Residents, lawmakers, and business owners on the Olympic Peninsula have raised fears over the multi-weekend closures of the Hood Canal Bridge this summer, and now the city of Port Townsend will add …
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Residents, lawmakers, and business owners on the Olympic Peninsula have raised fears over the multi-weekend closures of the Hood Canal Bridge this summer, and now the city of Port Townsend will add its voice to the chorus of concerns.
After a lengthy, 30-minute discussion during the Monday city council meeting, councilmembers decided to write a letter and potentially seek mitigation funding from the state for the anticipated financial consequences of the bridge closures.
Councilmember Ben Thomas is set to be the city’s main representative for any potential negotiations or discussions with the Washington State Department of Transportation or Washington State Ferries.
The weekend closures are scheduled from 11 p.m. Friday to 4 a.m. Monday in the final weekend of July as well as the first three weekends of August. The weekends include July 28-31, Aug. 4-7, Aug. 11-14, and Aug. 25-28.
“I did see a response from WSDOT that they are looking at some elements,” said Steve King, the city’s public works director. “I don’t know to what effectiveness that’ll be.”
Hearkening back to 2009 and the month-plus closure of the bridge, some councilmembers expressed dissatisfaction with the bridge closure aligning with planned work on US Highway 101 at the same time, potentially causing a major traffic bottleneck while already having to detour around the bridge with no alternative ferry routes or opportunities to cross the bridge throughout the weekend.
“In 2009, [WSDOT] did pretty significant mitigation. There was a direct ferry every night from Edmonds that came all the way to Port Townsend,” Councilmember Libby Urner Wennstrom said during Monday’s meeting. “I would really encourage us to add on to this letter [from Jefferson County] or to write a similar letter from the city.”
The county submitted a letter to the Department of Transportation on Feb. 28, asking that the repairs on the bridge be done sooner in the tourism season.
“We know that we want this bridge to be maintained, and we’re going to have to close the bridge in order to maintain it,” Urner Wennstrom said. “We get that, we understand why. It’s the, ‘let’s not close 101 the same time that we close the bridge, or what can we do to reduce the pain’ point.”
“It’s kind of a Sophie’s Choice here,” Thomas said.
Multiple ideas were offered from switching to a full, 10-day closure rather than weekends, to establishing a ferry service to transport people to and from the Olympic Peninsula, to setting up times during the weekend for periodic bridge crossings.
“I don’t think we should give up. But they are really difficult to deal with,” Councilmember Monica MickHager said of the state transportation agency. “So I think we should write our own letter.”
The city is “asking for funding for mitigation, both messaging and mitigation strategies,” Urner Wennstrom said.
The Port Townsend Ferry Advisory Committee was set to meet Wednesday, with potential for discussion on the Hood Canal Bridge closure.
