Tag Archives: Bravo Terrace

Right turn lane on Sedgwick at 16 still a no-go

The in basket: Bill Slach says, “On westbound Sedgwick (Road) at the light where you turn right onto Highway 16, there is a lot of room on the right side and folks repeatedly make illegal right turns by crossing the fog line. Isn’t there enough room there for a turn lane?

“The shoulder areas vary widely in width,” he said. “The south side could be made narrower as well as the north side to give enough room to make a turn lane,” he proposed.

“This wouldn’t be a costly fix – some paint ought to do it.

The middle area of the road created by the center merge lane could be narrowed by a foot or so and give enough room to create a turn lane,” he said. “As it is, folks now cross the line on the right by only a little when cars stopped at the light give them room.

“Foot traffic and pedestrians?” he asked, recalling the state’s reason a right turn lane couldn’t just be carved out of the shoulder. “Where are they? The ones I see are on the south side of the highway since they are going to the gas station or McDonalds.

The out basket: Though there are places all over the county where drivers routinely commit the violation of crossing the edge line in their right turns, this is the only place I’ve been asked about it. In 2007, a suggestion was made that the edge line be erased for a distance to make those right turns legal. The answer then was no, that would jeopardize bicyclists and pedestrians.

The answer is still no, says Steve Bennett, the traffic operations engineer for this region. “We continue to believe that it is necessary to widen Highway 160 (Sedgwick) in order to safely provide the space for the right-turn lane.

“Without widening we would have to remove the acceleration pocket used by traffic turning onto the highway from Bravo Terrace. We feel that collisions may increase at the intersection of Bravo Terrace without this refuge/acceleration pocket.”

Well, that’s a sure bet. Getting onto westbound Sedgwick from Bravo Terrace, which serves a motel, McDonalds, Shari’s, Dairy Queen and others, is scary enough without losing the refuge lane a left turner can use.

Odds & Ends on Sedgwick project

The in basket: Comments on the Road Warrior blog at kitsapsun.com and an e-mail or two show that the survey work on Sedgwick Road in South Kitsap has created some interest.

Jim Himes is among those who wonder if the road, actually a state highway, is to be widened. 

The out basket: Yes, but not to four lanes. The state has let a contract to R/G Bowers of Centralia for $4.18 million to make the highway safer between Highway 16 and Long Lake Road by flattening and widening the shoulders, extending the two-way turn lane in front of Fred Meyers east to Brasch Road, add turns lanes at Phillips Road, make the troublesome off-set intersection at Converse Avenue a standard crossing and other work. Overall, it will cost more than $8 million.

Lots of information about it is available on line at www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR160/SR16_LongLake/ and this paper had a front page story about it last month. 

Neither answered some questions I had before and after driving past all the survey stakes and other preparations, though. I asked Project Engineer Brenden Clarke:

– Do the survey stakes way off the road just east of Bravo Terrace mean they’ll be making that uphill curve more of a straight shot?

– Will anything be done to make it easier to make a left turn out of Bravo Terrace?

– Which leg of Converse will be moved to line up with the other?

– The orange mesh fencing on the shoulders of the highway east of Phillips doesn’t seem to leave any room for wider, flatter shoulders there, where the dropoff seems to be the worst. Will work be done there?

The out basket: The uphill curve near Bravo Terrace will remain as it is, said Brenden. The survey stakes just denote the limits of the flattening of the shoulder slopes. And getting out of Bravo Terrace to turn left won’t be made any easier by the project. 

The north leg of Converse Avenue will be moved to line up with the south leg, he said, and the intersection will get better illumination, as well. Offset intersections such as Converse today prevent simultaneous left turns in opposing directions, worsening delays. 

The orange “high visibility fencing” is to keep the contractor and utility relocaters out of sensitive environmental areas when it’s not necessary to be there, he said. The shoulders will be flattened and widened between Phillips and Long Lake, as well as uphill from Phillips, he said.

One homeowner along Sedgwick was alarmed to find a crew of inmates being watched by an armed guard working in his front yard a couple of weeks ago, putting up a silt fence to prepare for the widening. He wondered how that occurred, and the answer will be in the next Road Warrior.