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Road chief mulls future projects

By Meg Olson

When county road planners came to the Point to talk about this summer’s maintenance schedule, they found the community was more interested in trails and parking than new roads. Now they’re trying to get some of those projects on the county’s six-year road plan.

“We’ve been getting a lot of different requests,” said county engineer Joe Rutan. “The majority of comments are probably related to non-motorized transportation: Different trails, in different locations and different priorities.”

While several of the dozens of phone calls, letters, emails and comment cards have suggested the county divert the money it’s now spending on paving to a trail network or parking at Maple Beach, Rutan said it wasn’t that easy. “Capital improvements are funded by a separate mechanism and need to be on the six-year transportation plan.” The plan, approved by county council every August, ranks transportation projects in the county and parcels out dollars for construction. Rutan said he is proposing several items be added to the list that could lead to funding of Point Roberts projects.

The first is to put the widening of Tyee Drive back on the list, but with a different focus. “The old Tyee widening project was taken off the list several years ago and I’ve placed it back on with the understanding we probably won’t widen the roadway but do a non-motorized project instead,” Rutan said. He is proposing funding be available for the project in 2005. Further out on the timeline, he is also adding the reconstruction of Benson Road from Tyee to Boundary, adding space for non-motorized users.

A county-wide proposal for a fund dedicated to smaller shoulder widening and trails projects could also direct dollars to trails in Point Roberts. “That is for county-wide use, to give us a little flexibility,” Rutan said. “We intend to use a portion each year and the county bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee has a lot of influence as far as where that gets spent. I’m also looking for help from the non-motorized transportation committee in Point Roberts.” The committee is under the umbrella of the Point Roberts Economic Development Committee and has applied to be included on the county’s ranking for funding through the Washington Community Economic Re-vitalization Team process.

While county council started reviewing the six-year plan in June they won’t decide on the list until after a July 8 public hearing, and Rutan said none of the Point Roberts projects were guaranteed to get approval. “This is just my proposal and there are a lot of people with the authority to change things from here on out,” he said. He also added that the projects he’s added to the plan for Point Roberts should be considered placeholders to secure funding rather than set plans. “We hear a desire, there seems to be some common themes but there are a lot of different priorities. We’re hearing there are needs up there so we’re putting some resources in the plan to address them. Quite a bit really. I’m a little bit out on a limb here,” he said. “ I’ve got 950 miles of road I have to compare it against and it could be a tough sell.”

Rutan is planning a series of public meetings on the Point in the fall to hear proposals for where trails should be, what they should look like and when they should be built. “With that we’ll move towards implementing a program,” he said. “Do I see us coming up there in 2005 and building a trail system? No. But every year through bigger projects or small we’ll keep chipping away and we’ll be doing some good things in the next few years.”

In other road business the county will be working with the Maple Beach property owners association to deal with issues of road erosion along the seawall, beach access, parking and benches. “The benches up there now are far from meeting codes,” Rutan said. “They’re scary, two feet from the road.” He said parking and seaside benches might appear mutually exclusive but they would look at alternatives. “How do we make both work,” he asked. “We have drainage issues, right of way issues, possibly international issues and we’ll look at all of that.”

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