Street Smarts: 100 miles of county road to get attention
Published 9:55 pm Sunday, June 14, 2009
By the end of summer, driving should be a lot smoother on more than 100 miles of county roads.
Snohomish County plans to spend about $3 million to do the work on 198 different strips of pavement in July and August. It’s using three different methods, each of which is designed to lengthen the life of a road for less money.
On streets with significant deterioration, crews will lay down and spread about 2 to 3 inches of asphalt. On streets with a few potholes and some minor bumps, they’ll will lay down about an inch of blacktop.
On streets with a few minor cracks, crews do what is called chip sealing: spreading a layer of asphalt oil and a layer of crushed rock. The rock is rolled into the oil to create a surface that extends the life of a road by seven to 10 years.
About 110 miles of pavement all around the county are targeted for touch-up. For more information on the repaving, including a list of locations, go to www.snoco.org and search “resurfacing.”
Q&A
John Sjostrom of Monroe asks: The onramps from Highway 9 onto U.S. 2 both directions used to have yield signs, but now they are gone. The same condition exists on the 88th Street SE overpass in Snohomish onto both directions of U.S. 2. These two areas are very dangerous, even when they had yield signs! What has happened to these signs?
State traffic engineer Mike Swires responds: The state Department of Transportation reviews and updates our sign plans based on changing traffic patterns, new development or other changes to the roadway. The yield signs on the Highway 9 onramps to U.S. 2 were removed several years ago during a routine evaluation. The onramps from Highway 9 to U.S. 2 are designed to allow vehicles to enter the highway at the posted 60 mph speed limit. Typically, yield signs are installed only where a ramp is not long enough to allow the driver to accelerate and fully match speed with highway traffic. In this case, the ramps at both interchanges are more than 1,150 feet long on a downhill grade, which provides adequate distance for drivers to safely accelerate on the ramp before merging into 60 mph traffic.
The current merge warning signs are more appropriate for this location as they reinforce the shared responsibility that safe merging requires. We’ve reviewed the accident history at these locations and there have been few collisions relating to ramp merging.
Christy Lee of Marysville asks: When traveling north on Airport Road in Everett, the left-turn light at the intersection of Airport Road and Sno-Isle Tech Skills Center allows about four cars at the most before it switches for the through traffic. This backs up traffic really bad for the 5 a.m. shift. It can take you 15 minutes to make that left turn, sitting through several lights.
Can’t the light be made to stay green longer to allow more cars to turn into the Boeing plant, or have it blink yellow so they can continue to turn left, while the light is still green for southbound traffic and no other cars are traveling south on Airport Road?
City of Everett traffic engineer Dongho Chang responds: Snohomish County operates and maintains the traffic lights along Airport Road for Everett. We will work with the county to review the left-turn light and make adjustments to the light timing and sensors. Video cameras are used for the vehicle sensor so fog could impact the delay sensing vehicles waiting for the left turn. We’ll also look into permitting left turns with blinking yellow arrow.
E-mail Street Smarts at stsmarts@heraldnet.com. Please include your city of residence.
