Drivers using the intersection at Northeast 119th Street and 72nd Avenue will have to deal with backed up traffic through the summer.
The project to widen 119th is scheduled for completion around the second week of September, said Robin Washington, Clark County Public Works project manager.
“There’s so much construction going on right now,” Washington said. “They are waiting in queue for asphalt.”
The project will widen 119th from a two-lane road to one with two lanes in each direction, a center turn lane, bicycle lanes and sidewalks. It will impact 119th between 72nd and Northeast 87th Avenue. Prior to the construction, 119th was 40-feet wide, including ditches, and now the road will be 100-feet wide, including all lanes and sidewalks, Public Works spokesman Jeff Mize said.
“The purpose of this project is to increase the mobility of that road,” Washington said. “You just needed a smoother ride to get people through. Before, there was nowhere to recover if there was an accident or people had to pull over. They would have to pull into a ditch.”
Construction on the road causes traffic backups throughout the day. People sometimes sit at the intersection for 20 to 30 minutes, said Wendi Reynolds, owner of Clark County Floral in the Chevron shopping center at the intersection.
Reynolds said the construction also has slowed down business.
“It’s hard to get people to come in here,” she said. “Customers, brides, don’t want to deal with the traffic and don’t want to come over here.”
Maria Malone, manager of the store, said it’s also affecting online and phone orders.
“Delivering flowers is atrocious,” she said. “You have to take every back road possible.”
The store moved to its current location at 11811 N.E. 72nd Ave. about five years ago, Reynolds said, after dealing with construction at her previous Main Street location thanks to work being done on the state Highway 500 overpass. Now, Reynolds finds herself in a similar position, although she’s not looking to move.
“The people, the workers, have all been great,” she said. “It’s just messy.”
Reynolds isn’t sure if the new road is going to help or hurt business either. While the road is going to widen, she’s not sure if there’s going to be a center median, stopping people from making a left turn into her parking lot.
Mize said current plans call for a median on the south leg on 72nd and east leg on 119th, and the county has been in discussions with businesses on how to best serve them.
“We do understand businesses have concerns about this,” Mize said. “Medians are there for a reason, and that is to safeguard the public.”
The $19.3 million project is being partially funded with $3.54 million in grants from the Federal Highway Administration and $2.25 million from the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board. More than $3 million in sewer and water upgrades will be built in partnership with Clark Regional Wastewater District and Clark Public Utilities.
Work will continue on 119th next year, when the county will widen the road from Northeast 50th Avenue to the 72nd.
That work will be done over the course of one or two work seasons, Mize said.
That will be followed by widening 119th between 87th and Northeast 112th Avenue, which also will take one or two work seasons, Mize said.
