I have been walking, driving, and photographing the Port Townsend city streets for more than a year, and I am appalled to find that we have significantly more arterial and neighborhood streets in serious disrepair than are in decent shape. Our local streets are hazardous to public safety of motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. They are so deteriorated many can no longer be repaired  effectively, and will have to be torn up and repaved at prohibitive expense to city taxpayers.

Port Townsend currently “maintains” 88 miles of arterial and neighborhood streets. According to a 2010 online chart of generic “cost per mile” of blacktop, new construction of two-lane urban arterial streets averaged $3,818,886.34 per mile. Resurfacing existing two-lane urban roads averages $484,922.04 per mile.

All but a few of our streets are in need of serious remediation. It is not unrealistic to imagine $20 million to $50 million is needed to bring these neglected streets up to a minimum standard. City officials tell me “we do not have the money to fix the streets”, so they continue to deteriorate, thus going from the half-million-dollar repair category to the four-million-dollar per mile column.

Apparently, there is plenty of money for the Howard Street and Rainier Street business parks and the expensive Discovery Road round-about. The Water Street beautification project went significantly beyond the street and utility repair project it was billed as, and the project currently underway in front of the Chamber of Commerce/EDC offices reportedly will cost local taxpayers $600,000.

I have come to the conclusion that the issue is not that the city doesn’t have enough money, but rather it has warped priorities. Our community arterial and neighborhood streets are a critical component of our quality of life in Port Townsend. They should have priority over the speculative development projects.

Larry Dennison
Port Townsend