Sizing up three alternative Pt. Brown designs

The city of Ocean Shores convened a public meeting April 4 to discuss the preliminary design of what the city has called the Point Brown Avenue “sidewalks project.”

However, the project “has developed into much more than just a sidewalks project,” city Public Works Director Nick Bird acknowledged.

In what started several years ago as a design grant for bicycle and pedestrian improvements, the proposed project now includes two new roundabouts as part of three traffic alternatives, a redesigned median and choices for different parking access.

At a public meeting attended by about 50 residents and business owners, Bird noted that the original grant requirements in 2014 were limited to how bike and pedestrian improvements would impact other aspects of traffic, parking and use along Point Brown, the city’s main thoroughfare.

“What we did was take a step back and say, ‘Here’s an opportunity for us to really change the face of Ocean Shores. This is the entryway to Ocean Shores. This is a great opportunity to provide a facelift and to create an entrance that people remember,” Bird said.

Using additional funds from a Surface Transportation Program, Bird added, the city was able to fund 60 percent of its design, that now includes stormwater improvements along with other transportation-related improvements.

“What we’re hoping to do is to tap into those elements with the focus of rehabilitating our downtown corridor and creating a cohesive coastal town image,” Bird said.

The project, while improving pedestrian and bicycle safety, also is expected to help revitalize the commercial downtown core, and “improve aesthetics and continued easy access to local businesses with readily available on-street parking,” the city said in a notice about the public meeting.

A consultant team led by David Evans and Associates Inc. (DEA) has been retained to assist the city, which conducted an initial round of meetings with property owners and businesses last August.

From that, the consultant drafted the three design alternatives that were presented to the public for review on April 4 and are now available online on the city’s website.

Preliminary design funding is provided by state and federal grants, as well as a Grays Harbor County economic development grant. Grants to cover future phases, including final design, right of way purchases and construction are being pursued by the city as the project design progresses.

At the public meeting, citizens could vote on the three alternatives and several specific features, such as angle or parallel parking, or two lanes or four lanes for traffic.

Bird said the city would allow for online voting for about 30 days to give non-residents or those who may live out of town for the winter a chance to vote.

“I think it would be great to have more than just people who live here or work here or own businesses to provide input — because we do have a good number of visitors who come to the city of Ocean Shores,” Bird said.

Debra Seeman, transportation project manager for David Evans and Associates, noted she also is a part-time resident of Ocean Shores who grew up in Aberdeen as the lead on the first phase of the project.

“I feel I do have a good understanding of what this corridor looks like now and how it functions all throughout the year, which is drastically different from summer and winter,” Seeman said.

Bird noted the city currently doesn’t have money for phase two, but is pursuing state and federal grants. He vowed the city had no intention of asking for a Local Improvement District (LID) to pay for construction.

“The intent to fund this project is specifically through state and federal grants. Now there may be a local match that we may have to come up with; that’s something the City Council will have to discuss,” Bird said. “But it’s not really an option until we have grant funding on the table.”

As of last June, the city had budgeted $440,000 for the design phase, with a contract of $399,861 to David Evans and Associates, a well-established Northwest-based design firm.

Seeman told residents her design concept was to put “my feet in your shoes and understand what the needs are.”

The project would start at the city gate and go about 4,000 feet to the existing roundabout at Chance a al Mer. New roundabouts would be constructed at Magellan and Ocean Shores Boulevard, and at Shoal and Barnacle streets. The project also would have to go through an environmental review prior to final design and construction.

Top three alternatives

The three top alternatives were part of what Seeman called a funneling process, with comment from individual business owners along the route.

• Alternative A would reduce Pt. Brown into one lane going each way, with a turn lane in the middle. Parking would be head-in angled.

• Alternative B would keep Pt. Brown at two lanes in each direction, with a reduced median strip (12 feet wide instead of 20 feet present width) and parallel parking. There was no room for angled parking with a sidewalk and bike lane and the median without having to purchase more right-of-way.

• Alternative C would keep Pt. Brown at two lanes in each direction but take away the median strip to accommodate angled parking. Cars would have to use the roundabouts to make left turns or U-turns.

“Maintaining parking was one of the fundamental concerns,” Seeman said.

Other issues were “minimizing construction impacts, so that businesses can maintain their profitability during construction. Slowing down traffic so that people can see the businesses and access the businesses, and making it safer for pedestrians to cross at designated crosswalks.”

“We want to make this visitor friendly,” Seeman emphasized.

“The common theme was economic viability,” she added as an assurance to a number of business owners in attendance. “Our goal in the short term is to minimize construction impacts and in the long-term bring as many visitors in the door as we can.”

Adding the other two roundabouts would “maintain the corridor,” Seeman said. “You’ve already got a roundabout at Chance a la Mer. It’s really not a good traffic plan to intermingle roundabouts and traffic signals, and four-way stops are not desirable when you have multiple lanes in each travel lane.”

The roundabouts, she noted, also allow for U-turns and provide a means to slow down traffic in the main corridor.

In addition to asking for a preferred alternative from the three choices, citizens were asked to rank criteria such as pedestrian and bike safety, impact at roundabouts, parking, traffic flow, left-turn safety, available space for landscaping and construction cost.

Other design elements can be voted on, such as head-in or back-in parking, or bike lane placement. Online at www.osgov.com