PORT ANGELES — Representatives of the state Department of Transportation outlined on Tuesday upcoming closures of the Hood Canal Bridge as well as other projects that will cause traffic delays on the North Olympic Peninsula later this year and in 2024.
DOT personnel “have done an extreme amount of public outreach for all of this North Olympic work that’s planning to happen,” Brian Whitehouse, Olympic Region assistant construction engineer, told the Tuesday morning meeting of the Port Angeles Business Association.
“We’ve tried to involve the community in every way that we can,” he said.
Starting May 13, the Hood Canal Bridge will be closed overnight Saturdays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for separate weeks in May and June. The first set of closures will occur May 13-17, and the bridge will be closed to traffic from 10 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday and from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The bridge will follow the same closure schedule the next week, May 20-24, and then for two weeks in June; June 10-14 and June 17-21. Inclement weather may change the construction schedule, Whitehouse said.
DOT had previously planned to close the bridge for four weekends in the summer, but, following repeated requests from Peninsula communities, it rescheduled the closures.
Roundabouts
In addition to the work on the Hood Canal Bridge, several other projects, including two roundabout traffic circles and several fish passage projects, also will cause delays.
Two traffic circles planned for west of the Hood Canal Bridge on state Highway 104 are planned to begin in 2024.
The roundabouts will be at the intersections of 104 with Shine Road and Paradise Bay Road as well at 104’s intersection with state Highway 19.
Both will have reduced speed limits and intermittent traffic delays.
DOT is installing several roundabouts on Washington’s roads, which Whitehouse said is an effort to improve road safety.
“These are 100 percent safety-related projects,” Whitehouse said. “We have done extensive research in our traffic office and we have data showing that there were fatality collisions or accidents that occurred at these specific locations.”
Port Angeles work
The DOT also is continuing its court-mandated work on restoring fish passages throughout Western Washington, according to Piper Petit, design assistant project engineer, and some of the upcoming projects will disrupt traffic in Port Angeles for more than a year.
“We’re 10 years in right now,” Petit said of state efforts to restore fish passages. “They’re not getting any easier, unfortunately.”
In 2013, several tribes successfully sued the state to preserve and maintain fish passage and a federal court gave the state until 2030 to comply. Several passages already have been completed, but Petit said the more complicated projects are now on the docket.
For some of the projects, temporary roads will be built to allow traffic to continue flowing during construction, but there are others that will be more disruptive to traffic.
Three projects in Port Angeles — at Ennis Creek, Lee Creek and Tumwater Creek — are currently in the design phase, Petit said, and won’t break ground any sooner than the end of 2024.
“Tumwater Creek, we did reach agreement with the city that we can construct that one during a nine-month closure that would be outside of the tourist season, so they can’t start until after Labor Day; need to wrap it by Memorial Day,” Petit said.
DOT has provided incentives to contractors to reduce the number of closure days, Petit said.
Elwha bridge
Also at the end of 2024, the DOT will replace the Elwha River Bridge on U.S. Highway 101 west of Port Angeles, according to Ben Ford, project engineer for the Port Angeles region.
Most of that work will take place without impacting traffic, Ford said, but toward the end of 2024, the highway is set to be closed for a full nine days, with detours heading over state Highways 112 and 113.
Information and updates on DOT’s projects are available at the department’s website, wsdot.wa.gov, and real-time updates on closures and road conditions can be found on DOT’s social media.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
