Transportation Council planning U.S. Highway 2 corridor study through Leavenworth

The Chelan Douglas Transportation Council is planning to continue a U.S. Highway 2 corridor study through the busy town of Leavenworth. Mayor Cheri Kelley Farivar, who is now chairman of the council, they’ve already done studies from Wenatchee to Cashmere, Dryden and to the Big Y.
Farivar said CDTC Executive Director Jeff Wilkins has advocated for a continued study through Leavenworth, knowing the traffic issues that exist here.
“They would like to continue the corridor study in conjunction with the WSDOT and the city of Leavenworth. It needs to go from Big Y, but clear past Leavenworth,” Farivar said, at the April 10 study session. “He said me, where should they end it? I thought we shouldn’t get into other counties. What if we went as far as Coles Corner or even a little beyond that? That is kind of end of where traffic impacts around Leavenworth.”
The transportation council had many questions about this, Farivar said, not the least of which was the fact the council was pursuing a Leavenworth study when the chairman was from Leavenworth.
“Wilkins made it clear that was not the case, it was the next logical step in the Highway 2 corridor studies,” Farivar said. “He made that clear to the council. We had a discussion about it. We have not voted on it. It’s not a done deal, but we’re putting together the funding package and getting some bids from the appropriate vendors that would do the study.”
A study like this would cost $250,000 to $300,000, said City Administrator Joel Walinski.
“The plan would be for the CDTC and the WSDOT to shoulder much of the cost. I think there would be some participation by Chelan County and some participation by the city of Leavenworth,” Walinski said. “I would like see it get underway too, but those other agencies have to come together since they are going to shoulder much of the cost.”
Councilman Clint Strand asked what the next step would be.
“My best guess is May-June is when the CDTC and WSDOT will have their funding in place and get approval to move forward. Toward the end of June, they’ll put out an RFQ for consultants to respond back,” Walinski said. “There are a lot of consultants and companies that do this type of thing. They go through that process. It’s probably a year or 14 months to do the stuff. One of things we’ve stressed, because it is a shorter corridor, may we emphasize to collect more data than is typically collected in a corridor study.”
Farivar said they will be at the table with the city, county, WSDOT and traffic council to put together a scope of work. Approvals have to come from each of those agencies, she said.
She believed the data would be gathered during the summer months when the biggest traffic issues occur, but not during Oktoberfest or Christmas Lighting. Farivar said those are individual events. Councilwoman Margaret Neighbors said that is what most people are incensed about.
Councilman Elmer Larsen said you can’t build for the “Sea Fair” weekend. Strand said all Leavenworth does is “Sea Fair” weekends.
“I’m not talking about mid-week. If we do a corridor study, the WSDOT is going to insist the study be done when their corridor, Highway 2, has the most traffic and that is weekends. It’s all weekends,” Farivar said. “But to say, we want to study it in October or December, that is not what they will agree to.”
Walinski said they will collect information on October and December as part of the data. He said there are different types of solutions for different things.
“Definitely, the summer time with heavy duty traffic is not really caused by any event. Those solutions are going to be different than those peak weekends like Christmas Lighting or Oktoberfest,” Walinski said. “You’re going to have to have a totally different solution for that. Because this corridor study is a joint venture by a lot of different people, it has the potential to look at a little wider thing than a typical corridor study, which is just Monday through Friday traffic.”
That is not what we’re going for, Farivar said of studying Monday through Friday traffic.
“In our favor, the kind of corridor study they do is electronic rather than people on the ground. When we did the parking study, they had to bring crews of people into Leavenworth to count cars,” Farivar said. “That’s not what we’re doing. A corridor study is mostly be done by the things across the road or car counting in an electronic fashion, which can be done, including on weekdays. They collect tremendous amounts of data.”
On a busy Saturday, how much traffic actually goes through Leavenworth and how much stops?
“My guess is on the busy Christmas Lighting Saturday, most traffic is headed to Leavenworth, then turns around and goes home. It would be nice to confirm that. The WSDOT traffic managers want to make sure people using Highway 2 to go to Seattle have a way to get through. What is that number? Those would be nice things to find out,” Walinski said.
Farivar said they definitely want summer data collection. It would be nice if it could extend into October, but that would push the study out another six, eight, 10 months.
“Just like with the parking study, we decided to study this month and this month. The determination of the scope of work...do we really want it to be a whole year? Is that necessary? We need to have a longer data collection period than they might typically use,” Farivar said.
Neighbors said the city should be patient to get some good data the city can do something with. Farivar said they really want WSDOT to have the data. That is the point of the study. It’s not so much so the city can make accommodations, it’s so WSDOT does, Farivar said.
Councilwoman Sharon Waters asked if this study would have information on the Safeway light, showing peak traffic on weekday and weekend.
“Something like that. We can also say, we want to glean out of data, the exact number of cars coming out of Leavenworth lights. We could probably get that data too,” Farivar said.
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.