Kirk Boxleitner

kboxleitner@ptleader.com

What began as a quest to make their neighboring roads safer became a firsthand lesson in civics for the students of the Jefferson Community School, whose building sits at the corner of the intersection of Washington and Quincy streets.

JCS instructor Catherine Smith and nine of her students braved the rain to poll motorists passing through the intersection on the morning of Oct. 8, and followed up by asking the same survey questions to pedestrians at the intersection during a similar time window on Oct. 15.

The Oct. 8 traffic survey collected 27 responses, 24 of which agreed the intersection presents a hazard, and 16 of whom reported experiencing either accidents or potential accidents there.

“One person we interviewed had his car totaled there,” seventh-grader Jesse Mohrbacher said.

Mohrbacher and eighth-grader Carl Li pointed out 23 or those motorists said they thought an all-way stop was the best solution to the hazard they saw posed by the intersection.

“Most of them agreed it would be too expensive to turn it into a roundabout,” 11th-grader Noa Montoya said.

“But they treat it like it’s an all-way stop already, even though the one street doesn’t have a stop,” Mohrbacher said.

When asked why the motorists behaved this way, Montoya relayed motorists’ comments that they tend to slow down when descending a relatively steep hill anyway, with Li adding that the curve in the downhill road was also cited by motorists as a reason to slow down.

“Which is interesting, because typically, motorists don’t want to stop unless they have to,” said Smith, who relayed other survey comments suggesting that the tourists who come to Port Townsend are confused by the intersection not being an all-way stop.

During the students’ walking survey on Oct. 15, they collected 73 responses from pedestrians, 47 of whom reported driving through the intersection, and 24 of whom said they had witnessed either a potential or an actual hazard there.

Of the pedestrians, 46 recommended the Port Townsend City Council alter the intersection’s layout, with 39 of those opting for an all-way stop, while the remaining seven favored a roundabout.

However, when the JCS students went to meet with Port Townsend City Manager David Timmons, they learned the city already had plans of its own for the intersection, by pushing the stop lines forward.

Still, Smith believes the experience was valuable enough for the students that she touted the benefits of having them conduct the survey, even if their suggestions might not ultimately bear any fruit.

“I almost didn’t want Mr. Timmons to give us a yes-or-no answer for that reason,” said Smith, who nonetheless spoke glowingly of how Timmons made himself available and accessible to the students. “Next time, though, we might look into what sort of work is in progress already.”

The students nonetheless expressed enthusiasm for the project, with Li saying that conducting the surveys was “fun,” and Montoya agreeing with Smith that it was valuable to find out which city officials to contact about such issues.

“We learned that small problems can have a big impact,” Mohrbacher said, again recalling the motorist whose car was totaled in the intersection. “If this intersection can be made a little safer, it can help prevent bad things in the future.”

Smith is heartened that her students now know how to obtain information from the city, as well as how to provide information to the city.

“And we also learned how public the whole process is, right down to their emails,” Smith said. “They have to be very scrupulous people in maintaining that correspondence, because it’s a matter of public record.”