Deaths on U.S. 2 have broken many hearts in the Skykomish Valley, where the locals hold dear their small-town roots, where neighbors help neighbors and where people know the faces behind roadside crosses.

They have seen their families, friends and neighbors die on the two-lane highway.

“Every death is personal here,” Monroe Mayor Donnetta Walser said.

For travelers, this is just another overcrowded highway running through a growing area. Skiers, fishermen, hunters and truckers zip by, oblivious to the roadside memorials that mark each death.

Residents, shaken by lost lives and frustrated by the increasingly heavy traffic, have wondered for years why the highway has yet to see major improvements.

“No one has been listening,” Walser said. The Legislature this year allocated money for a safety study on U.S. 2 following a rash of recent fatalities. The $1.3 million study will identify possible improvements by the end of the year, and an area group, the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition, continues to fight for highway funding. “We are going to keep at it,” said Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser, who has led the group.

Coalition born in tragedy

Sept. 16 is a bittersweet day for Fred Walser. It’s his birthday, but it also is a day of mourning.

On that day in 1997, Donna Jo Newquist-Moore, an assistant in the Sultan Police Department, gave Walser a gift certificate to a restaurant as a birthday present.

Walser thanked her and left work early that evening. “Be careful, it’s raining hard,” he remembers telling her.

Walser had dinner with his wife, Donnetta, in Everett and came home to Monroe that night. The doorbell rang, and Walser found Washington State Patrol troopers outside.

“I knew right away what was going on,” said Walser, a former trooper himself.

They told him Newquist-Moore and her husband, Robert Moore, had been killed in a two-vehicle crash on U.S. 2. The troopers came to Walser because Newquist-Moore was wearing a Sultan Police polo shirt.

During his 29 years with the State Patrol, Walser had investigated numerous fatalities. Part of his job was to inform families of victims of such crashes.

This time, he was on the other side. The pain left him numb. “It really struck home,” he said.

Hundreds of people gathered at the couple’s funeral in Sultan, where Newquist-Moore grew up. The tragedy was the spark behind the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition, a citizens group. But the group’s enthusiasm was soon countered by stiff competition for highway funding.

In 2002, the Walsers flew to Washington, D.C., at their own expense to try to win money to improve U.S. 2. The group also has lobbied state lawmakers in Olympia. The U.S. 2 Safety Coalition spent several years securing the $1.3 million for the safety study from a regional agency and state and federal coffers.

Meanwhile, people continued to die. Since 1999, the highway has claimed 40 lives in 33 accidents between Snohomish and Stevens Pass, according to the state Department of Transportation. Of those accidents, 11 deaths occurred in head-on collisions.

The data also indicate that the eastern end of Monroe has been particularly dangerous, and that most of the fatal crashes have occurred in daylight.

Multiple factors contribute to the U.S. 2 fatalities, Fred Walser said. Some people drink and drive. Some get frustrated in congested traffic and try to pass. Others just don’t pay enough attention. So what should people do to drive safely on U.S. 2?

“That’s a very complicated question,” Walser said. “There is no simple way, as long as you are driving on a two-lane highway separated only by a painted line.”

Fighting for attention

Sky Valley residents have had to grit their teeth as they’ve seen the main road through the valley receive far less money than other Snohomish County highways.

The state’s 9.5-cent gas tax increase affirmed by voters in 2005 didn’t fund any improvements on U.S. 2. By contrast, nearby Highway 9, another two-lane highway, will get $133 million to rebuild eight choke-point intersections.

In the next several years, U.S. 2 will receive $43.6 million, or about 20 percent of the money secured for Highway 9, according to the Transportation Department.

The funding discrepancy does not match the discrepancy in fatalities. Sixteen people have died on Highway 9 since 1999, compared with 40 on U.S. 2.

The reason for the funding difference is that Highway 9 runs parallel to I-5, and the county’s priority has been to improve the I-5 corridor, said state Rep. Dan Kristiansen, R-Snohomish.

U.S. 2, a rural highway in urban Snohomish County, has been off the priority list, Kristiansen added.

During the this year’s legislative session, Kristiansen and Rep. Kirk Pearson, R-Monroe, scrambled to lock in $700,000 for the U.S. 2 safety study. The request was removed from the state budget and then reinserted at the last minute.

Four fatalities in December and January made the difference, Kristiansen said. “Enough is enough,” he said.

Kristiansen knew Dick Montgomery, one of the recent victims. The Monroe man died in a head-on crash Jan. 2. About 1,500 people gathered at the funeral for Montgomery, who with his wife had adopted and fostered 13 children while raising four of their own.

‘Be ready to compete’

Tired of waiting for the study’s results, some people are calling for a quick fix, such as a concrete barrier down the middle of the highway.

That wouldn’t be quick or easy, said Dongho Chang, a traffic engineer with the Transportation Department. A concrete barrier in the center of U.S. 2 would reduce shoulder space, which emergency vehicles use when the highway is jammed with traffic.

A simpler solution could be to put some space between the two lanes, Chang said.

The Walsers believe the best solution is to divide the highway and widen it to four lanes.

“There are just too many cars,” Fred Walser said.

U.S. 2 already has four lanes through Monroe, but traffic often is bumper to bumper. The number of vehicles using the highway in Monroe daily has increased by more than 50 percent since 1990, to 33,000, according to the Transportation Department.

“It’s almost gridlock here,” Donnetta Walser said.

Traffic gets worse on U.S. 2 when problems occur on I-90, the primary east-west route across the Cascade Mountains. When a rockslide closed I-90 in November, travelers and truckers were rerouted onto U.S. 2, creating extensive backups.

“It’s important to make some critical safety improvements,” said U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who sits on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

The U.S. 2 Safety Coalition aims to obtain $3 million in federal money next year for construction projects. On Capitol Hill, getting money for construction tends to be easier than getting money for a study, Larsen said.

Yet, the group faces tough competition with other U.S. highways. “Be ready to compete,” Larsen said.

Victims remembered

East of Monroe, two small white crosses stand in a cleared spot at U.S. 2 and Fern Bluff Road. One reads “Donna Jo,” the other “Robert.”

Donna Jo Newquist-Moore and Robert Moore died there. More than eight years later, people still place flowers next to the crosses and maintain the memorial.

“It makes me happy to know people haven’t forgotten about her,” said Cindy Chessie, Newquist-Moore’s younger sister. The sisters with the same blue eyes grew up together in Sultan.

Her sister loved cooking big meals and having guests take home food, said Chessie, a Monroe police sergeant.

Newquist-Moore was tough and righteous, Chessie said. “Straighten up,” she would say to police officers. Those words are printed on the plaque with Newquist-Moore’s picture inside the Sultan police station.

Chessie puts flowers on her sister’s grave in Sultan on Memorial Day, her birthday, June 17, and on Christmas.

Chessie can’t bring herself to visit the roadside memorial. But every time she drives by it, she can’t help but look at the white crosses.

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