Night work began this week on S.R. 203 in Duvall, but the main event, requiring a complete eight-day closure of the road between Valley Street and Kennedy Drive, is still about two weeks out.
Traffic will be re-routed in two ways during the Aug. 17 to 25 closure: A “truck route” style detour that diverts traffic from S.R. 203 to N.E. 124th Street, then down the Valley to Woodinville-Duvall Road and back onto 203, bypassing the city entirely; and a city-traffic detour that will allow local drivers access to northbound 203 via N.E. Kennedy Drive and access to southbound traffic on N.E. 143rd Place.
Duvall project planner Shaun Tozer is hoping the multiple options work for traffic, saying “We do not want everybody to go the truck route and bypass all of downtown.”
The detours and closures will lengthen commutes for Duvall’s 13,000-trips-a-day traffic in the short term, but the project itself will also enable the city to stretch its infrastructure budget and expand its Main Street vision by building on top of the initial project.
“It’s kind of two separate, but interconnected projects,” explained Tozer. One project, to replace the concrete culvert that Coe-Clemons Creek flows through under 203, is a state Department of Transportation effort that has been planned since about 2005, Tozer said. The other project, to widen the road for sidewalks, safety railings and light poles, is part of Duvall’s long-term comprehensive plan for Main Street improvements, begun in 2008.
City staff were reluctant to make pedestrian improvements on the narrow roadway until after the state upgraded the culvert. It was only a matter of time, because the six-foot structure was insufficient for the stream, typically getting clogged with debris, leaving only about six inches of clearance for the stream to flow.
“They’ve known it’s been a maintenance issue,” Tozer said.
The new culvert to be installed in pre-cast concrete panels, after the water has been stopped upstream and pump back into the creek downstream of the project site, will be 12 feet high, 25 feet wide, and 76 feet long.
Most of the work is projected to be done within 30 days of the Aug. 2 start date. Cost for the project is $2.9 million, and the city of Duvall’s share will be roughly $700,000.
Next up, the city project is nearly design complete and Tozer said he hoped the project could go to bid by the end of this year. In addition to sidewalks and lighting, the project will bury utilities, replace storm lines and slip-line sewer lines as needed, and include bike lanes.
He estimated the project, covering 4,000 feet from N.E. Ring Street out to Big Rock Road, would cost about $8 million, not including the Coe-Clemons Creek portion of the road work project.
The city will pay for the project with a collection of grants, including $3.5 million from the state Transportation Improvement Board, and $1 million from the Puget Sound Regional Council.
