Question: There’s a potentially dangerous situation happening at the Union Avenue exit from Highway 16. Although the left lane of the exit is designated for vehicles turning south, drivers increasingly are using that lane to make a wide right turn northbound on Union.
I’ve witnessed many near accidents and lots of tempers flaring. So many vehicles are making the illegal right, traffic in the right lane backs up onto (state Route) 16, further exacerbating the excitement of the merge from I-5.
Is there any way to ask that a police officer be positioned there for a couple of days just to observe – and scare – drivers who have adopted this habit?
– Marita Robbins, Tacoma
Answer: The State Department of Transportation probably started that bad habit while it was working on the westbound Nalley Valley project.
During construction, workers striped the Union intersection to allow both exiting lanes to turn right, trying to make up for the Sprague intersection being shut down.
“What’s probably happening is that drivers in the left lane haven’t noticed we changed the configuration back,” said Transportation spokeswoman Claudia Cornish.
The Washington State Patrol has jurisdiction on the ramp itself. Once traffic enters the intersection, jurisdiction belongs to the Tacoma Police Department.
Thanks to you, Marita, the Transportation Department and Tacoma Police conferred about the problem.
The upshot? The TPD says it will start paying special attention to drivers’ behavior through the intersection.
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