To get to a construction site where government and business leaders gathered Thursday to herald the start of the $133 million Salmon Creek interchange project, attendees had to drive north on 10th Avenue and turn right onto Northeast 139th Street, where it dead-ends.
Steve Stuart, chairman of the Clark County commissioners, referred to the road as a “goat path” in his opening remarks.
Bart Gernhart, regional administrator for the Washington Department of Transportation, gave the crowd an image of what the massive project will do to that goat path: transform it into a five-lane arterial that will extend east from Three Creeks Community Library and onto an overpass that will stretch over Interstates 5 and 205, taking people to the north side of Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center.
Stuart and Gernhart made their remarks to approximately 50 people gathered at the site of a future C-Tran Park & Ride lot.
Workers from Coffman Excavating of Oregon City, Ore., which was awarded a $1.2 million contract, started work on the site in August.
The parking lot work will include installing underground utilities and building a retaining wall, and the earliest C-Tran could move to the site would be next summer. The existing Park & Ride, north of Northeast 134th Street, will be closed and eventually be used to collect and treat storm runoff.
Growth blocked
The total project is expected to take three years and unclog an area that has been under multiple growth moratoria.
Financing for the Salmon Creek Interchange Project comes from local, state and federal sources, the largest chunk being $84.3 million collected through the state’s gas tax.
Next spring, Clark County will build road improvements on both sides of the interchange.
Next summer, the Washington State Department of Transportation will start to rebuild the Northeast 134th Street interchange on I-5, extend Northeast 139th Street and make freeway ramp improvements and additions.
By making the changes, the county hopes to improve safety, decrease congestion and create jobs, Stuart said.
“We’ve waited a long time for this day,” Stuart said.
He said the recession meant construction bids are coming in lower than expected; the price tag has been knocked down so far from $140 million to $133 million.
The construction work will bring approximately 600 temporary jobs for Clark County, which has the highest unemployment rate in the state.
Jonathan Avery, chief administrative officer at Legacy Salmon Creek, called the interchange project vital to the area’s economic viability.
And, when 139th Street takes some of the burden off 134th Street, it will mean faster access to the 220-bed medical center.
Avery said more than 1,000 patients a day travel to the hospital and the medical offices on the campus.
Traffic jams also affect ambulance drivers and critical specialists, such as surgeons, who are called to the hospital.
“This Salmon Creek interchange project will change all that,” Avery said.
Traffic congestion in Salmon Creek prompted three development moratoria on areas within three miles of the I-5 interchange: one from February 1997 to January 1998, a second from December 2001 to April 2003 and a third from September 2005 to September 2007.
A moratorium is put in place when roads can’t handle additional traffic created by new development. As they were, roads in Salmon Creek were “failing” by local standards, which means the conditions were such that drivers could only creep along.
Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4508 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.
