Category Archives: Public Service Announcements

SR162 Community Group needs help

Neighborhood Security, Public Service Announcements, Safety

Elvin Lerew aske me to post this for the SR162 Community Group.

The SR162 Community Group has been working alongside the Tehaleh development and Tehaleh has submitting a formal request to the legislature that SR162 be examined along with the other possible state corridors to serve the traffic from Tehaleh’s new highway down to SR162/128th.

The Tehaleh development will be bringing a massive amount of traffic to the valley when their new road is built.  A large portion of that traffic will be westward bound and will be using Military Road as that east-west corridor.  As you may know, the SR162 Community Group has proposed that the county consider a 128th street westbound extension from SR162/128th to reduce traffic on SR162 and Military road.  The county has completed an initial study on this proposal and have agreed that it is viable.

We need to move ahead with the next level of a feasibility study.  Because this new corridor would serve to lighten the load on SR162, the state has a stake in the success of this new corridor and should support it by joining with Pierce County on the assessment process of how to create it.

Your support is needed to convince the legislature that SR162 is an important corridor for Pierce County and needs to be included in the ongoing study for an improved east-west transportation corridor that would improve traffic flow on SR161 (Meridian), SR7 (Pacific Ave) and SR507 (Spanaway McKenna Hwy).

The legislature is now in session, but only for 90 days. Please contact your legislature now and ask that SR162 improvements be examined along with other possible state corridors to serve the traffic from Tehaleh’s new highway.  You can find an easy reference to key legislators and their email addresses on the SR162 Community Group Please Help web page, https://sr162traffic.org/Please-Help/ 

We need your help so that Military Road does not end up with stop and go traffic and so that SR162 does not become even worse than it is. 

 

Important Pierce County Survey

Public Service Announcements, Safety

Elvin Lerew ask that this be posted. We need to answer this survey to get our voices heard.

Hello,Pierce County is running a survey through Dec. 20, 2021 to find out how people use active transportation in unincorporated Pierce County. Visit www.PierceCountyWa.gov/Active to learn more and take the survey.Survey available in several languages

The survey is available in English, Spanish, Russian and Korean.

Visite www.PierceCountyWa.gov/Active antes del 20 de diciembre de 2021 para realizar la encuesta en español sobre por qué y por dónde camina, anda en bicicleta y utiliza otras formas de transporte activo.

По адресу www.PierceCountyWa.gov/Active можно до 20 декабря 2021 года пройти опрос на <язык> о том, почему и куда вы ходите пешком, ездите на велосипеде или пользуетесь иным видом активного транспорта.

2021년 12월 20일까지 www.PierceCountyWa.gov/Active 를 방문하여 능동 교통수단을 이용하는 이유와 장소에 관한 <언어> 설문조사에 참여해주십시오.

We need your help

This survey will help us develop the Pierce County Active Transportation Plan, so we are hoping for a large response. Please help us by promoting this survey to your customers, clients, families, members, etc.

Visit www.PierceCountyWa.gov/Active to find a toolkit with materials you can use to help spread the word.

Request paper copies or contact us

Please contact us with any questions. You may also request paper copies of the survey, a promotional handout, and a promotional poster.

Online: www.PierceCountyWa.gov/Active

Phone: (253) 798-3552

Email: ActiveTransportation@piercecountywa.gov

Mail: PPW Transportation Planning

2702 South 42nd St. Suite 109

Tacoma, WA 98409

Thank you for your consideration,

Shawn Phelps

Senior Transportation Planner

Pierce County Planning & Public Works

(253) 798-3552 | shawn.phelps@piercecountywa.gov

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The Traffic Mess – 122nd St E. & Shaw Rd. E.

Public Service Announcements, Safety

Currently new roads are being approved or updated without looking first at what the end result of those projects will be. Three good examples come readily to mind.

  1. Shaw Rd. E. on Puyallup’s South hill was closed for many months, which forced traffic to find alternate routes to areas south of Puyallup. Traffic increased on Military Rd./122nd E. as a result, and when Shaw Rd. E. reopened it was with a series of planters down the middle and an extra wide sidewalk on the east side. Effectively it is still a two-lane road, which now will be more costly to widen because of the useless planters and wide sidewalk.
  2. A new road has been approved from the huge Tehaleh subdivision to SR162 in the valley. This will route more vehicles up Military Rd. E./122nd E.
  3. A new 120-unit subdivision is being constructed on the corner of Shaw Rd. E. and 122nd E. The planners stated that it would put almost 1000 new trips per day on 122nd St. E. yet would “have no significant impact on traffic in the area”.

In all three cases the result has been/will be greatly increased traffic on 122nd St. E. with vehicles trying to get to South Meridian and/or points south.  Already Military Rd. E. is a virtual parking lot at certain times of the day.

