Road Warrior

The in basket: As I pass by the work at 11th and Warren in Bremerton, where the intersection is undergoing major changes to provide more holding room for cars waiting at the lights at Warren, among other things, I had some questions.

Will replacement of the existing traffic signals allow the city to put yellow flashing left turn signals there, as it did when the current sewer replacement project provided money to do that on Sixth Street?

And will the center lane of eastbound 11th be changed to a left-turn and straight ahead lane, as was done at Sixth and Warren for the Manette Bridge replacement project, or will it remain with two left-onlys and the outside lane the only through lane?

The out basket: Gunnar Fridriksson of the city’s street engineers says yellow flashing left turn signals are a possibility at the revised intersection, but by no means a certainty.

“With the Crosstown Pipeline project, we were able to update all of the signal controllers on Sixth Street from Kitsap Way to Warren Avenue to be able to implement the flashing yellow as we needed to make the entire corridor more efficient for traffic,” he said.

“The signals along the Warren/Wheaton corridor are inter-tied from 11th Street to Riddell Road and are of an older controller that will not accommodate the yellow flashers. Putting yellow flashers at 11th and Warren would require removing the inter-tie with the other signals.” The inter-tie allows the signals to work together to move the most traffic

“There are a couple of options we are looking at, but no final decision has been made,” he said.

He also said no changes are planned as to where cars in the three eastbound lanes of 11th can go.

The in basket: Nancy Thayer of Bremerton wrote to say, “I noticed that when driving south on Park,  there is no left turn allowed onto Burwell.  What is the reasoning behind that?  I could understand if cars traveling on Park had a stop sign rather than a light, but since they do have a light it seems silly not to allow them to turn left.”

She also wonders if the flashing yellow turn signals on Sixth Street will be kept when the detour around the 11th Street sewer project closure that prompted there installation ends in August.

“I hope not because it is such a pain to have to wait in a left turn lane when nothing is coming toward you,” she said.

The out basket: Gunnar Fridriksson of the Bremerton street engineers says the left-turn prohibition at the south end of Park is temporary and construction related, but not the 11th Street work.

“The construction in Park Avenue (a block north) cut the traffic (detectors) for this movement so there was no way for the signal to detect vehicles,” he said.”We did not want to put this signal on timed cycle and have it conflict with outgoing ferry traffic, so a quick and simple fix was to prohibit the movement – especially as the roadway has been closed most of the time with construction.

“With the construction nearly complete, we should be removing the restriction here shortly.”

As I’ve reported here before, the yellow flashing left turn lights, installed with money that came from the sewer project to facilitate movement on the designated detour, will be kept in service when 11th Street reopens.

The in basket: Richard Paul writes, “I travel Highway 3 between two and three times a week from Belfair to Silverdale and beyond. There is a major auto accident waiting to happen in front of the Airport Auto Wrecking  just before Sunnyslope Road. I have been close to being involved in two accidents myself.

“The problem is that the driveway of the Airport Auto Wrecking Yard spills right into Highway 3. (There is a double yellow line in front of the business, but people ignore the lines.) People will stop in front of the Airport Auto Wrecking Yard and wait to make a left hand turn over these double yellow lines in front of cars traveling at 55-plus miles per hour on their way to Gorst .

“In addition to this on coming traffic, Richard said, “the traffic coming from Gorst that is traveling up and over the hill at 55-plus miles per hour can not see these people stopped in front of the Airport Auto Wrecking Yard trying to make the left turn. People coming out of the yard will make a left hand turn right in front of the people coming over the hill as well.

“I have missed being slammed into by people trying to avoid these left hand turners twice,” Richard said. “There is no place for them to go but into the right lane that is merging left at this point.

“It would be such an easy fix to close off the Airport Auto Wrecking Yard’s driveway exit to Highway 3 and have the cars going and coming to the yard use the parallel street that can be reached from Sunnyslope Road. it’s about a half block away.”

“Has anyone been working on this problem? This is a major accident waiting to happen.”

