Seeking solutions for Mattawa highway
Traffic beacons, education programs being implemented
MATTAWA — Traffic beacons and "Lights on for Safety" signs could be a few short-term solutions to curb the number of serious collisions on the highway near here.
Those additions and others, as well as increased awareness in the schools, are ones that local and state officials came up with for Highway 243 at a meeting Wednesday to discuss the highway. Highway 243 has seen an increase in serious and fatal collisions in recent months, and about 40 people came to Saddle Mountain Intermediate School to brainstorm solutions and hear from Washington State Patrol and Washington State Department of Transportation officials on how to go about the fixes.
"We've seen this process happen several times and it's been really effective," said WSDOT traffic engineer Jennene Ring.
Ring said Highway 243 has not yet been designated a traffic corridor project, but said three such projects in north central Washington have been successful in her time at WSDOT.
Ring said the group could soon look at becoming a traffic safety corridor, like recent corridors on nearby Highways 17 and 26. To become a corridor would require a two-year commitment, but Ring said would bring extra money to WSP officers who would dedicate their overtime to patrols in the area.
Interested citizens broke into three different groups to try and find out ways to combat the problem through efforts like engineering, enforcement and education. Their ideas included short-term solutions that residents could see in the next month, like the traffic beacon lights and "Lights on for Safety" signs.
WSDOT Assistant Traffic Engineer Greg Morehouse said the agency is now upgrading and adding signs to the highway and will be adding the flashing red beacons to stop signs to help people see them more easily. Long term, Morehouse said WSDOT will do studies looking at speed limit reductions, and look at the possibility of wider shoulders and additional no passing zones.
WSDOT data dating back to 1999 showed that factors like excessive speed, inattention and driving under the influence have been common contributing causes for the accidents, and WSP officers said Wednesday that they are going to increase their presence in the Mattawa area to target those problems.
One of the best ways to get the word out is for people like Ron Smith of Desert Aire to tell their story. Smith and his wife were riding their motorcycle north on Highway 243 earlier this year when a car failed to yield them the right of way at Road 24. She died in Wenatchee that evening, and he lost his left leg and 80 percent of the vision in one eye. By telling the children of Mattawa what he has gone through, Smith said that awareness of Highway 243 should get out to the rest of the community.
"I feel personally that if you can get to the kids," Smith said, "you're going to get to the parents."
Smith and the Wahluke School District through Associate Superintendent Rick Molitor are looking to organize an education program tailored for all community members. One way a brainstorm group decided to do that Wednesday was through the El Protector Hispanic outreach program offered by the WSP.
Molitor said the WSD can put an emphasis on traffic safety education through an El Protector program tailored for Highway 243 and through the school district's own program of traffic safety awareness with people like Smith.
"If I walk in and pull this leg off and say this is what could happen, maybe they'll pay attention," Smith said.
Wednesday's meeting was also attended by 13th District legislators Sen. Joyce Mulliken and Rep. Janeea Holmquist, who answered questions about what the legislature could do to aid with Highway 243. The questions of insurance laws and habitual drunken drivers were discussed by the lawmakers, who also told the community that they would try to get funding for Highway 243 projects into a supplemental 2006 budget.