Funding secured for Highway 17 widening

Mulliken 'very excited' about project

MOSES LAKE — The project to widen Moses Lake's Highway 17 will see the extra funding it needs, and will proceed as planned this summer after an allocation by state officials of an extra $2.5 million to accommodate increased costs.

Increased asphalt and construction had jeopardized the three-mile widening of the highway from two to four lanes from Interstate 90 to the Port of Moses Lake. The project would also add a one-mile noise wall to separate a residential neighborhood. Construction for the project was originally priced at $13 million from the 2005 gas tax increase, but construction cost increases forced the total up to approximately $15.5 million.

State Sen. Joyce Mulliken helped secure the funding from the state Office of Financial Management, who told the Moses Lake Republican this week that because the project was deemed "project ready" the state office of financial management was able to transfer discretionary funds from other highway projects still months or years away from construction.

"I'm very excited," Mulliken said. "When you work to see something happen, you just want to see it happen."

Mulliken said she called everyone she could think of to try to secure funding for the highway. She said Office of Financial Management Director Victor Moore had the discretionary ability to make the decision and release funding.

"Sen. Mulliken really went to bat for the project," said department of transportation engineer Bob Romine, who is project engineer on the widening.

Without the funding, Romine said the department of transportation had been planning to either cut out median barriers from Nelson to Wheeler roads or the Stratford Road interchange, or both.

"We're not going that route," Romine said Tuesday. "We're now going back to plan A which is the whole project."

Mulliken, a member of the Senate Transportation Committee, said the project needed to be completed in its entirety. Mulliken said the project has been on the drawing board for over a decade and any setback would dearly cost time and money.

"To shortchange this project in the long run I think would have cost more money," Mulliken said.

Advertising for the project was delayed three weeks after rising construction costs plagued the project and officials sought extra funding, an issue Romine said has become nationwide in recent months.

The project is now scheduled to be advertised for bid June 26, and construction is planned for late summer. The department of transportation has said the project will be "operationally complete" in September 2007

"It's real and we're coming and it's going to get done," Romine said. "Starting sometime in August."