There’s an excellent letter in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun by first-term state representative Fred Finn (D-35th District) in which he urges that the Belfair Bypass be taken off the shelf (link at end of post). The idea of a bypass has been around since the 1980’s, and currently there is almost no local opposition. Nor is there much disagreement on when we need it: now. Yet budget woes have delayed the project until at least 2019. In the interim, it has little chance of competing successfully for funds against the state’s mega transportation projects. So I was curious why Rep. Finn wrote the letter. To find out why, I asked him.
First some background. The bypass would give drivers on State Route 3 the option of going around Belfair—an unincorporated retail area in Mason County that gets more congested every year—instead of through it. The Washington Department of Transportation (DOT) has spent millions studying the bypass. With each new look, the project grew more involved and more expensive. I drive through Belfair a couple of times a week going from Bremerton to Treasure Island. I’m in favor of the bypass, although I wouldn’t use it every time because I do a lot of shopping in Belfair.
A few years ago Tim Sheldon, the long-time state senator from the 35th District, was elected as a Mason County commissioner while retaining his senate seat. Working at both the county and state levels, I figured he could move the bypass off the drawing board and onto the list of funded projects. No chance. Faced with a $9 billion shortfall in 2009, the state legislature directed DOT to delay it. Meanwhile transportation projects along the I-5 corridor keep getting funded. When Sen. Sheldon couldn’t raise the bypass’s priority, I figured it was dead.
The frustrating thing about the bypass is that, unlike many DOT projects, it would actually work. Instead of the marginal improvements DOT makes in other areas, like tolling the HOV lane on SR 167, there would be an immediate and long-term improvement as soon as the bypass opened.
So I was a bit cynical when I read Rep. Finn’s letter. Was he trolling for votes by restating an issue that everyone in the area understands or did he think he could actually move the project forward? As a freshman this year, he worked hard but didn’t seem to have a lot of influence in his caucus. At one point I asked him whether I could expect to see him on TVW’s “Inside Olympia” program. He wrote back and said probably not. He was correct.
Rep. Finn’s reply to my email about his current letter is encouraging:
Thank you for your email. Like you I have been caught in that terrible Belfair traffic, particularly at rush hour. My purpose in the letter is to raise the visibility of this issue and try to get the bypass back on the table for funding when the economy returns. I was able to get language in the last budget requiring the DOT to relook at the project with an eye to finding a less expensive alternative than the costly one they were proposing. There will be a hearing on this issue by the Spring…
If he does what he says, he has my vote in 2010.
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