Matt Hartman of Granite Falls writes: As you are headed south on Highway 9, up the Clearview hill, the highway transitions from two southbound lanes to one after 176th Street SE, but only for about 100 feet, then it opens back up to a turn lane onto 180th Street SE. A huge bottleneck is formed there every day, and many drivers stay in the right lane to the bitter end (sometimes not merging at all) because they can bypass the logjam in the left hand lane. Why not continue the two lanes until 180th?
Jamie Holter, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, says: This small logjam was a temporary solution to a bigger congestion and safety problem that popped up a few years back when drivers would flat-out stop in that right-turn lane hoping to jump back into the left through lane to continue south. We eliminated that lane to eliminate that problem.
Drivers in the area can look forward to 2011 when we begin work to add lanes to the four-mile section of Highway 9 between Clearview and Maltby.
Details on the project and all the traffic benefits are online at http://tinyurl.com/Highway9.
New parking restrictions
Paul Siken of Arlington writes: We have a Community Transit vanpool with 12 riders and we meet in a hotel parking lot on Pine Street in Everett, between Pacific and Hewitt avenues. There is diagonal parking on the west side of Pine on this block with parallel parking on the east side of the street. Two weeks ago signs were posted with a two-hour time limit on diagonal parking at the north end of the block where several of us park. As a result we now park on the east side of Pine and are concerned that restrictions will be applied to that side of the street also.
Can you find out why the parking restrictions were added to the diagonal parking on Pine and is there anything we can do to keep the remaining parallel parking available to us while we are commuting to Seattle during the day?
Dongho Chang, traffic engineer for the city of Everett, responds: The two-hour parking time limit was installed on the west side of Pine Street at the request of businesses. Merchants are relying on availability of on-street parking for their customers. I encourage commuters to use the parking facilities at Everett Station located just blocks away. The nearest lot is about 1,000 feet from Pine Street on Hill Avenue. There are no plans to install parking time limits on the east side of Pine Street at this time.
E-mail Street Smarts at stsmarts@heraldnet.com. Please include your city of residence.
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