by MEREDITH M. GRIFFITH

Sounder contributor

Orcas Island will receive millions of dollars for capital and transportation projects as part of the 2015-17 budget package recently passed by the Washington state legislature.

“I think we did pretty well for this session,” said San Juan County council member Jamie Stephens. “I worked hard, Rick [Hughes] worked hard, and Bob [Jarman], to get some of these things done, and our legislators really worked well with us to get this much. We’ve had years where we get absolutely nothing.”

Funding includes $1.4 million for the Orcas Island Library; $760,000 for an Orcas Village Park and Ride at the ferry landing; $350,000 for a feasibility study to determine the best way to repair or reroute Lopez Island’s failing MacKaye Harbor Road; $243,000 from the Department of Ecology to install rain gardens and curb-gutter sidewalks along Eastsound’s Prune Alley; and $115,000 from the Recreation and Conservation Office to replace the dock at Odlin Park on Lopez. For San Juan Island, the county council had requested funding to construct a connector between Pear Point Road and Turn Point Road but was denied.

County Engineer Rachel Dietzman said the plan for the Orcas “park and ride” is to use the five-acre parcel belonging to Washington State Ferries above the newly installed ferry tollbooth. San Juan County would lease this parcel from WSF and develop it to include free 72-hour and possibly two-week parking to serve daily commuters and short-term visitors. Dietzman said that while public works has ideas for the project, the county expects to initiate an “extensive public process” before creating an actual plan.

“The goal of the park and ride is to get cars off of Orcas Road,” she added. “I think it’s going to be a huge benefit for Orcas Islanders; it’s going to improve safety on Orcas Rd.” While parking is clearly needed at the landing, Dietzman said that road funds cannot be used to install “parking,” but can be used to create a park and ride that will be viewed as a traffic reduction project. The lot will host charging stations for electric vehicles, and construction is expected to begin in 2016 or 2017.

On Lopez, MacKaye Harbor Road is built on a sand bluff and having significant erosion problems.

“The current road is falling into the water,” according to Stephens. He said the best strategy may be to reroute the road to avoid the alternative, which is “major armoring,” a strategy that can be problematic on an environmental level. He expects the project to provide better parking and access from the county park down to the beach. The allocated $350,000 will not include any construction, just preliminary feasibility work to determine the best route and to calculate costs.

Not specific to San Juan County, but also included in the state’s transportation package, is $300 million in new operating funds to guarantee ferry service levels for over six years, and an additional $40 million to build a fourth 144-car Olympic-class ferry. This is good news for the San Juan Islands regardless of where the ferry ends up serving, since a more functional fleet should result in fewer service interruptions due to local boats being “borrowed” to serve other routes.

“We also got a bill passed for Island and San Juan Counties that will allow us to use the road budget to put mooring buoys and other facilities at our road ends,” said Stephens.

He said there are quite a few road ends in the county that could offer public access to the shoreline. Most road ends are about 40 to 60 feet wide, and county public works would create signage to let the public know exactly where those access points are.