The out basket: Richard appears to be one of the many who think turning left across a double line is illegal. It is not. Only passing across a double yellow line is.

And it’s a good thing. Hundreds of driveways in this county alone would be inaccessible for would-be left turners without them continuing on and doubling back to make it a right turn.

Steve Bennett, the traffic operations engineer for state highways here says, “We did look at the collision history near this driveway access.  We found that in the last eight years there have been no collisions involving vehicles traveling southbound on SR 3 and vehicles stopped waiting to turn left into the business.

“Requiring a business to abandon an access to a state highway is often a complex and difficult issue,” he said, “especially if the business does not wish to do so.

“In this case, in talking to Kitsap County and looking at an aerial photo, it appears as though other property owners own the narrow dirt road in question.

“Long term, there is conceptual plan to build a four lane divided highway on this section of SR 3,” Steve said,  “but with no funding for design or construction, it is probably years, or possibly decades, away.”

The in basket: Mike Spieker says his drive to work takes him southbound on Chico Way to turn left on Erlands Point.

“The left turn lane is marked with a double yellow line,” he said. ” On several occasions vehicles in front of me have unexpectedly stopped short of the turn and made

a left turn into the gas station on the east side of the road.

“The gas station entrance has a traffic control island that seems to be an attempt to limit such a turn,” he said, “with ingress access apparently intended only for northbound Chico Way traffic on one side and an “exit only” side  (marked with a sign) to allow egress for northbound traffic on the other side.”

“Can you comment on accident activity at the site and whether the left turn into the gas station is legal?  Is there anything that might be modified to address what appears to be a perfect recipe for a rear-end collision?”

The out basket: There are no signs visible to drivers on Chico Way forbidding a left turn and no cross-hatching on the pavement on Chico Way to make left turns illegal.

The northernmost of the two accesses is quite wide and has room for two-way traffic.

The other one is narrower and built so that a left turn is difficult but not impossible. The left turn pocket for turns onto Erlands Point Road extends back to the narrower access, with a turn arrow on the pavement.

I can find no “exit only” sign on the service station property.

Similar situations probably exist all over the county. One I’ve noticed serves the new Walgreen’s store at Kitsap Way and National Avenue in Bremerton. It’s even worse because that left-turn lane leads to a traffic signal which creates a sense of urgency for drivers trying to get through the light before it turns red. A car on its way to Walgreen’s and waiting in the turn lane for oncoming traffic to clear can surprise a driver looking past the stopped car and concentrating on the signal.

Nevertheless, there is nothing to make a left turn illegal at either spot.

Unless rear-enders actually increase at such spots, they’ll probably remain the way they are.

The in basket: Two more Central Kitsap residents have nominated two more intersections for the blinking yellow left-turn lights that Kitsap County has installed at numerous Silverdale spots.

Alice Gray would like to see them at Ridgetop Boulevard’s northernmost intersection with Silverdale Way, near the top of the hill north of town. And Linda Bruce points to the next signalized intersection north, at Bennington Drive and Crestview on opposite sides of Silverdale Way.

Alice adds a new element to her request, saying that while she waits needlessly before being allowed to turn, “one can see there is no traffic  coming north on Silverdale Way for almost a mile and the left-turn light does not change to green until any northbound traffic almost comes to the intersection. I am sure I am not alone in my aggravation. When there are so many yellow blinking lights elsewhere, why isn’t there one here?”

The out basket: The two requests will have to be added to previous ones for the blinking lefts, at Provost/Old Frontier and Anderson Hill Road most recently.

As before, the reason is a lack of money to add those flashing lefts to any more intersections than have them now. When money becomes available, I’m sure those places will be considered,

As for traffic moving northbound on Silverdale Way looking at a signal that stays green until they are almost there, Jeff Shea, the county’s traffic engineer, says, “We do work with the state to coordinate signals when possible, and when the coordination of the signals increases efficiency for through traffic.

