The in basket: Paul Ofsthun thinks the realigned intersection of Clear Creek Road and the new Greaves Way in Silverdale would have been a good place for a roundabout, so that the traffic signal installed there wouldn’t have been needed.
“It only has three arteries and doesn’t have a high volume of traffic,” he said. “Did the county give this option any thought?”
The out basket: Tina Nelson, senior program manager for Kitsap County Public Works, says, yes, one was considered, but it was an idea whose time had not quite come.
“Design for the new NW Greaves Way project was closely coordinated with (the state’s) new SR3/SR303 interchange design,” she said. “The evaluation was done by the state Department of Transportation in 2004, and they determined a signal would better facilitate traffic there.
“Roundabouts were still a relatively new concept for Kitsap County at the time,” Tina said, “and motorists were still getting familiar with their use. Traffic engineering considerations are not necessarily interchangeable between the two options, and in this particular case the decision to use a signal was chosen.
“Since that decision, the use and general acceptance of roundabouts has increased, and roundabouts are often considered instead of signals as new projects are designed. If the Greaves Way project was just starting design today, a different decision might have been made.
“We currently are considering roundabouts at Lake Flora & JM Dickenson, and at the Silverdale Way / Newberry Hill / Chico Way intersection, and continue to consider their use in future projects and plans.”
“While there are only three legs to the intersection now, it is designed to accommodate a fourth access south of the new roadway at some point in the future,” Tina said.
Greaves Way remains closed and can’t be opened until they get at least three days of dry weather to allow for digging up two small patches of pavement that have settled, recompacting it and then patching the pavement, said Project Manager Jacques Dean. With the uncertainty of winter weather, no date for a ribbon cutting and opening the new road has been set.
