City takes slow approach to traffic changes

Grand Coulee’s council inched closer to a deal to address the Four Corners traffic question last Tuesday night.

The council voted to ask the Department of Transportation to move forward and install two “Your Speed Is” radar signs on SR-155 to improve the compliance rate of vehicles to the existing speed limit of 35 mph.

This is one of the steps that the DOT had suggested to the city in a memo sent to city hall a week ago.

The council isn’t ready to take on the idea of reducing the speed between Four Corners and the turnoff to Delano. There had been talk of reducing the speed between the two places to 30 mph. Part of that stretch of highway is now 35 mph and part 45 mph.

The DOT said it would be able to install the “Your Speed Is” signs almost immediately, but it wanted the city to act on it as soon as possible.

The city’s position is to approach any changes to the intersection area slowly. A change in the speed limit and other suggested changes will have to wait.

Ray Wells, who gathered some 1,100-plus signatures on a petition to do some major changes at Four Corners was at Tuesday’s meeting.

Wells had suggested a four-way stop at the intersection. That and an original suggestion of a “roundabout” never gained life.

“We’ll just keep taking it one meeting at a time,” Wells said later. “At least they’re listening and concerned with what we are doing here.” Wells said he has been keeping State Senator Linda Evans Parlette aware of what is going on in regard to the intersection.

The DOT stated in its memo that it had already purchased the hardware for installing the speed signs but noted the city would have to pay for the energy to operate them. That didn’t scare off the city, as the council moved ahead on the matter.

Other suggestions, such as removing the right turn lane westbound on SR-174, and other adjustments to traffic, will have to wait for another day.

The council, cautious that it might muddy up the problem, is going to approach the Four Corner traffic area in a slow and deliberate way.