I live east of Shaw Rd. E. and must take 122nd St. E. to access the main part of South Hill unless I want to go down into the valley and take SR 162 in a very circuitous route. As you know the traffic on 122nd St. E. has increased several fold over what it was as little as seven years ago. I no longer take Military Rd. E. to the intersection of 122nd St. E. and Military Rd. E. when I am going down into the valley as I feel it has become too dangerous to do so. A couple of years ago I was entering 122nd St. E. from Military Rd. E. traveling towards Shaw Rd. E. and had accelerated so that I was a hundred yards or so on 122nd St. E. I was overtaken by a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed which swerved into the oncoming lane to pass me and then swerved back to miss the oncoming vehicles. Fortunately, this is not a common occurrence, but I remember it many times when I go onto 122nd St. E.

Now we have another potentially serious problem at the corner of Shaw Rd. E. and 122nd St. E.  where a housing project with 120 dwellings is being built. I understand that homes 300ft. from the project were notified of it and a yellow sign was posted along Shaw Rd. E. at some time.  Since there is no place to pull off and read the sign it was not very informative. Therefore, the project was kept pretty quiet. I understand that it is estimated that the project will generate almost 1000 trips a day, and this was deemed as insignificant. So insignificant that a dedicated turn lane was not even required.  When the road from Tehaleh is pushed through and traffic uses 122nd St. E. to access South Hill, South Meridian and all the subdivisions to the south, things will become truly horrible.

It seems to me that Pierce County is going at things backward.  They have known for a long time that their plans will funnel traffic through 122nd St. E., turning a sleepy secondary road into a nightmare for residents who live along it.  Especially since some homes have driveways which meet 122nd St. E. directly. Would not it have made more sense to first connect 122nd St. E. to S. Meridian even if you had to exercise Imminent Domaine to do so and widen the existing 122nd St. E. to accommodate the increased traffic that other road projects will bring? Or perhaps extend 128th St. E. so that it meets 128th St. E.  on the top of South Hill. Instead, Pierce County has chosen to create a problem by not looking at the consequences of their actions and doing things backward. When Pierce County closed Shaw Rd. E. for a long project, people discovered that they could go from the valley and up Military Rd. E./122nd St. E. to bypass the construction on Shaw Rd. E. This greatly increased the traffic on Military Rd. E./122nd St. E., and it remains increased to this day. The plan to drive a new road into the valley from Tehaleh will surely increase the traffic up Military Rd. E./122nd St. E. many fold.

It is past time for Pierce County to be proactive in its road planning and to look at the problems new roads will produce.  Then they can start at the correct place to alleviate potential problems the increase in traffic will cause.

New Traffic Study

Public Service Announcements, Safety

Below is some information from a County Traffic Planner about the traffic study which was just started.  If more information becomes available we will let you know.

Dan Cardwell, Long Range Planning Supervisor, referred to me your question regarding the presence of traffic counters in your neighborhood.  I passed on your inquiry to our traffic engineering group.  They indicated that they are now collecting field data to assess and evaluate an community member’s concern at the intersection of 136th Ave E and Military Rd E.  Scott Moeller, ( scott.moeller@piercecountywa.gov ) ,  Civil Engineer, of the Traffic Section staff is the point of contact for this project.  Based on the timeline of 4 to 6 weeks for this investigation, you may want to contact Scott at the end of December or beginning of January to check the status of this assessment.  I am copying Scott on this email for your reference and to make him aware of your possible interest in this issue.

 

More Future Traffic Problems

Public Service Announcements, Safety

Wayne Reibold has alerted us to another future traffic problem at the bottom of Shaw Road. The City of Puyallup is looking at a huge expansion of warehouse space in what was formally Knutson Farms, between East Pioneer and East Maine. This will adversely impact the traffic entering and leaving Shaw Rd. at East Pioneer or East Maine.

Please go to the link below and check it out.  This is just another example  of the failure to have a realistic traffic plan for this area, and we the residents are the ones who will suffer for the lack of foresight.

http://www.cityofpuyallup.org/civicalerts.aspx?AID=1020 

Increasing Traffic on 122nd St East – Its Going to get WORSE – Much WORSE

Neighborhood Activity, Neighborhood Security, Public Service Announcements, Safety

Below is a note that one of our neighbors in the Shawnee Ridge development is sending to the people of Shawnee Ridge.  I think it contains some good information about concerns all of us should have. Exiting from any area on to 122nd St E has gotten much more difficult over the last two years, and it is going to get worse, much worse. Unless we act now we are going to find ourselves with long waits to get out of our areas/driveways, followed by a mad dash hoping not to be smashed by approaching vehicles.

