By MATT JOHNSON

Record editor

As the opposition’s language became more strident this week, those opposing the planned widening of Bayview Road gave a unified thumbs down to the project.

Two meetings — one sponsored by the developers of Bayview Corner and the other by the county’s engineering department — left people living along the road angry at a number of aspects of the project, and several county engineers verbally battered.

On Wednesday, Bayview auto mechanic Ben Morgan got things going when he told about 100 people gathered at Bayview Hall there was little to like about the proposed $2 million project. He questioned the validity of cost projections first made six years ago and the county’s desire to completely rebuild the road.

“Any way you look at it, we’re paying for a road we don’t want or need,” he said.

At issue is the is the planned width of the road after improvements. The county plans to add 4-foot and 6-foot shoulders to the road, widen driving lanes by approximately 6 inches, and build an infiltration drainage system along more than 6,000 feet of the road. The width, according to county officials, is needed to make the road safer for drivers and pedestrians.

While the project is similar to those undertaken on other South Whidbey arterial roads in recent years, more than 50 property owners — according to Morgan — oppose the project so fervently that they are prepared to deny the county additional easements for the work.

While Morgan — who owns Morgan’s Automotive along with his father — has been offered a compromise that would minimize the easement the county needs to take out of the Marshview Avenue property, he is still fighting the project. At an open house put on by the county at the Bayview Senior Center Thursday, Morgan questioned the need for road shoulders measuring more than three feet. He said the extra width will encourage traffic to speed and make the road less safe.

To make his point, he referenced a petition to which 967 people have signed their opposition to the project.

“It’s about the whole community,” he said.

But at the Wednesday meeting, Island County Commissioner Mike Shelton tried to present the county’s view in a sympathetic way. He said that when construction starts in 2004, the county will “make every effort” to preserve trees along the road and minimize the impact to private property. To prove that he understood where the opposition is coming from, Shelton said he, too, was bit unsettled by some visual aspects of the project.

“I, too, was shocked when I drove down Bayview and saw those stakes,” he said.

But giving up on the project is not an option for the commissioner. He said paved shoulders are needed to safely move pedestrians and bicyclists along the road. In addition, he said the road improvements are part of the evolution of one of South Whidbey’s busiest roads.

County’s argument

does not convince

While this week a number of people objected to calling Bayview Road an arterial, Island County rolled out facts and figures to back up its plans. Traffic counts between 1996 and this year show portions of Bayview Road carrying, on average, more traffic than Langley, Cultus Bay or Maxwelton roads. A count done this spring yielded a daily average of 6,262 vehicles on the road between Highway 525 and Andreason Road. In a 2002 count, that number was lower at 3,852.

In 2001, Langley Road was the busiest arterial on South Whidbey with an average of 4,869 vehicles. Vehicle counts on all four major arterials during the past seven years range between 2,887 on Cultus Bay Road and the high count on Bayview Road. Counts are done during a three-day period.

Addressing the width of road shoulders for the project, Randy Brackett, the lead engineer on the project, said the state requires a minimum of 4-foot shoulders on new road projects — a fact confirmed by a Department of Transportation official this week. Six feet, as is planned for half the length of the project, is the state’s preferred shoulder width.

New from Island County this week is some willingness to work with property owners on making some adjustments to the plans to minimize the need for easements. In his presentation Wednesday, Shelton said the county has agreed to even “participate” in moving a home owned by Matthew Swett and Sarah Birger back from Bayview Road. The house would be within 4 feet of the pavement if the road is widened, but until this week the county had been unwilling to promise anything more than a guardrail in front of the home.

County officials stated again this week that they wish to start the road project by 2004. If the project is delayed or cancelled, the county will have to return about $1.5 million in state road money to the DOT.

Yet the resistance shows no signs of abating. At Wednesday’s meeting, Linda Moore, an attorney who works for Bayview Corner developer Goosefoot Community Fund, asserted again that the road project is unnecessary. Goosefoot has hired a law firm to negotiate with the state DOT on road standards in reference to the project and Moore, using an automotive analogy, told Commissioner Shelton that the road project is not in the interests of South Whidbey residents.

“We feel like we’re buying a Cadillac when we only need a Volkswagon,” she said.

Even more forceful in his objections was contractor Bob Dalton. At the Thursday open house, he question state shoulder width standards as he pointed out a portion of Bayview Road shoulder built by the state last year near the road’s intersection with Highway 525. The shoulder, in some places, was only 2 feet wide.

“Why are we exceeding what the state did?” he asked a small crowd of county engineers while pointing to a portion of the road plan.

The county open house held this week was the last scheduled public meeting.