FAQ

This project will

• Fix a series of intersections that together create a terrifying route for vehicles and a missing link for bicycles or pedestrians.
• Provide a timely and cost-effective, “practical design” alternative to the much overcrowded SR 162 (Orting Highway) and SR 167 through Sumner, both of which will require long-term, major solutions.  This solution will be led by City of Sumner, known for leveraging grant funds and producing successful projects that benefit the region.

• The opening of the Gordon Family YMCA, the largest such facility in Washington State, eclipsed all use projections. YMCA leadership expected to reach 20,000 members within five years and instead hit the milestone within 10 months. Yet, members are finding it difficult to access the facility and worse, commuters are using the Y’s parking lot as a cut-through since traffic on the Sumner-Tapps Highway, on 166th Avenue and 64th Street E is all at a standstill thanks to this one bottleneck.
• The East Sumner Neighborhood Plan uses the popularity and traffic for the regional YMCA to redevelop the area with businesses and mixed-use residential. Such redevelopment will bring more people within walkable range of the Y, but such development will not occur if the bottleneck at SR410 is not fixed.

It is clear that both interchanges have major capacity issues. However, SR 162 has just congestion issues while 166th Ave also has safety issues. The 166th interchange has ramps with no signals and creates an unnerving situation for drivers...plus a lot of congestion too. Accident data shows that while both interchanges have a similar number of accidents, the 166th interchange has a much higher rate of the more dangerous turning accidents rather than rear-enders.

Plus, the fixes on 166th Ave are relatively easy to make and cheaper than the major overhaul that SR 162 will need all the way down to Orting to really relieve any congestion. Best to make the quicker fixes first and use 166th Ave as a viable alternate before tackling SR 162.

This a great question.  The City worked with WSDOT over a two-year period and considered many options, including a full reconfiguration of the existing ramps.  

Any impact to existing privately-owned land in a ramp reconfiguration layout would have been greater than the impact currently planned and may have required condemnation of adjacent property owners.  The City and WSDOT both need to fully justify project-required impacts to property owners as minimize as reasonable.  Additionally, WSDOT prefers roundabouts due to their safety and maintenance benefits, and WSDOT preferred the existing ramp configuration.  Through the conceptual analysis and coordination with WSDOT traffic engineers, the City and WSDOT engineers determined the two roundabout layout is the best layout moving forward.