Clemons Road stoplight

Perfect storm, and not a good storm

Waste Connections has plans to move the LeMay Transfer Station next to the National Guard Armory on North Clemons Road near Montesano. The proposal includes a traffic light on Highway 12 at the Clemons Road intersection. Traffic traveling west climbs a 5 percent grade before reaching the proposed stop light at the intersection. This creates a very hazardous driving situation as commercial vehicles stopped by the light at the bottom of the grade have difficulty reaching highway speeds by the time they reach the top of the hill.

Traffic coming across the Wynooche flats increase their speed often above the speed limit, to pull the hill without shifting down and losing momentum. All of a sudden the traffic light changes, or they come upon a log truck just crawling up the hill after it was stopped from a previous stop light, and all hell breaks loose. Large trucks hauling heavy loads don’t stop as fast as passenger cars. Motorists following these large trucks will try to pass by veering out to the left lane to avoid being delayed by the slower moving traffic. This is the “the perfect storm” for a chain reaction collision.

To complicate this situation a “blind spot” is created by the sun as it falls in the western horizon during the summer and early fall months. Motorists traveling west up the grade before Clemons Road have very limited visibility because of this. The light will stop traffic or cause slow moving vehicles to be right in the middle of this blind spot. Vehicles building speed to climb the grade won’t even see them, until it’s too late.

The State DOT was presented with three flawed options by Waste Connections to solve the traffic problem. They approved the stoplight as the best of these options and didn’t even address the problems described in the above paragraphs in their feasibility study. The county needs to require Waste Connections to look at the other options that will better solve the traffic problem. The stoplight is not the right or final solution. How many accidents and deaths need to occur before the DOT will do what they should have done in the first place?

I would like to bring to the attention of the community that the comment period for the State Environmental Policy Act Review for the relocation of the garbage transfer station and the US 12 traffic signal is open until May 4.

If you have a concern about this proposal, please send it to Planning Division, Jane Hewitt at jhewitt@co.grays-harbor.wa.us) before May 4. Comments must be in writing and can be emailed, hand delivered or mailed.

John Rabey

Montesano