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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   Related Stories • It's a tough job 11/5/07   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Monday, November 5, 2007 Objects on the road? Call 911 By Lukas Velush Herald Writer Ever see something on the road and wonder if you should call 911? If it makes you wonder, chances are yes you should. On Thursday night some of my coworkers saw a dead coyote or dog on southbound I-5 in south Everett. My boss wondered if he should have called the emergency hot line. He wondered if the police had more important things to worry about. He didn't end up calling, but he should have. "If it's a hazard, we need to know about it," said trooper Kirk Rudeen, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol. He said anything bigger than a large raccoon could cause someone to swerve and crash. "If it's a possum, that's not a big deal," he said. "If it's a deer, dog or a big raccoon, then we need to know about it. If you can let us know about, we'll get it out there and get it removed." Other obstacles like pieces of a semi-truck tire that blew out, a ladder that flew off a work truck or a wayward mattress also are big enough to deserve a 911 call, he said. Abuses of 911 are more like someone calling about a barking dog, or something else very minor, he said. Once the call goes out, troopers will move as quickly as they can to move the object out of the road, not a pleasant task when it's a dead animal. To remove the offending material, one trooper will slow down traffic (called a traffic break) while another rushes out to scrape it off the road. "I've got a shovel in my car," Rudeen said. "We'll drag them to the side of the road, but we can't dispose of them." The state Department of Transportation gets that fun job. Cost of I-5 sound walls Question: We keep getting asked to pay taxes for more roads. How much money has been spent building the new sound walls on I-5 in Everett? Some of them are built along existing homes where people have lived for years. What makes them decided that these are walls necessary? It seems like the money would be better spent on adding new highway lanes. Rick Stefanson, Brier Answer: When we make changes to our roadways, we're not only affecting drivers, we're also affecting residents in adjacent neighborhoods. Building noise barriers can help improve their quality of life. Much of our freeway system was built before current federal and state noise reduction guidelines were established. Now we try to bring our roads up to modern standards. If a noise wall is feasible and cost-effective, we will recommend it for construction. We decided to build 10 noise walls covering 2.1 miles in the five Everett neighborhoods that our I-5 Everett widening project impacted. Our designers worked with the city and neighborhoods to determine the location, height, and finishes of the walls. The specific cost for the noise walls can't be broken out of the total cost of the freeway widening project. We paid the contractor a lump sum for the project, and he determines how to best allocate the money. In general, noise walls cost $53 per square foot to build. That translates to $3.9 million per mile for a typical 14-foot-tall wall or $8 million for two miles of sound wall. Shawn Gilbertson, DOT acoustics specialist Ask about traffic Have a question about traffic or street rules around Snohomish and Island counties? We can help find an answer. E-mail Street Smarts at stsmarts@heraldnet.com.

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