during winter,” he said, “the weather Wednesday was conducive to patching operations. There are other areas throughout the county where we are considering the same type of patchwork,” including Lakeway near the Burley Glenwood school, Green Mountain and Symes roads in Central Kitsap and Miller Bay and Hansville roads in Noorth Kitsap . “We try to respond to those needs as weather, crews, equipment and materials permit,” he said.

The out basket: Three readers have told me of seeing a maneuver in the Good to Go! transponder lanes at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that appears to be an attempt to foil the toll collection.

Jeff Griswell wrote, “Just as I was about to go through the lighted area, the car in front of me tapped their brakes and swerved into the right side of the road against the barrier, not hitting the barrier or anything, and kept driving. My assumption is they were avoiding (not sure if it’s possible) the camera so they did not have to pay the toll at all. If that is able to happen, I think there needs to be a fix.”

Richard Helriegel described what he saw on Dec. 7 in later afternoon.

“As I watched, a green Honda sedan moved from the righthand lane, crossed the fog line and passed under the camera/light bars on the shoulder (which has no cameras, etc.)  I am curious how prevalent that is, and if the cameras have a wide enough field of view to catch the offending vehicle.

The third reader, whose name I’ve lost, said, “I noticed a four-door Ford sedan with two occupants turn on their emergency flashing lights and slow down, pulling into the far right hand lane, next to the Jersey barrier that separates it from the toll booth lanes.

“The vehicle then transited under the toll sensing overhead cameras and then turned off their emergency flashers and pulled back into the regular far right lane and picked up speed. As I looked at the overhead camera mountings I noticed that there is not one hanging directly over that lane. Is there any chance that these folks might be scofflaws and avoiding tolls?”

The out basket: The toll collection agency would rather not have this publicized, as it’s uncertain how effective the maneuver might be and they don’t want to encourage it. .

“Some of the cars that try this dodge are captured by the cameras and some are not,” said Janet Matkin, until recently the spokeswoman for the Good to Go! office. “If a WSP officer sees it happen, they will pursue them. It is illegal to avoid the tolls. But the officers are not sitting at the toll plaza waiting for this kind of maneuvering.”

Annie Johnson, one of Janet’s successors in the office, said the fine for trying to avoid a toll is $124, the standard penalty for most driving infractions.

She didn’t say so, but crossing the edge line in motion is a separate infraction all by itself, driving off the roadway, and might incur its own $124 fine.

So with the Pay by Mail toll now $5.50, a driver could get away with this 20 or 30 times and still be the loser if caught just once. Of course, the fine wouldn’t go to paying off the bridge bonds as the tolls do.

The in basket: Richard Brooks wonders when Salmonberry Road in South Kitsap will be repaved. It has needed resurfacing since 1965, he said, and gets patched about six times a year.

The out basket: Salmonberry is a peculiar looking road, in that the eastbound lane is in pretty good shape but the westbound lane is a mess. Most of those patch jobs Richard mentions must have been in that lane.

Doug Bear of Kitsap County Public works says it has a chip seal surface, which involves pouring gravel over hot oil and letting traffic compact it into a paved surface. That was last done in 1972.

The county’s biannual rating of Salmonberry had it at 55 on a scale of 100 in 2010. It will be rated again this year. If it has dropped below 49, it will get a new chip seal, Doug said.

The county plans to do a $100,000 study in 2013 of widening the lanes of Salmonberry and building sidewalks from Bethel Road to Jackson, but the actual work doesn’t appear on the county’s road plan, which goes out to 2017.

About $700,000 in improvements to Jackson Avenue’s intersection with Salmonberry is on the road plan for 2017.

The in basket: I was putting along eastbound on Fifth Street in Bremerton recently when my wife in the passenger seat noticed that I had given no indication that I had seen a stop sign at Veneta Avenue.

“Stop sign,” she said, and it was a good thing. I had not seen it and was surprised it was there. It was new. How new I didn’t know. Had I been running it and its mate on the other side of the intersection, or had I just not been on Fifth Street for a long time? There were no orange flags or signs indicating a change in traffic control.

