Road Warrior

The in basket: Betsy Raleigh and Michael Maria wondered why the city of Bremerton abandoned its experiment with an all-way stop at Burwell Street and Pacific Avenue so quickly.
“The reader who suggested that it be an all-way stop was right and the intersection worked beautifully for the few days that the city used this technique,” Betsy said. Michael said, “Traffic seemed to be flowing fine as a two-way stop.  Do you know why the city changed it?” 

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The in basket: Roy Holland wrote in August to say, “With (the paving of) Kitsap Way nearly completed I see a change is being made.  I am wondering if it is a mistake or on purpose. 
“For many years it has been illegal for eastbound traffic to make a left turn from the Marine Drive traffic light back west for several hundred feet. This included (turns into) R&H Market, Money Tree and the pizza shop. There were double yellow lines and diagonal hashing in between. 
“Now there are just two yellow lines with no hashing,” Roy said.  “Has the city decided to make a left turn there legal now?”

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The in basket: Sharp-eyed Bob Wilson of South Kitsap writes, “I have recently noticed the sign posts used by the county are of two types.  One has a square flat top and the other has a pointed top.  The pointed top posts appear to be the new style post.  The pointed top is made by making an angled cut on each of the four sides of the post. 
“Why is the county using the pointed posts, and are they paying more because of the extra cuts involved in producing the posts? ” he asked.

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The in basket: Pat, who didn’t provide a last name, encountered the nearly complete new interchange where Highways 3 and 303 meet in Silverdale and declared it no improvement.
She was surprised to find the northbound Highway 3 on-ramp from Kitsap Mall Boulevard gone.
“I thought I would exit easily onto North 3 by Applebee’s, but no, I had to go over the freeway and turn toward old Bremerton. After waiting a long wait at the stop sign (that we never had to do before….) or get hit by traffic coming from East Bremerton, we could proceed north to the Hood Canal Bridge.” 
“Was that the original plan?” she asked.

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The in basket: Georgianna Sweet, who lives at the Golden Tides senior housing complex on Bayshore Drive in Silverdale, says a fire hydrant near the building has been hit twice this year by speeding drivers.
She wonders about tactics to slow cars down in their neighborhood, where a lot of older people walk. She mentioned speed humps.

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The in basket: Marty Buswell sounds a frequent complaint when he writes, “How long must we suffer the idiocy of Highway 3 merging to one lane going (toward) Gorst. One day last week, it was backed up all the way to Kitsap Way. I have seen cars leave at Loxie Eagans only to exit the other side to cut in line further up.
“Our Commissioner Ray Aardal back 20 years ago had lined up the old Evergreen floating bridge for pennies on the dollar to bypass the metropolis of Gorst,” Marty said, “but was shut down because some politicians owned property around Gorst (Rumor has it).

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The in basket: A reader wrote to the Road Warrior blog saying, “Now that Burwell is shut down between Pacific and Park (in Bremerton), I wonder why the
light at Burwell and Pacific isn’t shut off and the intersection made
into an all-way stop until the tunnel construction is complete and
Burwell is reopened. 

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The in basket: Ronda Armstrong of Central Kitsap said that the early morning downpour that occurred Sept. 4 created large pools of water at each end of the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
The van in which she was carpooling hydroplaned but didn’t lose control, she said. They were in the HOV lane, but when she got to work, a co-worker said it happened to her one lane over.
She wondered if heavy rain would create a continuing problem on the new bridge.

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The in basket: Tom Wisniewski of Bremerton asks, “Is there any logical reason the Washington State Ferries almost invariably force all traffic leaving the terminal in downtown Seattle to proceed south on Alaskan Way?

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The in basket: The view from the porch of PJ’s Market in my South Kitsap neighborhood on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend included a county signal shop crew working on the signals and controller box at the intersection of Woods Road and Mile Hill Drive.
One of the assembled coffee drinkers, a union electrician, speculated that the crew might me making triple time for working on a holiday weekend, especially Labor Day, a holy occasion for unions. He wondered whether that was a good use of tax money.

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