Othello business owners oppose traffic revision
OTHELLO - Proposed traffic revisions at First Avenue and state Route 26 in Othello are sparking a clash of concerns between safety and commerce.
The Othello City Council debated how to improve safety at what is widely known as a dangerous intersection while protecting access to local businesses.
Bob Romine, a project engineer with the Washington State Department of Transportation, presented several possibilities for rechanneling traffic in the intersection using a state grant.
One option would be to install islands to prevent drivers from turning left onto SR 26 from First Avenue or state Route 24. Vehicles would instead drive Columbia Street to Broadway Avenue to get across, requiring Columbia to become widened for ease of access by larger trucks.
Broadway's lanes could be widened to make the corner radius wider for trucks turning onto a one-way Columbia, Romine said. He added if Columbia were to remain a two-way street a potato shed at the corner of Broadway and Columbia would require about $95,000 in modifications, not including right-of-way acquisition from the property owner.
"I'm trying to get a read on what the council wants so we can keep this moving forward," he said.
Several council members and First Avenue business owners expressed distaste for the idea of limiting turns onto SR 26, saying it would make Othello less convenient to passing motorists who might then decide to make pit stops in other cities.
"I'm all for safety, like anyone else, but do you know what kind of an impact that's going to have on local businesses?" said Wenatchee Petroleum owner Bob Ogan, who operates two convenience store/fuel stations near the intersection. "You're going to lose a lot of customers on that end of town and you're going to devastate my business... I'm going to have to tell 25 people they're out of work."
"This would kill businesses," echoed Councilman Charles Garcia. "People don't come to Othello because they have to, they come to Othello by accident. We're trying to change that, but that's the reality."
After discussing several other possibilities, all deemed unfeasible, some council members and many business owners agreed a traffic signal could work.
"I've been looking at this for two months and the light is by far the best alternative we could possibly have for keeping businesses open," said Lance Silva with Wenatchee Petroleum.
But Romine said with a price tag of about $500,000, a signal could be cost prohibitive unless other funding is found. It wouldn't necessarily fix the problem either, he said, simply changing the type of crashes at the intersection from T-bone to rear-end collisions.
Councilman Marc Spohr also disagreed with a light, saying it would back up traffic and be the only stopping point along a stretch of highway from Pullman to Seattle.
A better option would be to lower the speed limit to 35 on the highway as it approaches town, he said, although Romine was concerned such a low highway speed would confuse drivers and lead to other problems.
Regardless of how they choose to proceed, Romine said the council must come to a decision soon as portions of the project could take up to a year to complete and state grant funding is only available until June 30, 2013.
He planned to gather more information before reporting back next month, including cost estimates and how proposed reconfigurations could impact traffic to businesses in the area.