SR 17/SR 282 Grant County paving/widening
August 15, 2009
issue of the WSDOT Express Lane.
A major central Washington stimulus project in July reached a milestone as crews began the asphalt paving of eight miles of State Route 17 from the Grant County Airport in Moses Lake to the junction with SR 282, and from there, all five miles of SR 282 to the junction with SR 28 in downtown Ephrata. Work began June 8 and was completed by October.
Char Elton, a Colville Tribal member from Omak, was operating the roller the first day of paving on SR 17 on Tuesday, July 28. This was her second stimulus job this year. The first one was a local project in Omak.
She had done flagging in the past but did not have any work lined up prior to Granite Northwest hiring her this past summer: “I’m just grateful to be working!”
Randy Manry, Granite Northwest’s General Manager for central Washington, said most of his people were working for him already, but without this stimulus project, “most would have been shipped around the state to work on other projects, away from home. The rest wouldn’t have had a job at all.”
His crews also built more than four miles of passing lanes as part of this combined project. Two 12-foot-wide passing lanes were added on SR 17 between the Grant County Airport and Rocky Ford Creek. The two-mile-long northbound passing lane starts at South Neppel Road and ends at Northlake Road. A two-mile-long southbound passing lane now runs between North Neppel Road and Northlake Road and another half-mile-long passing lane starts at South Neppel Road and ends at McConihe Road.
WSDOT Project Engineer Eric Pierson said the $6.2 million project, which supported some 75 jobs, came in 22 percent under the engineering estimate, “due to the economies that came by combining the widening projects with the two stimulus pavers.”
At the same time, said Pierson, “Without the ARRA funding, we only had the budget to build the passing lanes, but being able to pave the entire road surface dramatically improves the project for safety, smoothness, mobility and freight movement, as well as preservation.”
“I’m just grateful to be working."
