The in basket: The Burwell Street-Warren Avenue intersection and its traffic signal in Bremerton continue to draw suggestions from readers. The latest comes from Ralph Gribbin, who says, “Nothing dumps so many vehicles onto Burwell in such a short time as the ferries. Yet when Burwell was redone a few years ago, the big dump was only given one lane to use, yet the eastbound traffic that straggles through got two lanes. Doesn’t make sense to me.
“Now with the tunnel finished,” he said, “the intersection with Warren Avenue gets two lanes eastbound straight through and the left turn onto Warren only gets one lane. Most of the eastbound Burwell traffic turns left from (the) one lane.
During the tunnel the construction, he continued, “two lanes turned left without any problems. Make that a two-lane turn and ease the lines that are waiting, and just maybe the time for that signal could be reduced and still not cause backups,” he said.
The out basket: As I recall, making Burwell two lanes inbound and one outbound years ago resulted from having only enough right of way for three lanes. I imagine making it easier to get out of town than into town bore some psychological message in a struggling city, so they did the opposite.
As for allowing left turns from both eastbound lanes of Burwell at Warren, it worked fine when the tunnel project closed both lanes for going straight.
Now, says tunnel project engineer Brenden Clarke, eastbound drivers can see two lanes available on the other side of the intersection. Even with the left-most green signal a left-only arrow, he said, “this would violate driver expectancy and could result in eastbound Burwell traffic in the left lane continuing forward (because they can see an open lane in front of them) and could result in a collision with motorists in the right lane turning left.”
How hard would it be to put some kind of barrier in the left lane so that drivers would not see an open lane in front of them and then realize that they needed to turn left? Maybe something with landscaping like the center islands along Tracyton Beach Rd in East Bremerton.
On another note, I remember the question was brought up a few weeks ago about putting in a left turn arrow on the new light at Burwell and State and it was said that there wasn’t enough traffic turning left to warrant this. Then how about if they install a no left turn sign for the single westbound lane which would force the few people who want to turn left to make a right turn and go up to 4th St. and then onto State to go straight across. This would alleviate delaying those of us who go straight through there and people wanting to turn onto State may even get through quicker as they would trigger the light to change for them to go across.
I agree with Michael’s comment about the left turn onto Warren from Burwell. Back to the three lanes on Burwell. If the street right of way for Burwell between Warren and Naval is only for three lanes of traffic, who owns the groung where people park between the bubble outs? Also, the street doesn’t seem to be any narrower west of Warren than it is between Warren and Park, and there are 4 lanes there.