I know the situation is dangerous as it is now.  One day I stopped at Military Rd. E. and 122nd St. E., checked for traffic and pulled out smartly on to 122nd St. E. going west. I had gone only 30 to 40 yards on 122nd when a vehicle whizzed by on my left, cut in front of me and sped away.  I have no idea how fast he was going, but am glad he missed me and the oncoming traffic.

“Signatures needed on Petition at SR162traffic.com.” 

“if you are concerned about privacy please note that you only need to fill in the starred boxes at SR162traffic.com petition to register your concern.  The more signatures we can get the better we hope it will be for traffic in our neighborhood.”

Neighborhood HOA

I live in the Shawnee Ridge HOA and have been involved in the SR162 Community Group for almost a year.  You may have seen our signs on SR162 advertising our Website, “SR162traffic.org”.  Our main focus right now is to try and stop Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) from building a roundabout at SR162 and 128th street.  You can go to our Website to learn more but let me explain briefly how a roundabout at 128th street impacts your homeowners. 

Tehaleh is the largest development in Washington State.  Close to 10,000 homes are expected to be built in this development at completion.  For the month of October Tehaleh sold an average of 12 homes a week.  In order for the builder to continue to keep building these homes the county is requiring them to build a four lane road from their development down to 128th and SR162.  WSDOT has no plans to expand SR162 to handle this additional traffic which is expected to increase SR162 traffic by 150%. 

This has a direct impact to traffic on Military road and south hill.  Traffic wanting to go west are expected to use Military road to get off the gridlock of SR162.  When the new road to Tehaleh opens up, the traffic on military is expected to increase 135% to 150%.   In addition, if the roundabout is allowed to be installed at 128th, the next roundabout is planned for SR162 and Military road.  A total of 11 roundabouts are planned between Orting and SR410.  Once the Military roundabout is installed there will be few breaks in traffic that will allow you to get onto Military Road/122nd St. E.

This is the primary reason I am involved with the SR162 Group.  We need traffic signals on SR162 to provide breaks in traffic.  We will also need traffic signals on Military Road so we can get out of our neighborhoods safely. 

We have been discussing improvements for the Military Road corridor with the county transportation division that would help with the safety issues but they are years away. 

We are asking that you would join us in stopping these roundabouts by communicating the information provided here to your residents so that they all know about this future traffic mess.   We also have a petition on our website SR162traffic.org that we are asking everyone to sign that requests the state to do required reviews that would look at the traffic impacts of a roundabout.  This petition will be provided to our legislators in Olympia who we are already talking to, to get them to demand traffic signals instead of roundabouts on SR162.

SR162 Community Group

Elvin Lerew email etlerew@hotmail.com

BMX Bike thefts

Neighborhood Security, Public Service Announcements

There have been a rash of BMX bicycle thefts recently.  One appears to have been 0.1 miles from my home, but in an area our Neighborhood Cameras do not cover.  The owner of this BMX stated that his “Ring” camera did not catch the theft.  This is not surprising  as the original “Ring” cameras were meant strictly as entry way cameras.  Another was stolen from the 7-11 at the corner of Meridian and 128th.  Its picture is the bike at the forefront in the 2nd picture.

I am posting pictures of these bikes as a public service with the hopes that they will be recovered.  The owners were told to check “Offer Up”,  “Craig’s List”, and other sites in the hopes that they will show up there.  At least one of the owners of the bikes shown below have filed a police report, which will make it easy to recover the bikes if they show up on any of the selling sites.

BMX Stolen at 7-11 on Meridian and 128thStolen BMX bicycle

Emergency Request For Comments

Public Service Announcements

Elvin Lerew one of our neighbors in Shawnee Ridge has sent me some material about the Miles Sand and Gravel Mine on the east side of the valley.  As you know the operation has been expanding steadily over the past several years, and a new large product pile has appeared on the crest of the hill around 3000ft south of the original mining operation.

Now Miles Sand and Gravel has asked for an amendment to Conditional Use Permit CP11-08, Fennel Resources,  Application number: 939160 and 940194.  If granted, these changes will change the view we enjoy toward Mt. Rainier for the next 20 to 30 years or longer.

Please write to express your views of this unwarranted change to the original permit.  Below are copies of the  amendment application and Elvin’s letter.  There is a very short deadline.  Comments must be in by close of business on 9 September 2020. Please send comments (citing  Conditional Use Permit CP11-08, Fennel Resources,  Application number: 939160 and 940194) to:

 Pierce County Planning and Public Woks                                                                       Development Center                                                                                                                                   2401 South 35th Street, Room 2                                                                                                     Tacoma, Washington 98409

I apologize for the orientation of some of the documents but this was a rush job.

Tehaleh Road0001Tehaleh Road0002Pierce-County- Planning-and-Publics9