Cost to fix U.S. 2 not ‘realistic,’ lawmaker says

The cost to make U.S. 2 safer is inching toward $2 billion, but little money seems to be available for the deadly highway anytime soon.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, said Wednesday that the state has many pressing projects competing for limited funding, such as replacing the decades-old Steel Electric ferries. The state also plans to spend $27 million to replace the flawed cable barrier on I-5 near Marysville with concrete barriers.

“You tell me where you are going to take money from. That’s the problem,” said Haugen, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.

Competition for money in the 2008 Legislature will be fierce, Haugen said.

“I’m trying to be realistic. You need to be realistic,” she said.

The reality is that supporters of U.S. 2 improvements are tired of losing people in crashes on the highway, Monroe Mayor Donnetta Walser said.

“They talk money. We are talking about lives and families,” she said.

State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond says adding rumble strips in the center line from east of Monroe to Stevens Pass would reduce crossover crashes. Thomas Turner, 17, a Monroe High School junior, was killed Friday in a head-on collision on the highway at a stretch where rumble strips are expected to be added this year.

“I think it’s going to make a difference,” Hammond said.

The state plans to spend $3.6 million for the rumble strips. It’s the only project that is funded out of 56 recommended by a study in November to make the road safer between Snohomish and Stevens Pass. The study’s $1.84 billion cost estimate is preliminary, said Meghan Soptich, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

State traffic engineers expect the cost to go up, as construction materials get more expensive and inflation occurs, Soptich said. The state also needs to buy some properties to widen the highway from two to four lanes in segments and to build a bypass around Monroe.

“The problem is that we’ve got a windy, narrow highway that’s been used for years and is now being used by a lot more people,” Hammond said.

The safety study alone cost $1.3 million and took 18 months to complete.

The state has invested only $36 million in improving the highway since 1993 between Snohomish and Skykomish.

The center line rumble strips will be installed on a narrow stretch of U.S. 2 about a mile east of Gold Bar where Turner died. He became the 47th victim in a U.S. 2 crash since 1999 between Snohomish and Stevens Pass. He was also the 16th person killed in a crossover crash.

Two other 17-year-olds involved in the Friday crash, Loren Lloyd and Shannon Fretz, both of Snohomish, remained under treatment at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Wednesday. Investigators have yet to figure out why a Jeep Cherokee, driven by Lloyd, crossed the center line and crashed into a full-size pickup truck. A Mount Vernon couple in the truck were released from a local hospital on Saturday.

The crash has devastated people in the Skykomish Valley. Some say that reducing speed limits on the road would save lives. Some say that the highway is carrying much more traffic than it was originally designed for.

The head-on crash occurred during daylight three days after Christmas. Investigators don’t believe speed, alcohol or the road’s condition were factors in the crash, Washington State Patrol trooper Kirk Rudeen said Wednesday.

The State Patrol is already paying extra attention on U.S. 2. It’s using a single-engine airplane to crack down on aggressive drivers; it’s using part of its overtime money to increase its presence on the highway. At least four troopers are patrolling the highway all day.

Drivers have little room for error on U.S. 2, Haugen said.

“It’s a deadly road,” Haugen said.

Reducing speed limits could help, but it would worsen traffic congestion for local commuters and many commercial vehicles that use the east-west connector across the Cascades, Haugen said.

Backers for U.S. 2 improvements have spent a decade trying to make their highway safer, Walser said.

“I’m angry, and I’m frustrated,” Walser said.

Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.