SR-281 makes 'Critical Rural Freight Corridor' list

QUINCY — The timing couldn’t be better. On Tuesday, America put a guy in the White House that has expressed interest in development and infrastructure.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and Federal Highway Administration recently designated Washington state Route 281 as a “Critical Rural Freight Corridor,” which puts SR-281 on a higher priority to be widened to four lanes.

It’s not a done deal by any stretch, but Patrick Boss of the Port of Quincy said it’s a step in the right direction for a stretch of highway that nearly 8 million tons of cargo traveled on in 2015.

“Trump has made comments about wanting to repair our nation’s roads and bridges, so clearly, from what I’m hearing, he’s very big on infrastructure,” Boss said. “Projects like road widening, freight mobility, rail, he seems like a guy that wants to see a lot of construction, activity and growth, there’s no doubt it would be very helpful to projects in Grant County.”

SR-281 is located within the boundaries of the Port of Quincy, and runs for approximately 10 miles between Interstate 90 at George and state Route 28 at Quincy. There are several reasons for the designation of SR-281 as a Critical Rural Freight Corridor. SR-281 is a high-volume “T-2” truck corridor, and in 2015, nearly 8 million tons of cargo traveled on it. In particular, a large volume of truck traffic on SR-281 comes from the Wenatchee and Chelan areas on SR-28 via SR-281 to I-90.

“Trump’s a developer and likes to build things, so it would stand to reason that he would be a big fan of infrastructure and hopefully his practical knowledge of construction would promote better roads, better rail, better freight mobility,” Boss said. “Grant County is the biggest agricultural county in the state and we’re moving a lot of product out of here to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma. There’s a lot of things moving eastbound to markets like Chicago to New York.

“We’re going to need better freight mobility out of this county. We have roads like Highway 17 and 281. All of them need to be widened because of the tremendous amount of growth we are seeing.”

The Wenatchee and Chelan areas are among the largest fruit packing areas in the world. Additionally, a great deal of truck traffic comes directly from Quincy with the food processors (frozen French fries, frozen vegetables, et cetera) and fresh produce packers (apples, potatoes, onions).

The designation of SR-281 is widely supported by shippers, farmers, processors, organizations and businesses in central Washington, as dozens of letters of support were collected by the Port of Quincy and sent to QUADCO (a regional transportation planning organization in central Washington) and WSDOT in August.

Getting SR-281 on the Critical Rural Freight Corridor list is just the beginning, but it does help speed up the process toward federal funding, should the new administration pull the trigger on the road-widening project.

“The one thing about 281, a lot of the right-of-ways have already been acquired by the state,” Boss said. “The setbacks, the right-of-ways are there for that 10-mile stretch. All that needs to be done is for the state and the feds to put some money on the table so we can do it.

“Eight million tons of product running down that road is a lot of product. The good news is that we have the right-of-ways, the designation on the Critical Freight Corridor. The bad news is that we have to go out and find some funding.”