With the onset of summer, road repair season has begun and crews with the City of Port Townsend have plans to tackle some of the town’s most pesky potholes.

“Long story short, there are so many potholes and the streets are in pretty rough shape given we have gone over 20 years without funding and maintenance,” said Steve King, the city’s public works director. “Thus, the process of repairing our streets is a long process of clawing our way back to sustainable streets.  This means that we will continue to battle potholes.” 

King said crews have been working on Jackman Street near the fairgrounds and on Sheridan Street north of Hastings Avenue.

“We are preparing for chip seal and additional paving work,” King said. “We also plan on tackling some of the worst locations like near the Penny Saver and Co-op as well at the bottom of Cook Ave,” King said.

While general road repairs are always on the to-do list, King said new equipment should help crews make better repairs on potholes.

“We plan on triaging potholes,” King said. “There are many locations where we just need to hit them with a temporary fix because the road is in such bad shape, the street needs to be reconstructed to fix the problem. A good example of this is at the Penny Saver. Other locations, where potholes form, we can deploy a more permanent fix.  We just got the right equipment to begin this work and our crews are in the process of perfecting the implementation of street repairs using hot asphalt instead of temporary cold mix.”

King said, that dollars for this year’s work came from funding city council dedicated in 2023.

“Next year, we will have more funding associated with the Transportation Benefit District sales tax that went into effect April 1st of this year,” King said.

The Port Townsend City Council formed the Transportation Benefit District (TBD) in July 2023. Voters then approved a 0.3% sales tax hike, the funding from which will go directly to the district. City leadership estimates the TBD dollars should add an additional $800,000 per year for local transportation improvements, although collections in the first year will likely be less. The TBD sales tax increase will sunset in ten years unless city council and voters renew it.

Of the estimated $800,000, and according to city documents, 40% is earmarked for pavement repair, 40% for grant matches and 20% for sidewalks, ADA measures and ‘traffic calming.’

The city sales tax with the TBD bump now totals 9.4%

King said the TBD funding coupled with the city Comprehensive Streets Program provides the city with more tools to simultaneously tackle immediate repair issues, while preparing for long term infrastructure improvements.

“The upshot of the program (Comprehensive Streets Program) is invest in repair and maintenance of our streets, to leverage city resources by applying for grant funding, and to invest in effective non-motorized improvements including traffic calming, sidewalks, and bike facilities,” King said. “The majority of the $800,000 anticipated will go to repairing streets.”

In addition to projects currently underway, the city is poised to make ADA improvements to the Uptown area along Lawrence and Tyler.

And, if there is a pothole out in the city that needs work, King said citizens can inform the public works department through the citizen concern portal on the city website.