Most of Napavine’s population of roughly 2,000 live up on the hill, closer to the city’s downtown than to Interstate 5.
However, an estimated 10 to 15% of the Napavine Police Department’s total call volume comes from roughly 2.5 miles away from downtown Napavine, where Rush Road intersects with Interstate 5 at Exit 72.
“There’s problems with people coming out of the businesses and trying to navigate the traffic, and the truck traffic is really bad down there,” Napavine Police Chief John Brockmueller said.
“When you try and navigate those on- and off-ramps down there, your window of time is very small,” Mayor Shawn O’Neill said, recalling a recent incident where a passenger car hit a Napavine police truck trying to navigate that intersection.
Twice, O’Neill recalled, box trucks that tried to navigate a tricky turn at the intersection and flipped.
“There’s no regular timing down there. It’s tight,” he said.
The Exit 72 intersection was the primary topic of discussion between Napavine city officials and congressional Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, when she stopped by Napavine City Hall on her day-long visit to Lewis and Cowlitz counties on Tuesday, Jan. 23.
With construction of a new TravelCenters of America full-service truck stop already underway at the intersection, Napavine city officials are concerned with how increased traffic will worsen an already bad situation.
Napavine itself has the physical resources to support local growth, Napavine Community Development Director Bryan Morris told Gluesenkamp Perez on Tuesday.
“We don’t have an intersection that’s going to support that,” he said.
The City of Napavine has been working on ways to improve that intersection, O’Neill said, but lacks the funding to do so.
While there are multiple gas stations near that intersection that collect a large amount of gas tax money from travelers, the City of Napavine doesn’t receive a portion of that gas tax, O’Neill said. That tax money goes to the state, which so far hasn’t allocated funding towards improving the Exit 72 intersection, according to O’Neill.
The city has submitted funding requests to the Washington State Department of Transportation for years in an effort to receive state funds to improve the intersection, but so far hasn’t made the cut for funding allocation.
“I just don’t know what we’re doing wrong to miss out on getting on the (state’s transportation funding) list for being prioritized,” O’Neill said.
“I understand that our needs are often outside the perspective of legislators,” Gluesenkamp Perez said, adding that she shares O’Neill’s frustrations with the lack of investment in infrastructure.
“Part of what can give us more purchase, and I say ‘us’ as ‘people from smaller towns’ … is maybe about framing,” she said. As an example, she said there’s currently a lot of money available for climate resiliency, “so let’s reframe generator safety as climate resiliency, and then go after the grants. Just figuring out what’s the lens you need to use to … illustrate that there’s a real utility,” she said.
Gluesenkamp Perez recommended the city look into Washington Main Street programs as a possible avenue to get some local money to go towards improving that intersection.
The program allows businesses to donate their Business & Occupation (B&O) or Public Utility tax (PUT) credit as private contributions given to eligible downtown organizations.
“That’s why all these small towns are doing it, because they’re able to bring back some money to some local projects, to return value or utility to the residents,” Gluesenkamp Perez said.
While Main Street projects are usually located in the city’s downtown, Gluesenkamp Perez said they might be able to propose an intersection improvement project in a way that highlights the local benefit.
Gluesenkamp Perez also shared information about her recently introduced bipartisan bill, dubbed the “Streamlining Federal Grants Act,” which seeks to standardize and coordinate grant administration across the federal government to make it easier for communities and organizations to apply for grants.
“It’s not a level playing field, at all, in small and rural communities. We’re just not getting the same access to dollars,” Gluesenkamp Perez said.
In a news release from her office about her Jan. 23 visit to Lewis and Cowlitz counties, Gluesenkamp Perez stated, “A common refrain was that our government needs to be investing in rural communities and making life easier for small businesses, and I’m glad to say I’ve introduced bipartisan legislation to address both.”
