As of today, motorists trying to get through Auburn to the Muckleshoot Casino, the White River Amphitheatre, the city of Enumclaw, Mount Rainier or other destinations to the east must all too often fight and claw their way through horribly crowded Auburn streets.
During the busiest hours of the day, automobile agglutination makes that a flat-out pain.
But the new transportation package that passed out of the state Legislature on Tuesday should offer good news for beleaguered Auburnites.
That is, $15 million for a new Highway 18 off-ramp to bypass the aforementioned mess before joining Highway 164 past the casino, and the completion of State Route 167, which is part of the $1.5 billion Puget Sound Gateway Project.
As the largest transportation project in the state, the Gateway project plans calls for the completion of not only of 167 but also SR 509.
Rep. Christopher Hurst, D-Enumclaw (31st District), who has championed both projects for years, was in a celebratory mood Tuesday. He noted that lawmakers of both parties wrote and supported the transportation plan.
“This project will be under way shortly and will dramatically reduce traffic in Auburn, Highway 18 and State Route 167,” Hurst said.
The Muckleshoot Tribe, which owns the old Miles Sand and Gravel Pit. has agreed to donate the land and put some money toward the bypass project
As Washington depends on international trade perhaps more than any other state in the nation, Hurst said the completion of Highway 167 is of enormous importance to the region and the state.
“Highway 167 now dead-ends in town and sends semis onto city streets, which causes a lot of traffic and damage to local roads,” Hurst said. “Finishing the highway sends all those trucks directly to the port instead of onto local streets. I’ve been fighting to finish this highway for years, so it’s tremendously satisfying to get that done for my friends and neighbors. This one is worth celebrating.”
“Locally, it will help just regular people,” Rep. Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, said of the project. “It will help relieve congestion so regular people can get to their work more quickly. But it’s also really important for the state because it will ensure you can get your goods to and from the market a lot faster and cheaper.”
Months ago the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma formed a historical alliance wherein they decided to stop competing against each other but to compete against California and Canada. Both of those ports are making large investments to attract business from Asia that had been coming into Washington ports.
“With the pending widening of the Panama Canal, cities like Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., are investing in their ports to lure more of the West Coast business to go over to the East Coast. That means Washington state is facing national and continental competition that it hasn’t really faced before,” Stokesbary said. “This project is really important to just keep what we have. But if all goes well, we might be able to expand the amount of business that we’re bringing in.”
Stokesbary said the funding covers design work through construction on 167 and 509, and “we shouldn’t need any more money to finish 167.”
“The third off-ramp should relieve a lot of the pressure that is going out to where I live in south Auburn and definitely to all the folks living out on the Enumclaw Plateau. It will definitely take some of that pressure off of downtown Auburn and a couple miles down the road,” Stokesbary said.
