Clark County proposes single‑lane roundabout at NE Ward Road and NE Davis Road

Clark County project manager Paul Morin presented plans at an open house for a proposed single‑lane roundabout at the intersection of Northeast Ward Road and Northeast Davis Road, saying the project is now about 65% through design, has an estimated cost of just over $4.6 million and received a Highway Safety Improvement Program grant of about $2.5 million.

The roundabout is being proposed as a rural, single‑lane design with a truck apron, a relatively small central island (Morin said “probably maybe 12 feet or so, somewhere around there, give or take”) and extended shoulders to accommodate potential future sidewalks and bike access. The project also includes a stormwater infiltration facility to treat runoff before it enters the ground.

County officials said the design intent is to improve safety at a one‑way‑stop intersection the county identified through safety‑improvement programming, crash history and traffic counts. Morin said roundabouts are “statistically shown to reduce accidents” and that the project is funded through a mix of county local funds and the state safety grant.

Why it matters: County staff said safety and drainage are the driving concerns and that the project will affect nearby right‑of‑way and slopes. Morin said much of the right‑of‑way is already county property—some purchased about 20 years ago for a previously proposed signal—and that additional acquisition needs should be limited.

Design, schedule and funding Morin said the project is at roughly 65% design and that the county will submit that design soon, which will trigger environmental permitting. He said the biological assessment and resulting opinion will determine additional permitting and reporting requirements. "We're looking at late 2027 to begin construction. Ideally that is 2027, but most likely looking at 2028," Morin said.

Morin described the $4.6 million estimate as preliminary and tied to early design. "The grant number is solid," he said about the roughly $2.5 million awarded through the Highway Safety Improvement Program, while the county portion is identified as local funds. He said final plan, specifications and estimate (PS&E) milestones—90%, 99% and final—will produce a more precise total cost.

Community questions and staff responses Residents at the meeting asked whether the roundabout could be widened or built as a two‑lane facility like larger nearby roundabouts to better slow traffic and reduce queuing. Morin and Heather Davis, the consultant project manager on the team, said the design team can revisit options and run traffic simulations, but that the single‑lane rural design was chosen to balance safety, cost and the need to accommodate heavy trucks that serve local businesses. "We have to accommodate some of that business. We can't impede commerce," Morin said, and noted traffic engineers run simulations with larger vehicles to set the design.

On construction impacts, staff said they aim to keep traffic moving and to minimize full closures; major construction work would likely be a few months, although staff had no firm schedule for closures. On guardrail, staff said guardrail will be used only where slopes trigger the need; where slopes are flat enough (for example, 3:1 or 4:1) guardrail may not be required.

Other clarifications Staff explained the pink area on project exhibits is the "area of potential effect" used for environmental review and is not the roundabout footprint itself. They said the west side of the storm pond will be regraded to reduce steep drop‑offs and that the southeast slope will be set back so ditches lie beyond a flatter shoulder.

Next steps and contact Morin said the county will submit the 65% design for permitting the following week, will provide crash‑data references (WSDOT tracks crash trends) to meeting participants after the presentation, and will post the meeting recording to the project website within 10 business days. He gave contact information for followups and said staff will bring community design questions back to the engineering team for further analysis.

The project team at the open house included Paul Morin (project manager, Clark County), consultant designer McKay Spizzito, consultant project manager Heather Davis, community engagement staff Haley Shannon, Josephine Idem and Kaylee McLaughlin Burton, and Brett Gallup from Real Property Services for right‑of‑way matters.