Clark County has accepted a $1.525 million grant from the state to make a section of Highway 99 in Hazel Dell safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Part of Highway 99 will be friendlier for walkers and cyclists, thanks to more than $1.5 million in state grant funding.
The Clark County council voted unanimously Tuesday to accept a $1.525 million Washington State Department of Transportation grant through the state’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Program, which supports local road projects that promote cycling and walking. Clark County will contribute $252,000 from the county’s road fund to support the project.
Clark County Councilor David Madore, a Republican, complimented Public Works Programming Supervisor Susan Wilson on the department’s efforts to make the most of local dollars by applying for additional grant funding.
“Clark County Public Works does a great job of stretching the road fund out,” Madore said.
The project will cover three-quarters of a mile along Highway 99 between Northeast 63rd and 78th streets.
The county will replace deteriorating sidewalks along the west side of the highway with a smooth walkway compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The county also will add a protected island — a crosswalk sectioned off halfway across the road by concrete medians to protect pedestrians — near Northeast 78th Street.
“We did a safety analysis on that and decided that’s the best thing to do,” Wilson told the council.
The county also will install a small bike repair station near the intersection.
Wilson told the council that the project is about halfway designed, with construction slated to begin next summer. The project is part of the Highway 99 Subarea plan, with design standards to promote development along the busy Hazel Dell thoroughfare.
The Clark County council also unanimously approved accepting an additional $1.72 million from the U.S. Army for cleanup at Camp Bonneville. Clark County is more than a decade into cleaning shell casings and other debris from the decommissioned drill field and rifle range for the Vancouver Barracks.
Cleaning the 3,840-acre site is no small task.
“Most of the items recovered are shell casings or grenade fragments, but there are literally millions of them at Camp Bonneville,” the county reported in a Camp Bonneville progress report earlier this year.
This is the second time in two years that the Army has increased the project budget. Last year, the Army gave the county an additional $4.84 million. The combined increases have raised the project’s overall budget from $16.68 million to $23.28 million.
The long-term vision is to convert the area, which is about six miles north of Camas, into a park. Cleanup is expected to be completed in 2019.
Though Clark County is responsible for the cleanup, and local crews from contractor Weston Solutions are scouring the ground for munitions, it is up to the U.S. Army to provide full funding for the cleanup. No county dollars have been spent on the project.
“The Army is obligated to clean up this site,” Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor Chris Horne told the council.
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