MINUTES

U. S. 2 Safety Coalition Meeting

January 30, 2006

319 Main Street, Sultan, Washington 98294

The meeting was called to order at 7:01 PM.

Attendees:

• Coalition Board Members:
• Chief Fred Walser, Chairman
• Monroe Mayor Donnetta Walser, Vice-Chairman
• Loretta Storm, Secretary
• Board Member Lt. Jeffrey Brand
• Board Member Josie Fallgatter
• Board Member Mark Fallgatter
• Board Member C. H. Rowe
• Board Member John Seehuus
• Dave Somers, Snohomish County Councilman (5^th Dist.)
• Jill McKinnie, Aide, Congressman Rick Larsen
• WSDOT Personnel/Officials:
• Loreena Eng
• Richard Warren
• Rene Zimmerman
• Dongho Chang
• Cathy George
• Mike Mansfield
• John Davis, Snohoco Public Works
• James Lever, WSP
• Debby Lever Ethredge, WSP
• Ron Wiediger, Sultan city councilman
• Lorna Goebel, Skykomish city councilwoman
• Henry Sladek, Skykomish city Councilman; Stevens Pass Greenway member
• Connie Dunn, Sultan Public Works Director
• Chester Marler, Stevens Pass
• Mary Carson-Ford
• Anita Esser
• Ray Kistenmacher
• Chris Sparks, Snohomish Co. Tribune
• Chrystal Doucette, Report, Snohomish Co. Tribune

I.          INTRODUCTIONS

II.         MINUTES (Deferred to next meeting.)

III.        LEGISLATIVE REPORT

Legislative Update was given by Chairman Fred Walser (see Attach. A for full report); offered that their first trip to Olympia January 19^th was a good start. Per D. Walser, legislators indicated the Coalition “Call your legislator” signs have been effective. Skykomish Councilwoman Lorna Goebel reported the King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert received her legislative report (see Attach. C) and has shown interest in U. S. 2 issues.

Chair Walser responded to a question from the public as to when U. S. 2 will “be fixed”; summarized the challenges before us, especially those related to funding re SR 522 which impact U. S. 2.

Councilman Dave Somers related his discussion with Mary Margaret Haugen re safety needs and challenges and that U.S. 2 not a partisan issue. Feels he made some inroads with her.

Loreena Eng weighed in on funding challenges, especially regards to SR 522:  “Part of 522 is going to be funded by the RTID, the Regional Transportation Improvement District.  And you probably have read in the paper that the people that are putting together the RTID is determining how much tax to charge and whatever, are being pressured to shorten the list of projects.  Or in other words, decrease the tax that is going to be given to all of us after the sales tax and increase in NBET tax.  And so unfortunately right now, 522 is no longer on the RTID list. And that’s what makes this issue of moving the money from the Snohomish River Bridge to Monroe, move it to [unintelligible], to take care of the Paradise Lake Road interchange, finish the Fales/Echo Lake interchange, and complete the four-laning of 522 up to the Snohomish River Bridge. And that’s why the work you’re doing with Senator Haugen and the other legislators is so important, because it really doesn’t make sense for us to widen from the Snohomish River Bridge to Monroe if we have this segment in the middle and we have this signal at Paradise Lake Road.  It just does not make sense.  It makes sense when the package was put together because the RTID was going to take care of that segment.  But now that it’s off the list, it’s a [unintelligible]  payout for us.  That’s going to be the difficult one.”

Vice-Chair Donnetta Walser said Senator Haugen was direct in her statements re not moving it for two reasons:  One is that it starts a precedent on shifting funding. And she fears losing the money if it was shifted.  Eng agreed that was indeed a concern, even though this was within the same corridor rather than moving it to another part of the state. Further, Eng said the bridge funding was part of the nickel funds, while Senator Haugen indicated it was included as part of the Monroe funds.  Eng then stated, “If we shifted the funds, the bridgeHa

Would not get widened.  Because what we’re doing is taking the funds that are now allocated to widen the Snohomish River Bridge and moving it over to the Paradise – move it west to the Paradise Lake Road interchange.  That’s what we’re asking the legislature to do.”

Vice-Chair Walser responded by saying that the Senator felt they’d never get the bridge if they did that.  Eng replied:  “Right. And that’s it.  What we’re doing is we have $110 million for the Snohomish River Bridge to Monroe.  What we’re saying is it doesn’t make sense to widen that if you still have Paradise Lake Road with a signal, and two lanes from Paradise Lake Road up through Fales/Echo Lake Road.  So take that $110 million that was allocated for the Snohomish River Bridge and move it over to Paradise Lake Road and complete the Fales/Echo Lake Road interchange, plus finish the widening so there’s four lanes up to the Snohomish River Bridge.  So that would deplete all the nickel money. And so we would have to find another source, another [unintelligible]  package, if you will, to finish the widening from the Snohomish River Bridge into Monroe.”

