Roundabout at SR 17 and Grape Drive starts to take shape
Drivers traverse the intersection at Grape Drive while construction crews work on the approaches to the new roundabout Monday afternoon.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald
A compactor works the intersection at Grape Drive and state Route 17. One is open in each direction on SR-17, a traffic revision that should remain in place until early July.
A truck rolls through the Grape Drive-state Route 17 intersection Monday. A roundabout is under construction in that location.
MOSES LAKE — The traffic signal at Grape Drive and state Route 17 has been removed, and some of the roadbed already has been torn out and repaved. Construction crews were compacting the base layer in the center of the intersection Monday morning, preparatory to paving the still-unpaved section.
Some traffic restrictions at the intersection are scheduled to remain in place for about another month.
The traffic light is being replaced with a two-lane roundabout, a project that began in early May. One lane of traffic is open in each direction on SR-17, and it will remain open, wrote Justin Hammond, project engineer for the Washington Department of Transportation, in an email.
Drivers still can’t turn left, either to SR-17 or Grape Drive, and they can’t cross Grape Drive, Hammond wrote.
“Detours are in place to replace the prohibited turns, including some detours on Valley Road,” he wrote. “No highway traffic is required to detour off the highway. Additionally, all right turns are still allowed.
“The intersection will stay in this configuration until the beginning of July. Around that time, the intersection will be switched to a roundabout configuration and all vehicle movements at the intersection will be restored,” Hammond wrote. “The intersection will not be completely closed at any time.”
The new Grape Drive roundabout is being installed while the city of Moses Lake has started work to repave a section of Valley Road, from the intersection with Stratford Road to Paxson Drive. The work began Monday and most lanes of Valley Road were blocked, but one lane is still open in each direction.
