Drawing of the proposed one-way project from the city of Richland website

Richland City Council has paused the plan to turn downtown portions of Jadwin Ave. and George Washington Way (GWay) into one-way streets.  The 2024-2029 capital improvement budget plan presented to the council on Nov. 7 by Finance Director Brandon Allen had a slide titled “Items not Included,” which had the $10.2 million originally budgeted for 2024 at the top of the list.

Allen explained briefly that it had been “pushed back a year.”

The project, referred to as the “couplet,” which also includes widening of GWay south of the one-way streets, recently ran into problems.

On July 31 the Herald reported that surveyors working in the front of GWay homes across from the Columbia Point Golf Course had startled residents who had not been alerted that their property might be impacted by road widening. Three of them complained at a city council meeting.

 In addition, according to the Herald, the city council discussed construction of a pedestrian overpass over the widened GWay before contacting the owner of the home the city had to purchase to build the project.

At least one Richland resident hadn’t heard about the pause in the couplet project. During the public comment period at the Nov. 21 council meeting, Kevin George asked the council, “I was wondering what the status is of George Washington Way and Jadwin going to one way?”

George told the Observer before the meeting that he lived in north Richland and worked at the Hanford site, so he didn’t commute to work on GWay or Jadwin. He said that he drove the streets often for errands and personal business and he believed that the couplet would make traffic problems in the area worse.

“It’s probably been four years since we actually did all the public comment, and review so there will be some further effort by the city to advise the public what’s going on and have an opportunity to speak,” Mayor Terry Christensen told George.

Christensen also said that “some partial funding is in place to try to begin the process.”

George told the council he’d like to see a public vote on road projects.