It’s the same question — and the same answer.
Sue Grigsby of Lake Stevens commutes to a job at Everett Community College and wonders if it’s finally time to offer a protected left turn from southbound Broadway onto eastbound 16th Street.
“Several years ago I stopped trying to make that left turn most of the time because there was simply too much oncoming traffic and no protected left turns,” Grigsby said.
It’s a question she also posed back in 2003 through Street Smarts. At that time, Everett traffic engineers said there weren’t enough crashes at Broadway and 16th Street to move a signal change up the priority list. But they said they planned to look into upgrading the pole apparatus and adding protected left turns in 2004.
It’s 2015, and Grigsby is still taking 12th Street, where protected turns were added in 2003 in response to crashes. She wonders if it’s the safest route to funnel drivers like her, however, with an elementary school and a Boys and Girls Club.
“It seems to me that if they made the 16th and Broadway intersection kinder to motorists, they would cut down on the number of cars that potentially put children at risk on 12th Street,” Grigsby said.
The response from the folks at Everett Public Works is much like 2003.
Traffic counts and crash data don’t raise any concerns for the intersection, spokeswoman Marla Carter said. So no change is on the immediate horizon.
If a change were warranted, the signal arm is still too short to accommodate a dedicated signal for the turn lanes, she added. The cost to rebuild the signal and pole apparatus is estimated at over $200,000. There’s no funding identified, Carter said.
“Our next step would be to look for grant funding for the upgrade which would be a several year process, if it were successful,” she said.
Carter said school speed zones on 12th Street help control traffic there to address safety concerns. She also suggested driving further south to 19th Street, which has protected turns, as another alternate route to get to I-5.
“We are also upgrading our traffic signal system to have a new central control that will allow us to make timing changes to better manage varying demands in the future,” she said.
Have a question? Email us at streetsmarts@heraldnet.com. Please include your name and city of residence. Look for updates on our Street Smarts blog.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