Thusly moved to curiosity, I wondered a couple blocks later at Chester Avenue about the traffic calming island put in the middle of the intersection a couple years ago. Traffic was light and turning left in front of the island would have been easier than going around it to turn left. I wondered if that would be legal.

So I asked.

The out basket: Gunnar Fridriksson of the city engineers said he’d been curious about the four-way stop created at Fifth and Veneta  himself, and learned that it was all done months ago in response to a neighborhood petition. It seems like a good move, given all the foot traffic around the Catholic school and church there.

“It was reviewed by engineering in April of last

year,” Gunnar said, “and a work order to maintenance sent out on May 5.  The new

signs and traffic revision signs were installed shortly thereafter,along with swapping the lenses in the flashing light from yellow to red.

“After the 30-day installation period passed, all traffic revision signs were removed.”

He and Lt. Pete Fisher of Bremerton police said it is not legal to turn in front of a traffic island, any more than it would be to turn left and not go around a roundabout . You have to go around.

Gunnar asked that we use this as an opportunity to revisit another element of driving roundabouts.

“We are receiving complaints that some

motorists coming across the (new) bridge are ignoring the Yield sign when entering the new Manette roundabout,” he said.

“We would like to try and educate before going to enforcement,” he said.

As I noted in a December Road Warrior, the construction of the roundabout in Manette has changed the rules for right of way at that end of the bridge. Drivers exiting the bridge in Manette no longer have the right of way over other traffic flows and must yield to anyone already in the roundabout. That’s the rule for all roundabouts.

At the Fifth Street traffic circle, stop signs control the side street and drivers at the stop signs must yield to traffic on the through street.

The in basket: I encountered Jean Lenihan at the Willows retirement complex in East Bremerton recently, and she said she had been meaning to e-mail me a question for several years. She told me what was on her mind, and it’s a dandy that I had never been asked before or wondered about on my own.

Why, Jean asked, are the numbers of state highways radiating out from Highway 3 in Kitsap County not in sequential order? From Bremerton north, you come to Highway 304, then 303, 308 to Keyport and finally 305 to Bainbridge.

She didn’t even mention Highway 302 farther south just across the county line, or Highway 300 out to Belfair State Park, both of which intersect Highway 3 in reverse order.

The out basket: I recall when I was a kid here the renumbering of our local highways, and the fact that Highway 3 used to be Highway 21. Steve Bennett, traffic operations engineer for this region of state highways, says he has no idea what guided the choosing of numbers. “As these highways were renamed 50 years ago, I doubt there is anyone around here that would,” he said.

I don’t think Highway 303 was a state highway until well after  the county built it with federal Trident money in the 1970s. It became one about the time the state swapped a bunch of roads with local jurisdictions, notably taking over Sedgwick Road as Highway 160, creating Highway 166 from Gorst to Port Orchard, part of 160′s old route, and leaving the county with the remainder.

The state wouldn’t have had a natural choice when it took over 303, as it lay between 304 and 305.

About the best we can hope is that some old-timer recalls what the rationale was back in the original renumbering and lets us know.

The in basket: Real estate agent Karen Ebersole saw the schematic for the upcoming Silverdale/Chico/Newberry roundabout in Silverdale in a recent Road Warrior column and said she had been meaning to ask “what their plans are for routing traffic during the seven-month construction project. The only other way into Silverdale is the northern route at the mall exit,” she said. “I can see this as being a real nightmare for everyone, especially those living along Chico Way.

“As a real estate professional, this traffic construction/routing will also significantly impact the way I conduct business.”

The out basket: Tina Nelson, senior program manager in Kitsap County Public Works, says, “It’s planned that the road will remain open during construction, though some closure of access to and from Chico Way will be permitted.

“There is a proposed phasing plan in the contract. How traffic is routed is ultimately determined by the contractor. A public meeting is planned prior to the start of construction. Information regarding that meeting will be published when it is available.

“Representatives from the county and the contractor will be on hand to detail what to expect during construction, and answer questions from area residents,” she said. “Details about the project are available online http://www.kitsapgov.com/pw/crp_3645.htm, the project website.

