PORT ANGELES — Clallam County has moved a step closer to building an underpass near Deer Park Road.

The three county commissioners last week approved a $277,140 purchase of 1.41 acres of private land to build a portion of the safety-improvement project east of Port Angeles.

Clallam County intends to build a two-lane road with a 10-foot-wide pedestrian and bicycle path under U.S. Highway 101 northwest of the Deer Park Cinema.

The objective is to eliminate left-hand turns from Deer Park Road and Buchanan Drive across the four-lane thoroughfare at the top of the Morse Creek S-curve.

County Engineer Ross Tyler said construction is scheduled to begin in the late summer or early fall, with completion targeted for 2013.

“This is going to be a big enough project that it’s probably going to have a winter shutdown at some point, ” Tyler said. “But we’d really like to starting moving some dirt and putting shovels in the ground.”

“Part of it is going to require us to move, or shift, the four lanes of Highway 101 traffic out of the existing alignment so we can put the structure in where traffic goes and shift it back.”

Most likely, the highway will temporarily shift to the south, where a gravel pit now exists, to allow crews to build the 50-foot-wide underpass.

The highway will retain its present alignment and existing grade when the project is finished.

The cost estimate for the entire project is $9.4 million, with

$7 million budgeted for construction.

Preliminary engineering totaled $1.5 million and buying the right of way came to $944,750.

Federal money is financing about 80 percent of the project. The rest is a county match from real estate excise tax collections.

Since the county needs to use only a 0.68-acre portion of the 1.41 acres it purchased from George Stevens on Tuesday, it intends to sell the remaining 0.73 acres at an auction.

Lead county right-of-way agent Joe Swordmaker told commissioners Monday that Stevens had no use for only half of the U-shaped parcel, which abuts Deer Park Road southwest of the cinema.

The county has bought several other parcels for the necessary right of way in recent years.

Three more parcels still need to be purchased, and the county is waiting for the state to complete the paperwork to transfer state property to the county, Tyler said.

When the project is finished, moviegoers and everyone else heading to Port Angeles from Deer Park Road will use the underpass to connect with Buchanan Drive on the north side of the highway and merge with 101 traffic from a westbound acceleration lane.

Motorists traveling east from Buchanan Drive will follow the underpass to the south side of the highway and connect with the highway at Deer Park Road.

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.