Alderton Traffic Signal: Safer is Better
A new traffic signal
became operational February 2 at the intersection of SR162 and 96th St. E.
With the increased volume on SR162 this traffic control is timely.
Sumner School District must also breath easier without the threat of a
school bus accident at the intersection. Now turning on and off of SR162
is safer for their buses
from McAlder Elementary on 96th St. E.
No longer do you
risk a serious accident attempting to turn left from either roadway during
faster moving non-peak hour traffic conditions or during gridlocked peak
hour conditions. It would have only be a matter of time before another
fatality would occur at this section of highway.
Now, the next step
is to put in physical barriers or lane curbs along the left-turn lanes to
prevent cars from turning across these lanes into businesses. Double
yellow lines have been replaced by wide, solid lines to make it illegal to
cross them, however, it has made little difference. Until something is
done to prevent these turns, there is still the potential for accidents near
the intersection.
A couple of other
concerns are 1) how we manage development at the intersection and 2) how
much additional traffic might be feeding onto SR162. We need to
prevent retail businesses from creating more congestion at the intersection
through the Alderton/McMillin Planning Board. Now that the signal is
there, will there be additional traffic from the Bonney Lake Plateau using
96th St. E. to SR162, adding even more congestion to the highway during peak
commute hours? Can we discourage it by not improving the road surfaces
on 96th St. E?
Enough, negative
thinking, the most important thing is that we have improved the safety of a
busy intersection on SR162. We will need to keep making improvements
to this highway as Orting volumes increase and we will need to manage the
development that may result. The most important improvements we
can make are in traffic safety, because we all know that safer is better.