The in basket: A Road Warrior column earlier this month about prospects for reconnecting Barney White Road’s two severed ends to create a link between the old and new Belfair highways generated a surprising amount of response and interest.

The column said there’s little chance of such a project in the foreseeable future, even though it would save miles of detouring when an .accident or weather closes one or the other of the highways.

Soon afterward Ken VanBuskirk, who serves on a Mason County transportation advisory committee, said my inquiry should have included his county. It has something along those lines in the works, and he said I should call County Engineer Brian Matthews.

Four readers assured me that Barney White Road does have a remaining stub that intersects West Belfair Valley Road. as Old Belfair Highway is known on the Kitsap side of the county line, despite my inability to find it on a map. I finally drove out and found it.

Finally Barbara Eklund of Belfair, daughter of a former Belfair postmaster,  called in with a history lesson. She said Barney White Road did indeed once run all the way between the two highways but that it was severed in the first half of the last century. Neither the large Olympic landfill nor the railroad tracks there today existed in those days, she said, and the road was dirt, as were most roads of that time and as the remainder on West Belfair Valley Road still is.

Her brother used to use Barney White Road to go watch planes at what now is Bremerton National Airport, she said.

I called  Brian Matthews for more information on what his office is working on.

The out basket: Brian told me that he has been instructed to study establishing a link between the two highways, but not at Barney White Road, which isn’t even in his county. Nor is providing a shorter detour route during highway closures the main motivation.

He is looking into pushing through Newkirk Road, which runs from Old Belfair Highway for half a mile as a paved county road and s little further as a private dirt road, so that it reaches Highway 3, known to some as New Belfair Highway. “I have this year to prepare a feasibility report with findings and recommendations to the county commissioners,” he said.

Such a new link would intersect Highway 3 slightly north of the railroad overpass, so it wouldn’t take that much distance off the detours when one of the highways closes.

What it would do, Brian said, is provide drivers wanting to go out North Shore Road or to some Old Belfair Highway location close to town, an alternative to adding themselves to the choking congestion in the heart of town.

It might reroute as much as 25 percent of that traffic, he said. Until the unfunded Belfair Bypass gets built, if it ever is, that would provide some relief to the backups Belfair drivers routinely face when traffic is heavy.

The in basket: Mike Knapp of Keyport asks “What is the story with the reduced speed coming into Keyport from 35 mph to 25 mph just before the traffic light at the base yet the other side of the road is still 35 mph?

“You have to brake really hard to get down to that speed. What is this all about?”

The out basket: The change was made at the request of the Keyport Improvement Club.

Keyport resident Doug Chamberlain, who just stepped down as club president after three years in the position, said the state had studied the need for a lower speed limit there about three years ago. The issue went back on the front burner last year when a club member who takes care of his grandkids said “cars are coming into town too fast, barreling in and out, and that crossing the highway was dangerous,”according to Doug.

Though it’s a quiet city street in the town center, it’s still a state highway and the state made the change in November.

There is confusion, though, about what the speed limit is at various points, as evidenced by Mike’s assertion that it’s still  35 going out of town.

It isn’t supposed to be, says state Traffic Operations Engineer  Steve Bennett and Doug Chamberlain. It’s supposed to be 25 in both directions from just north of the traffic signal at the Navy base entrance to the end of the highway, 35 in both directions from there across the causeway and 50 beyond that. Steve said they’ll check on the signs to see if they’re where they should be.

If Mike really has trouble getting slowed from 35mph to 25 as he comes into town, he may be an example of what prompted the improvement club to seek the reduction.

While I had Doug on the line, I asked about the parking area just outside the Navy base’s old main gate at the highway’s end, about which a reader complained years ago.

It’s narrow, designed for one-way traffic and tapers to the point that a car parked at its end makes it hard for other cars to get past and leave. There’s a “Motorcycles Only” sign at the narrow end but it sometimes isn’t observed.

Doug said the club is aware of it, but has taken no action beyond asking the base to encourage employees to honor the “Motorcycles Only” sign. The state owns the spot but it’s uncertain who put up the sign, Doug said.