Colfax citizens forced to accept roundabout

COLFAX - The Washington State Department of Transportation held a presentation on the US-195 Colfax North Fork Bridge Replacement and Roundabout on Wednesday, Jan. 31, with several citizens showing concern and mixed feelings about the replacement of two bridges with a massive roundabout.

WSDOT Project Engineer Patrick Barclay told the Colfax community that the $13,273,000 project would remove the existing two bridges and replace them with a roundabout to accommodate Washington State Legislature requirements for Complete Streets RCW 47.04.035.

A concerned woman and Colfax citizen asked if there had been much discussion about not having two bridges as an option.

Barclay said that the decision was made before they came down and that part of the program was decided in one of the several parts of the project.

"We're losing businesses with the way you're planning on doing it," she said.

A male citizen responded that he was at the last meeting on Tuesday, Mar. 28, 2023, having stayed until the end to ask about not having an option for two bridges. "He said that decision came from up above, above them, above everybody here, and the main reason he got is because they don't want to maintain two bridges," he said.

"That is driven by cost," Barclay said.

In the presentation, Barclay discussed several models of T-intersections that the WSDOT transportation design team had compared with roundabouts, encouraging citizens to visit YouTube and look up t-bone or rear-end accidents in a roundabout.

Several citizens showed concern about EPA tests on all the oil tanks of the Chevron gas station being removed. The Chevron station sits where the proposed roundabout will go.

The Complete Streets requirement directs any project that costs $500,000 or more starting design on or after July, 1, 2022 to incorporate facilities with street access for pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transportation users.

Colfax City Council member Anne McCrae asked several questions to help WSDOT explain that the two current bridges are not viable anymore, with the legislation of Complete Streets incorporated into the design project.

"Right now, you have two bridges that are 22 feet and one three-foot sidewalk and one four-foot sidewalk," Barclay said.

McCrae asked that since the three-foot isn't viable, they have to make them complete streets going from 22 feet.

Barclay agreed, noting that the current footage is 58.

"This is going to a roundabout concept, taking 22 feet that would have to be 58 feet if we kept the two bridges, and that's not viable because of regulations that have been handed down and decided upon through our legislation and federal requirements for highway, right?" McCrae asked to help the room understand the concept of WSDOT having to fit within the parameters of the legislation.

Many citizens found the concept of a roundabout appalling, stating that they did not understand why the two bridges could not be kept.

Several understood that it was due to the legislation passed to accommodate pedestrians on the north side of town.

"People don't like change," Best Western Manager Caleb Cox said, adding that he felt that the WSDOT Engineer team gathered data to fix two bridges that desperately need repair.

"It's good that we have the opportunity to settle our concerns," said Alex Otero.

Several other citizens who had spoken up during the meeting declined to comment to the Gazette.

The project is currently in design and is expected to go to bid on Mar. 10, 2025, with the project continuing through the summer of 2027.