Steve Bloom/The Olympian
State planner Dave Schilperoort leads a tour through a closed trail near Deschutes Parkway on Wednesday.

Parkway repairs to begin soon

Quake-damaged road could reopen by December

PATRICK CONDON THE OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA -- Downtown business leaders got a firsthand look Wednesday at the sloping roads, cracked sidewalks and collapsed earth that stand in the way of Deschutes Parkway being open to traffic once again.

Officials with the state Department of General Administration gave the tour to business leaders in anticipation of work getting under way this summer to repair the battered road and pedestrian thoroughfare.

I-5 link will close

In June, the portion of Deschutes Parkway that remains open -- from Lakeridge Avenue southeast to Interstate 5 -- will close as well, to make way for the $7.1 million repair project. The portion of the parkway from Lakeridge to the Fifth Avenue bridge has been closed since being battered by the Feb. 28, 2001, earthquake.

Since then, little work has been done on Deschutes Parkway, and the damage viewed Tuesday looked as if it could have been inflicted a day earlier.

Guides warned tour participants to watch their step as they climbed over crumbling sections of trail and sidewalks with the ground caved out from under them.

Dave Schilperoort, a facilities manager for GA, said that once the bids are finalized and the contractor is ready to go, work will begin in late June or early July, with a goal of reopening the parkway by Christmas.

"They'll be working evenings, weekends," Schil-peroort said. "We'll be working very aggressively to get this done by December."

The road repairs will incorporate materials to make the parkway more resistant to future earthquakes. Of the $7.1 million price tag on the project, the federal government will foot about $6 million and the state of Washington will pay for the rest. Deschutes Parkway is owned by the state.

The work also includes new stormwater drainage, new street lights, two bicycle lanes, a parking lane, a jogging path and new trees and landscaping.

However, some of those amenities won't be installed until summer 2003.

At the same time as the road work is taking place, crews will also be installing new pipes for the LOTT Wastewater Alliance. Schilperoort said it would save the work of having to go back in a second time. "If there's one blessing to all of this, it's that," he said.

While GA officials are vowing to stick to the timelines as much as possible, they admit the work will be difficult and time-consuming.

"It's not going to be until they start digging that they see the real impact of that earthquake," said Tom Frare, the project manager for the Fourth Avenue Bridge replacement, which is being coordinated with the parkway work.

"They've got quite a project ahead of them -- expect there to be changes."

Kevin Stormans, the owner of the Bayview and Ralph's Thriftway grocery stores, said downtown merchants support the plan as proposed and are ready for another summer of what they know will be some disruptions to their business.

"We've been through it already," Stormans said. "I'm just glad they're resolving to do it quick."

Some business owners expressed concern about truck traffic through downtown during the project. Officials said they'd try to divert the traffic around downtown as much as possible, with much of it possibly sent up and down Lakeridge Avenue. The effects of the earthquake on Lakeridge were minor, officials said.

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