Discussion continued along the same lines for a couple more minutes. 

Chairman Walser stated that Lt. Debby Ethredge communicated to him that the WSP is putting together a POPS (Problem Oriented Public Safety) Project for U. S. 2 due to recent crashes.  Lt. Ethredge then briefly described the project:  Getting together with stakeholders to gain input. Also look at education, engineering and enforcement, to combat it.  What they can do is use some “overtime” money available from Traffic Safety Commission grants to fund additional patrols in the corridor, which will grow from five to eight.  Hope to increase coverage and visibility in the area from about Milepost 3, where trestle comes in, past Sultan.  She mentioned additional troopers available also east of Sultan and on the Pass, etc.  Someone (did not recognize) said the area at 5^th Street and U. S. 2 in Skykomish is a bad accident waiting to happen.

WSP’s James Lever shared that in a recent five-county meeting, one of the commitments that they made, where they considered to be major problem areas that need their attention, U. S. 2 corridor is the one that needs and received the most attention.  Between Highway 20 and U. S. 2, they’re ”going to put a major effort into that” area.  He also stated that “any traffic safety overtime funding that we’re going to spend, in the next at least several months, will be spent out here.”  He’ll be increasing the visibility here.  Stated “It’s a hard piece of road to work in some ways because of the numbers of cars.  So we may not be as effective as far as if you measure effectiveness by the number of tickets written. But we don’t consider that the only measure. We also look at this from the standpoint of visibility and being out there and trying to be seen as much as possible.  So from my perspective, I just appreciate all the people here that have the same goal as we have in mind, and that is saving lives and saving people from getting hurt.  And we’re very, very interested in continuing the relationship through members of this Coalition…. Sometimes some of the best solutions and ideas come from groups like this. And that’s why we’re here.”

Chairman Walser and Vice-Chairman both expressed gratitude and pleasure at WSP’s focus.  Fred mentioned that the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission has stated they wish to “do a project” on U. S. 2 which would address certain safety needs.

MEDIA:  Chyrstal Doucette (from the Snohomish County Tribune) was recognized as being present, and Chairman Walser welcomed her and her service.  He then briefly summarized the overall goal of the Coalition in working in a non-partisan, non-political manner, in conjunction with WSDOT, WSP and other agencies, to resolve the problems.  He then briefly described a possible media event that the local churches were planning, a “memorial vigil.”  This idea was borne, at least in part, because of the recent death of Dick Montgomery on U. S. 2.  Mr. Montgomery was a father of 17 (14 adopted) children who was a valued, active member of the Cascade Community Church in Monroe. The church’s goal is to recognize past fatalities, the danger of the highway, but most of all to try and communicate the deep human costs to families and the community at large that result from such traffic fatalities.

Chairman Walser gave a summary of his contacts with certain media representatives and their reactions to the concept of this memorial vigil which has been quite positive.

FINANCIAL/FUND-RAISING ISSUES:   Board Member C. H. Rowe had previously offered to head up a fundraising committee to help defray some expenses and perhaps hire a lobbying firm for next year.  Mr. Rowe responded enthusiastically with, “I can do that!”

OLD BUSINESS

RDP Update:  Rene Zimmerman offered a brief summary of the RDP and the progress thus far (see previous meeting minutes for more details.)  Explained the role of the cities’ Working Group meetings.  She distributed a copy of the updated WSDOT webpage on the RDP, along with a colored map.

Stevens Pass’ Chester Marler had asked Rene permission to link the WSDOT’s webpage to theirs, which they did.  Rene stated the response WSDOT received because of that link was overwhelming (60 comments).  Main concerns/issues were:  installing a median barrier; desires for a four-lane divided highway; a few email requests for a pedestrian crossing at the Pass; passing lanes, especially going west from the pass; more improved lighting and visibility; and comments were made reflecting the perception that law enforcement is lacking; traffic, of course, is the obvious one; the Monroe bypass a big issue (“Just bypass Monroe and Sultan!”); putting in left-turn lanes, as a lot of intersections do not have those and that’s an issue especially when it’s dark; want wider shoulders; a couple of emails asking why our paint is coming off, it’s hard to see; requests to add (sounds like, “list strips”) along the highway; finally, the Sultan signal came up several times.