“The (federal) Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) states signals located within a half-mile of each other should be coordinated. The signal at Silverdale Way and Highway 303 is about 1.5 miles from the Silverdale Way / Ridgetop intersection. In that distance there are many variables (speed, traffic volumes, opportunities to exit the roadway between the intersections) that makes coordinating the signals difficult. In light of that, coordinating these signals would not gain the efficiencies your reader desires.”

The in basket: When I read that Bremerton and the Navy had scraped together $200,000 to put a traffic signal at Burwell and State streets, the site of numerous complaints about danger to pedestrians going to and from Naval Base Bremerton, I wondered how the signal would handle left turns. It’s not much of a problem eastbound, where two lanes offer traffic a way around a left turner, but westbound there is only one lane and a driver waiting for oncoming traffic to clear before turning left holds up everyone behind him. 

The out basket: Larry Matel of the city’s street engineers says, “This signal was warranted by the number of pedestrian crossings at this

location. Signal heads will be red-amber-green on all approaches, with

NO left-turn signal arrows. There simply are not enough left turning

cars at this location to warrant.” 

The new signal, on flashing mode today, will go into full operation Jan. 21.

The in basket: Robert Campbell says, “I travel by bus and sometimes by car to and from PSNS.  I have noticed that the new lights after the tunnel project was completed at Burwell and Warren are slowing commuter traffic eastbound. 

“For some reason,” he said, “the engineers felt that westbound traffic on Burwell needed a left-turn signal to enter a Diamond parking lot at the south end of Warren. Not only does this seem odd, the left hand light is very long. Eastbound drivers going to the ferry terminal stack up at the light in the mornings and during peak ferry loading times, while no one ever turns left. 

“I have not timed this light, but few people turn left into the parking lot.  And the time it delays eastbound traffic towards the terminal seems unwarranted.

 ”I would submit that this light is totally unnecessary,” Robert said. “And certainly it should stay green for a very short time.  It is a back route into an alley that could access the back of the new police station, but the police station has a much shorter access just west of it.”

Also Bill Throm of South Kitsap told me many months ago he got the impression the light stayed green way too long for cars EXITING that parking lot.

The out basket: Brenden Clarke, project engineer on the tunnel, who also holds sway over the changes made to accommodate the tunnel, says the problem is kind of collateral damage from serving the main traffic flows.

“Due to the through and left movement on Burwell heading eastbound, the east and westbound directions of Burwell must have separate phases,” he said.  “As a result, when westbound comes up green the eastbound direction must receive a red so that the eastbound lefts are not in conflict.  

As long as they have to be stopping eastbound Burwell traffic while the westbound is flowing, they might as well leave the turn arrow into the parking lot on green even if traffic rarely demands it, he said. No other movement would be permissible during that time.

They tried splitting the left turns onto northbound Warren from the through eastbound traffic, giving the latter a green light while the inside lane from which turns must now be made stayed red. 

“Despite pavement markings and the signal displays, motorists who have been used to turning left only for two years did not take well to the new configuration,” he said. “People were turning left on red, or turning left from the right lane when left lane motorists were going through.” 

“The signal is currently set up as efficiently and safely as possible considering the constraints,” he said. ”(The state)  and the city of Bremerton worked together to come up with the signal timing that is currently being used.  Without major (and costly) modifications to the signal, we feel that it is operating as well as it can be.” 

As for traffic leaving the parking lot, I can’t say what the case may have been back when Bill mentioned it, but it’s green only long enough to serve waiting cars now.

The in basket: Denis Kuwahara of Port Orchard asked in March about what is permissible in two-way turn lanes, specifically citing the one on Bethel Avenue between the roundabout and Lund Avenue. 

 ” The roadway is marked with ‘Two-Way Left Turn Lanes’ as identified in the Drivers Guide,” he said. “My question: Is it proper (traffic permitting) to make a left turn into the turn lane from a driveway and sit there until the right lane is clear?  

“Many times,” he said, ” while attempting to make the left turn the traffic coming from the left is clear but the traffic from the right is not and it would 

be beneficial to clear one lane and sit in the middle of the road 

(within the Two Way Left Turn Lane) and wait for a second lane opening.”

