Two highways have deadly pasts, but their futures look different.
U.S. 2 and U.S. 12 in southern Washington state are crowded, two-lane federal highways in growing areas.
Accidents on U.S. 2 have claimed 40 lives in Snohomish County since 1999. During the same period, wrecks on U.S. 12 have taken 10 lives in Walla Walla County, said Jim Kuntz, executive director of the Port of Walla Walla.
People in both areas formed groups to improve the highways. One has been much more successful than the other.
The U.S. Highway 12 Coalition has obtained more than $128 million from state and federal governments since its creation in 2001, said Kuntz, the group’s spokesman.
However, the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition, created in 1997, has spent several years securing $1.3 million for a safety study from a regional agency and state and federal coffers.
The U.S. 12 group of government agencies, local businesses and residents has had the same goals from the beginning: Divide the highway and widen it to four lanes for about 40 miles between Burbank and Walla Walla.
“We just want to get the darn thing built,” Kuntz said.
The group needs to raise an additional $100 million to finish the project by 2016, Kuntz said. Seven miles of the highway already have been divided and widened to four lanes.
The group, with its annual budget of $150,000, had a strategy to land the tax money:
* It divided the project into eight phases, which helped it win funding chunk by chunk.
* It hired a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
* It frequents Washington, D.C., and Olympia to meet with lawmakers. Kuntz travels three times a year to Capitol Hill.
* It hosted open houses to educate the public about the project.
* It has a Web site chronicling how the project has progressed and how people can help.
In Snohomish County, the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition meets monthly and doesn’t have an annual budget or a lobbyist, said Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser, the group’s chairman.
He and his wife, Monroe Mayor Donnetta Walser, flew to Washington, D.C., at their own expense in 2002. They didn’t make appointments with lawmakers.
They asked for $8 million for an environmental study on U.S. 2, Fred Walser said. Federal delegations said the couple’s request was too ambitious, he added.
Since then, the group has been learning how to compete for tax dollars, Fred Walser said. Its next goal is to win $3 million in federal funding for construction projects on U.S. 2.
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