Rene then addressed the intersections that have been requested be added/changed, at the request of  the RDP working group members.  WSDOT does not have the money to do that analysis.  One of the things she desperately needed to do this study properly was traffic counts.  And unfortunately, she does not have enough comprehensive data, especially on intersection turn direction capacity info.  Rene distributed a list of intersections on which the County has agreed to help obtain traffic counts for 4-6 PM weekdays in two categories, both the four-lane through-way as well as clicker-counts to obtain the right and left turn data.  She then discusses the counts that will occur in Sultan at Old Owen, 5^th Avenue, Main Street and Sultan Basin Road.  Josie Fallgatter asked how the traffic count might be affected during the weekends when traffic is at a standstill.  Dongho Chang explained that one will count all the cars going through the intersection and the other counts the car that’s turning.  Fred asked how holiday weekend traffic will affect the counts, requesting that counts occur during at least TWO holiday weekends be tracked.  Dongho Chang said they’re trying to capture “true” counts and those data would skew the average volumes they’re trying to capture.  Snohomish County’s PW John Davis stated that counts from the holiday periods will not help in determining average capacity, one reason being that during high-capacity, low-speed models would show traffic, not more; it will look like there’s not a lot of traffic.  So they may need to use some type of “anecdotal evidence or some other kind of way of reporting on the degree of congestion during these worst times.  Just simply the kind of information you already have, like it’s backed up all the way to the City of Snohomish may be about as good as we can do for this RDP in terms of portraying how bad it really gets in terms of congestion. In terms of the traffic counts, to be able to do the modeling that Dongho Chang is talking about, in order to do your traffic engineering, design your signals or design your channelization or whatever, we’re going to have to find times that aren’t totally gridlocked.”  A lengthy technical explanation by Dongho Chang follows.

Renee Zimmermann thanked Snohomish County for the data; otherwise the RDP consultants would have had a tough time forecasting.

Zimmermann continued re RDP funding; explained that her previous statements re the $15,000 in-kind Snohoco match for $100,000 PSRC grant, she corrected this, saying that all cities will provide “in-kind” matches, which should not present any problem.  (This grant requirement may already be achieved, due to the county’s traffic counts they provided the Plan.)  Explained other funding possibilities, including a federal grant application.  Jill McKinney from Congressman Larsen’s office explained that letters of support from cities, the coalition, etc., would be helpful to submit in application.

Zimmermann announced open houses tentatively scheduled for the week of May 8^th or the 22^nd.  Needs some location ideas, would like something in Gold Bar (or other eastern location), in addition to Monroe.  Needs a place that can handle 50-100 people.  She’ll also be making separate presentations to the Sky Valley Chamber of Commerce 2/21/ and one to the Monroe CofC 2/14.  She’s also working with Sky Valley CofC for a booth during Shindig.

Articles of Incorporation/By-Laws

Loretta Storm updated Board on the status of Coalition’s filing as a non-profit corporation; need to stagger terms. Asked for a motion to approve so they can file.  Board Member Seehuus made the motion to approve, seconded by Board Member Rowe.  Approved unanimously.

NEW BUSINESS

Examination of Recent Fatal Collisions on U. S. 2, Causes & Impacts:  Dongho Chang presented detailed source data and graphs; significant discussion ensued, several coalition board members and citizens disagreed with the overall data for the 13-year study timeframe, which seemed to indicate that a leveling-out of traffic counts has occurred over the corridor. (MP3 audio of this 36-minute presentation and discussion is available on the Coalition’s Website, www.us2safetycoalition.org  or upon a request made to safetycoalition@seanet.com).

Meeting Adjourned at 8:45 PM

ATTACHMENT A TO JANUARY 30, 2006 MINUTES:

PRESS RELEASE

U. S. 2 Coalition Board Members, with Snohomish Co. Councilman Dave Somers, gain ground in efforts to obtain funding for U. S. 2 improvements

For Immediate Release

January 24, 2006, Sultan, Washington

Contact: Fred Walser 360-793-1051, Ext. 223

Members of the U . S. 2 Safety Coalition met with Olympia legislators Thursday, Jan. 19^th, in their ongoing efforts to obtain funding needed to complete a Rural Development Plan (RDP) for the east Snohomish County section of U. S. 2, a highway which claimed four people’s lives in an 18-day period between Dec. 16 and Jan. 2^nd.

Coalition members, which included Chairman Fred Walser, Monroe Mayor Donnetta Walser, Sultan Mayor pro-tem John Seehuus and Snohomish County Councilman Dave Somers, met with several legislators, which coincidentally included Snohomish County Councilmembers Gary Nelson, John Koster and Kirke Sievers who were visiting Olympia for Legislative County Day (and all of whom have indicated support for the Coalition’s efforts).

