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
