If there’s a place in Washington that you wanted to visit, the state has a new map that will get you there.
And it’s free.
So if you can stomach paying $2.50 per gallon (or more) at the gas pump, get yourself a free map and take a trip.
Or you could save money and walk.
The Department of Transportation has printed a million new state maps, something it does every two years.
The map highlights the bicentennial anniversary of Lewis and Clark’s journey through Washington, two guys who didn’t shell out a penny at the pump.
The map – 2 feet by 3 feet- features 142 levels of information layered on top of each other, said Mark Bozanich, a state cartographer.
Leave a message at 360-705-7279 to order a map or go to www.wsdot.wa.gov/ communications/Map/order.htm to order online.
Widening to finish
At long last, widening of the Bothell-Everett Highway will be finished – but not until the end of 2005.
Construction has started on the last phase of what has become a 15-year project to widen the road from I-405 to where it turns into the Boeing Freeway. That 12-mile section of road has steadily been widened from two to five lanes as money has come available.
When finished, it will become a more viable north-south alternative to I-5.
A groundbreaking was held last week on the final 1.6-mile piece of road, which stretches from 112th Street SE to 132nd Street SE.
Construction will cost $15.6 million and will finish at the end of next year, Department of Transportation spokeswoman Victoria Tobin said. It’s Snohomish County’s first major project funded by the 5-cent gas tax increase approved by the Legislature last year.
Harold Christensen looks forward to the finished road. He’s lived alongside Silver Lake in Everett for 58 years.
“There’s a bottleneck here. It’s going to be a positive because it will move traffic through quicker,” he said. “We’re just concerned that it not damage the lake in anyway.”
This summer the state will finish up widening a section of the highway that runs through Mill Creek.
A left-turn light?
Question: We encounter long haul trucks and exiting freeway traffic when heading east on 116th Street NE and the I-5 frontage road in front of Donna’s gas station at the north end of Marysville.
Why don’t we have a left-turn light at that intersection? It would make for a safer situation.
Dianna Barbano,
Marysville
Answer: Snohomish County has been looking at ways to restripe that intersection in a way that allows for an eastbound left-hand turn pocket.
We are considering a couple of different options. Painting a left-turn lane into the intersection would result in a more-efficient intersection. In the future we will also consider installing a traffic light to control left turns.
Jim Bloodgood, traffic engineer, Snohomish County Public Works Department
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