A brief recap of the Coalition’s efforts during that visit  include:

• Meetings with 39^th Dist. Representatives  Kirk Pearson and Dan Kristiansen.  Rep. Pearson (Appropriations) will be working with fellow 39^th Rep. Dan Kristiansen on legislation to secure an additional $700K in matching RDP funds for U. S. 2, which will also address improvements to SR 522 from Paradise Lake to the Snohomish River bridge.
• Rep. Dan Kristiansen authored a letter and document package detailing the funding needs for U.S. 2, which he sent to Rep. Ed Murray (D-43^rd), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, and Rep. Beverly Woods (R-23^rd), Ranking Member, House Committee on Transportation. (Jan. 16, 2006 letter is attached as pdf)
• During a Coalition meeting with 39^th Dist. Senator Val Stevens (attended also by Co. Councilman John Koster), she stated a desire to become more visible in the effort.  Chairman Walser requested that she and other legislators be front-and-center during a future Coalition event being planned, with participation either by Gov. Gregoire or prominent legislators.  This future event is currently envisioned as a candlelight vigil in memory of the tragic recent deaths on U. S. 2., but a date and other specific details are not yet available. Another similar event is being conceived in Monroe, with city church leaders driving that effort.
• The Coalition also met with Rep. Mark Ericks of Bothell, whose district includes SR 522, and is a member of the Transportation Committee.  (Rep. Ericks urged the Coalition to also meet with Rep. Geoff Simpson.  Due to Simpson’s unavailability, a package of information was left with his aide.)
• The Coalition also met for approx. 40 minutes with Transportation Committee mover-and-shaker Senator Mary Margaret Haugen.  Despite some differences of opinion over 2005 transportation budget funding (no dollars were allocated for U. S. 2 improvements), progress was made and the meeting resulted in a spirit of bi-partisan cooperation.

According to Chairman Walser, the day was extremely beneficial to the Coalition’s efforts to get one step closer to obtaining funding needed for U. S. 2 improvements.

###

ATTACHMENT B TO JANUARY 30, 2006 MINUTES

Legislative Update sent 1/31/06:

During the U. S. 2 Safety Coalition's meeting last night, Resolution #01-06 (attached) passed unanimously, the title of which is:  "RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT FUNDING FOR U. S. 2 SAFETY & MOBILITY ENHANCEMENTS FROM SNOHOMISH TO SKYKOMISH."   This will be signed by all corridor cities (although the most-recent Coalition member, the City of Everett, will probably author and approve their own resolution).  This resolution is part of the support WSDOT needs to secure $3.0 million in federal earmarked funds for future U. S. 2 improvements.

Re Coalition's/WSDOT's request for $700,000 to complete RDP Study:  EMERGENCY LEGISLATIVE ALERT: We need our membership to "lobby" the below legislators TODAY -- by phone or email (preferably, via phone) -- and strongly urge them to ensure that the $700,000 in funding  -- which was previously approved for inclusion into both the House and Senate Transportation Budgets -- be retained. (FRED, I WOULD LIKE TO INSERT HERE A BRIEF STATEMENT OF WHICH BUDGET -- THE HOUSE OR SENATE -- HAS REMOVED THIS ITEM -- Read Dave Somers' email to me of last night, which I forwarded to you. I'm pretty sure, however, that it must have been a House Transportation Committee action, not the Senate, because the House had a committee mtg. yesterday and the Senate did not.

We need your help!  We are asking you to call (and ask others to call) the below-listed legislators:

  1-800-562-6000 (8 a.m. - 8 PM, free call)

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee) Rep. Ed Murray (Chair, House Transportation Committee) Beverly Woods (Ranking Minority Member, House Transportation Committee)

If you would prefer to send these legislators an email, or call their offices directly, here's the info:

haugen_marymargaret@leg.wa.gov (Phone: 360-786-7618) murray_edward@leg.wa.gov (Phone: 360-786-7826) Woods_beverly@leg.wa.gov (Phone: 260-786-7842)

Thank you for your much-needed help!

Chief Fred Walser, U. S. 2 Safety Coalition Chairman

ATTACHMENT C:  CITY OF SKYKOMISH LEGISLATIVE REPORT

TOWN OF SKYKOMISH LEGISLATIVE ISSUES

(As they relate to the U. S. 2 Safety Coalition and WSDOT’s RDP efforts)

January 2006 (From Skykomish City Council Member Lorna Goebel)

(Coalition secretary’s note: General legislative issues and statements concerning the Town of Skykomish contained within Lorna Goebel’s report have been omitted except as they deal with U. S. 2 Safety Coalition issues at its Jan. 30, 2006 meeting.)

U.S. 2

Skykomish has become a member of the Highway 2 Safety Coalition; however the Town has two major concerns:

1. The speed-limit on US 2 through town needs to be reduced. Currently there are speed reduction advisory signs, but no one observes them.

2. The bridges need to be widened. It is almost impossible for two trucks to pass when going opposite directions so drivers of SUVs meeting Semi-trailers have an especially difficult time.