Environmental analysis of plan ready for public comment
Help is on the way for idling motorists in the notorious traffic bottleneck where Interstate 5, I-205 and Northeast 134th Street converge in Salmon Creek.
The linchpin of a $140 million interchange improvement project will be a major new east-to-west thoroughfare, spanning I-5 and I-205, that connects Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center east of the freeways to the area near Fred Meyer to the west.
Planners envision the new 139th Street connection as a four-lane road with bike lanes, sidewalks and a median. It will include a northbound offramp from I-5, allowing quick access to the 4-year-old hospital, and an onramp for motorists heading south to I-5.
Clark County and the Washington Department of Transportation released an environmental assessment on the project last week. Construction is expected to get under way next year, with completion in 2013.
The project will also reconfigure a number of on- and offramps and convert a park-and-ride lot into a mitigation pond. County officials expect the long-sought project will relieve an off-and-on building moratorium that’s plagued the Salmon Creek area over the past several years.
“It will allow for the capacity for those new developments to occur,” said Rick Keniston, project development engineer for the Department of Transportation in Vancouver.
The environmental analysis notes that, even though the project will add an additional 14½ acres of impermeable surface, it will reduce the amount of polluted stormwater flowing into area creeks. That’s mainly because Salmon, Whipple and Rockwell creeks will benefit from the conversion of C-Tran’s sprawling park-and-ride lot along 134th Street into a lined pond intended to collect and naturally filter stormwater before it’s discharged to Whipple Creek. The park-and-ride will be relocated to 139th Street and 10th Avenue.
Currently, stormwater is funneled directly into the creek primarily from a series of roadside ditches.
In addition, project planners are considering four areas off-site where they will create or enhance wetlands to compensate for filling low-lying areas around the project site. All of those areas are within the Salmon Creek drainage.
Other major aspects of the project:
n The current northbound on-ramp from 134th Street will be removed and relocated to 139th Street.
n Workers will add an auxiliary northbound lane from the confluence of I-5 and I-205 north to the interchange with 179th Street. Keniston said that should provide ample acceleration distance for motorists merging onto I-5 north, while also adding capacity to the interchange serving the area around the fairgrounds and amphitheater.
n A new I-5 bridge will be built over I-205 southbound.
n Northbound I-205 will be realigned to allow adequate clearance for the new 139th Street overcrossing.
Clark County will spend between $15 million and $16 million to relocate the park-and-ride, along with realigning the intersection of 20th Avenue and 139th Street.
“The DOT is doing improvements along the interstate itself,” said Matt Griswold, project manager for Clark County Public Works. “We’re doing the local road improvements.”
The project would require the partial or total acquisition of 52 properties totaling 9 acres.
Funding includes $84.3 million in gas tax revenue and $37.3 million in county and federal funds. Officials expect $18.4 million will be needed to finish the project.
