Camas city officials have unveiled their preferred plan for redesigning a 1.5-mile stretch of Everett Street in northeast Camas with elevated bike lanes and sidewalks.
The project would impact a stretch of Everett Street, which also serves as state Highway 500, from the Lake Road-Everett Street roundabout to the city limits near Northeast Third Street.
The preferred concept shared in a Sept. 20 open house includes four roundabouts, a two-lane roadway south of Southeast Leadbetter Road, a three-lane roadway north of Leadbetter Road, and elevated bike paths and pedestrian sidewalks on both sides of the road that are separated by a landscaped buffer.
Now, that concept will head to the Camas City Council for more input.
“We’ll kick the recommended alternative to them, and they’ll get a chance to ask questions,” Camas Public Works Director Steve Wall said. He plans to discuss the Everett Street improvements during a Nov. 20 council workshop.
Wall said the preferred concept for the Everett Street Corridor is based on months of public outreach and feedback from the community. He said the improvements will make the transportation corridor safer for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians.
“The main statement we’ve talked about is this multimodal component … that we’re trying to provide for vehicles, pedestrians and all modes of traffic,” Wall said.
The city kicked off the Everett Street Corridor Analysis in the summer of 2022, conducting land surveys, environmental evaluations and traffic counts, meeting with residents and business owners along the corridor, and consulting with Washington State Department of Transportation representatives before hosting the first of three community open houses and launching a community-wide survey in November 2022.
Since then, the city and its consultants have met repeatedly with WSDOT staff and members of a technical advisory committee, held two more public open houses, conducted another public survey and answered more than two dozen Everett Street Corridor-related questions from the public on its Engage Camas website.
Broken into segments
Wall said that once the city council has given “head nods” to the preferred alternative, city staff and consultants will begin breaking the corridor improvements into smaller segments, identifying which segments should come first for construction, and secure funding for design work.
Wall — along with the city’s communications director, Bryan Rachal — said last week that the public should realize the Everett Street improvements will not happen overnight.
“Some people think these things will happen relatively rapidly, in the next six months to a year,” Rachal said, “but realistically, that won’t happen.”
Instead, Wall said, the project is a long-term endeavor.
“We want to break this up into different segments, and each segment has its own process, which could take three to five, or six, seven years,” Wall said. “We really don’t have the ability to work on multiple segments at once.”
To learn more about the Everett Street Corridor Analysis, visit engagecamas.com/everett-street-corridor-analysis.
