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07/13/2007: "What Were They Thinking?"

(Private contractor at work on street improvement in Friday Harbor)

The Town is removing the right-hand turn lane from one of the busiest intersections in town. The public has noticed that the turn lane is being removed, and are asking why is the Town restricting the flow of traffic on an intersection that is already a bottle neck, with cars backed up for over a block on weekday mornings and late afternoons?

The work is in response to a petition to install an additional cross walk on the uphill side of the intersection of Spring street and Blair, so that students do not have to use the three existing cross walks to cross on the uphill side of the street.

The petition was signed by 40 people, including staff, parents, and students of the San Juan School District and the Spring Street international School. The petition states that it is “inevitable that a collision between a vehicle and a child will occur along that side of he intersection” unless the forth cross walk is installed. All the petition asked for was for the town to “construct” a cross walk on the street.

One of those watching the construction wondered “why the little ----- cannot use the existing cross walks.” The problem, according to the petition, is that apparently children being children, they will not use the existing crosswalks if it means making a “circuitous route offered by using the three other cross walks”.



The petition was submitted to the Town in October of last year, and in November of the same year Mayor Jones explained to the council members that the choice was to leave the existing lane, or to remove it. Without giving guidance, the Town Council voted 3 to 1 to instruct town Staff to respond to the request to install a cross walk

At a noon meeting in January of this year, Administrator King Fitch gave an update on “a design by MPD Engineering, Inc, and informed the council that most likely the right hand turn lane from Blair Avenue to spring Street will be eliminated.”

At the April 5th Town Council meeting, Administrator King Fitch informed the Council that the addition of the crosswalk “will eliminate the right hand turn lane from Blair Street to spring Street”. The work was allowed by the council to proceed.

The cost of the project to remove the lane, increase the size of the sidewalk (and install wheelchair access), and mark the road as a cross walk, comes to $16,000.00 for construction, $1,500.00 for the design and engineering, plus town staff time. King Fitch said he expects there will be some criticism of the change. He pointed out that there is very little public input or interest in these projects until after the fact.

One problem that the new cross walk and the removal of the turn lane will not solve, is the high number of drivers who do not stop at the stop signs, but simply drive through the intersection. In Friday Harbor this is hardly unique to only that intersection.