Then on June 5, Dave Dahlke of Port Orchard wrote to say he’d heard of someone getting a ticket for using the center turn lane on Bethel as an ingress from a side street. “I have never heard of this before,” he said, then cited an article in the Seattle Times’ equivalent to Road Warrior that said such a maneuver is quite legal.

The out basket: I have said the same thing in past columns, but because one Kitsap County Sheriff’s traffic officer said years ago that I was wrong, I decided to double-check with my current contacts in KCSO and the State Patrol when Denis asked. 

There followed several weeks of confusion.

The final answer is that the maneuver is legal, but that’s not the first answer Deputy Scott Wilson of KCSO got out of the county prosecutor’s office. A senior deputy read the obscure law and told Scott that using the two-way turn lane as a refuge lane mid-way through a left turn would be an infraction.

That, of course, was contrary to common practice, even by law enforcement officers, and came as quite a shock. To forbid the practice would encourage risky dashes into traffic at those moments there appears to be a break in both directions of through-traffic.

Mike Cassidy of Advantage Driving School said he teaches the use of the two-way turn lane as the safe way to enter a busy street, but adds that the driver should then stop and wait for traffic on the right to clear, rather than pacing it looking to merge at the speed of the passing traffic. 

“The reason being that the focus of attention is to the rear and not to traffic that may be approaching from the opposite direction in the center turn lane,” he explained.  

He also said many students pull into a left-turn lane going the wrong way. That IS an infraction and is easy to do since  most two-way turn lanes become left turn-only lanes at some point approaching intersections.

That senior prosecutor eventually said she had misunderstood the question, and the final ruling, as conveyed by Scott Wilson, is: 

“The two-way center turn lane is designed for vehicles turning into or

off of the roadway.  You can make a left turn into this lane and stop

while you wait for traffic to pass and allow a safe spot for you to

merge into the lane on your right.  You may not travel in this lane for a distance of no more than 300 feet.

“It is the responsibility of those using this lane to make sure it is safe before entering,” Scott continued.  “Those vehicles already on the main roadway will have the right of way.”

He added, “Without becoming involved in a public disagreement about this, the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office would like to add that the wording in this statute, RCW 46.61.290, needs to be revised by the state Legislature for clarification.  

“Should a driver be issued a traffic notice of infraction for an alleged violation of this rule of the road, in any jurisdiction, then it would be up to the sitting judge in traffic court, and that judge’s interpretation of the statute, on whether or not the driver should have the ticket dismissed.”

To which I would add that while Mike Cassidy’s advice about sitting still while waiting for traffic to provide an opening on the right is very sound, the 300-foot rule in the law would appear to not make moving forward for up to 300 feet illegal.

The in basket: Michael Courtright, a school bus driver for North Kitsap schools, says he is happy with the improvements to Highway 305 through Poulsbo. 

“A trip that could sometimes take up to 15 minutes (and that was before the construction started), now takes less than five minutes,” he said. “Even if I catch the lights out of sequence it still takes a lot less time than it used to – and is a lot less frustrating than the stop-and-go traffic that resulted from the old two-lane road.”

But he finds that the left-turn arrows from the highway to go uphill on Hostmark and those for left turns from Hostmark to go south on 305 to be awfully short in the afternoons. Only about three vehicles can make it through before it turns red, he said. 

More, including school buses, get through on those turn lights in the mornings.  He wonders if it can be improved. 

The out basket: We’ve discussed in a past column how and why the needs of side road and left turn traffic are intentionally subordinate to through traffic on 305.

But the timing of the lights remains a works in progress, says Jim Johnstone of the state’s signal shop, and that was complicated until recently by a broken in-pavement detector at Hostmark. That has been fixed and “we are developing a time-of-day plan to operate from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. which will give more time to both of the left turns mentioned by Mr. Courtright,” he said.

“This is all part of the retiming process. We put in our starting point times, tweak those to what we like and then see what kind of complaints we get and then address those as best as we can,” Jim said.