Commentary by Steve Marble
for Citizen Review
November 26, 2019
Brace yourselves for another round of change in our little community, particularly in regards to Highway 101. The Tribe’s five story hotel will not be the only new traffic attractor. Now the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission is looking once again at building a full service ‘state park of tomorrow’ on their Miller Peninsula property.
In 2006 the park people were full steam ahead with similar visions, holding two of three scoping meetings at Carrie Blake Park, before realizing the funds were not available to build the dream. Back then, they were visualizing a hundred-plus RV site state park with all sorts of bells and whistles. The plan was to accommodate those monster RVs that won’t fit into Sequim Bay State Park. Picture the line of oldsters – these are the people who can afford the mammoth McRVs – waiting for traffic to clear for a left hand turn onto 101, heading back to the big city on Sunday afternoon. Every year the lines of cars on 101 get longer and the wait to emerge into the river of traffic is extended as it is. The local folks will be trapped in their neighborhoods.
About the time the park wasn’t funded, the Washington Department of Transportation (WA DOT) extracted a mitigation fee from the developer of 200 acres off of Louella Road to build a turn lane on 101. “We’ll make the turn lane when the development builds out.” WA DOT said. The build-out was completed years ago, but the turn lane never came. Because of curves restricting visibility, pulling onto 101 from Louella Road often is akin to attempted suicide.
Also, back when money was tight for the park system, the same bureaucracy was dead set on closing existing state parks. The legislature provided a funding mechanism to keep the parks running by adding the optional donation when license tabs are renewed. Imagine, with all the caterwauling about the $30 license tabs and the hit to the budget, at the same time having the surplus to build a brand new state of the art park.
One wonders: Will the Park Commission be required to pay WA DOT to mitigate for the increased traffic? Would WA DOT use such funds to mitigate increased 101 traffic? Would the Commission have the money to maintain the new facility after construction?
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