Considered a “Hail Mary,” Lewis County officials believe scheduling $52 million in transportation funding for local projects is on track to be among the biggest successes in the state Legislature.
“This was by far the best news of the legislative session for Lewis County,” Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope said Thursday. “Because this is going to have a dramatic impact on us. It’s not every day that you get all the different entities to be on the same page, but there is complete buy-in on this.”
When completed, the goal of the projects is to reduce congestion by separating freight and commuter traffic on local roads while also developing alternate routes to many of the critical locations in the county.
“A lot of it is focused on separating the truck traffic and local traffic as well as pedestrians,” said Josh Metcalf, director of Lewis County Public Works. “The combination of all three projects will improve the congestion, separate truck and personal vehicle traffic, and then the Westside Connector will give another route for local traffic as well as another connecting route to the hospital.”
The $52 million in state funding for the projects was initially included in the state’s “Connecting Washington” package, though, before this session, additional funding was not set to come to Lewis County until after the 2027-29 biennium.
“To me, it was Hail Mary because there’s not a whole lot of money available for transportation, and, in fact, they’re short a billion dollars or whatever,” Swope said of restoring the funding schedule. “But they were able to get this back in and get it funded.”
According to Swope, Reps. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, and Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, secured $1.5 million during the 2023 session to complete a WSDOT traffic study of the area, which helped “validate” the need for the improvements and the scheduling of the funding.
“This is very important funding designed to improve industrial access in the north Lewis County area. I was concerned when I learned that it was not one of the projects kept on its prior schedule when the budget came out last year,” Orcutt said in a statement to The Chronicle. “Even before the biennial budget was passed last year, I began working to get this restored. Very pleased to get this back on schedule in the supplemental budget.”
Armed with the study, which was completed just before lawmakers returned to the Capitol in January, local legislators made their case to their fellow lawmakers about the need for the projects.
“The transportation funding, and revised timeline, secured in the state transportation budget is essential for Centralia and Lewis County,” Abbarno said in a statement. “I appreciate the bipartisan support to keep these projects on track and the commitment from our county partners to improve residential and commercial traffic flow in Centralia, as well as throughout north Lewis and south Thurston counties.”
Lewis County is now set to see an additional $6 million for local infrastructure improvements in the 2023-2025 biennium.
In partnership with the City of Centralia, the plan for Reynolds Avenue calls for a wider street, with sidewalks and street lights on either side of a three-mile stretch of road from state Route 507 to the intersection of Galvin Road and Harrison Avenue.
“This is something that’s going to be nice for people to be able to travel, to walk, to bike,” Swope said.
Combined with planned improvements to Harrison Avenue, the project is estimated to cost around $35 million.
The county hopes the project will spur future commercial and residential development in the area while providing a safer route for bikers and motorists alike.
“Not only does this improve our congestion, this is going to open up opportunities for more housing, especially on Blair Road,” Swope said.
A second project, the Westside Connector, aims to connect South Scheuber Road and Harrison Avenue to provide commuters with an alternate route west of Interstate 5 between Centralia and Chehalis. The project aims to decrease emergency response times and increase access to Providence Centralia Hospital and schools and parks located in the area.
Built in phases, the first stage will widen Scheuber Road North between Galvin and Mt. Vista roads and add sidewalks with street lighting and striping.
According to Metcalf, the county has $2.5 million committed to the project's first phase. A final price tag for the project is not yet known.
An additional project will extend Gallagher Road north to Harrison Avenue. In an August letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Transportation Committees, Metcalf wrote that while the project was unfunded at the time, “it could quickly be moved forward into the engineering and permitting phase if funding was available.”
The extension is expected to cost $20 million, and is projected to reduce traffic on Sandra Avenue and Galvin Road, between Gallagher Road and Sandra Avenue, per the WSDOT study.
“The Gallagher Road Extension is expected to reroute some freight trips that currently use the
Harrison Avenue/Interstate 5 interchange up to the Grand Mound interchange,” the study reads. “The Port of Centralia concurred with this analysis, stating that freight trips will often choose a longer, easier route over a shorter, more difficult route.”
