Ideas could steer junction traffic differently

A lot of footwork, phone calls and letter writing is paying off for Ray Wells, who obtained some 1,100 names in a petition encouraging the Department of Transportation to take a look at traffic control at the Four Corners intersection highways 174 and 155.

“I’ll be there,” Wells said last week, when he learned that the DOT would present possible solutions at the beginning of the Grand Coulee City Council meeting April 7.

Wells said he didn’t know of the upcoming meeting until he saw it in last week’s newspaper.

Wells was injured and spent a week in the hospital as the result of an accident at Four Corners two years ago.

The other party in the wreck got the ticket, and Wells got the injuries.

“When we hit, I flew over his car and was really crippled up,” he said Friday. “I will never give up getting something done at that intersection.”

Wells sent the petition in to the DOT a few months ago, and it must have caught someone’s attention. It is not often that you get a petition signed by 1,100 people about an intersection.

DOT traffic engineer Terry Berends said a week ago that he would be at the council meeting to show some ideas of what might be done at the intersection. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. and city officials stated that the DOT presentation will be the first thing on the agenda.

Berends stated that among the ideas is an oblong round-about, a four-way stop, and maybe some other ideas. There was no promise that anything would be done, but Berends will bounce some ideas around.

The DOT did some minor changes to the approach to the intersection over a year ago, after Carl Russell undertook a lobbying campaign to try to get a change.

The public is invited to hear the presentation.