State Route 160 (SR 160) is a long

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

serving Kitsap and

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

counties in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. The highway begins at an interchange with SR 16 in

Port Orchard Port Orchard, part of Washington state's Puget Sound, is the strait that separates Bainbridge Island on the east from the Kitsap Peninsula on the west. It extends from Liberty Bay and Agate Pass in the north to Sinclair Inlet and Rich Passage in ...

and travels east to the Southworth ferry terminal, where the route continues onto a ferry to Vashon Heights, the former southern terminus of SR 339, and further east to end at the Fauntleroy ferry terminal in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. SR 160 was established during the 1964 highway renumbering beginning at SR 16 west of Port Orchard traveling east to Southworth along the Carr Inlet. The corridor was previously a branch of Primary State Highway 14 (PSH 14), established in 1937. The highway was moved south in 1991 and the Southworth–Vashon–Fauntleroy ferry was added in 1994.

Route description

SR 160 begins as Sedgewick Road at a

diamond interchange A diamond interchange is a common type of road junction, used where a controlled-access highway crosses a minor road. Design The freeway itself is grade-separated from the minor road, one crossing the other over a bridge. Approaching the ...

with parent route SR 16 south of

Kitsap County Kitsap County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 275,611. Its county seat is Port Orchard, and its largest city is Bremerton. The county was formed out of King County and Jefferson County on ...

. The highway briefly travels northeast before turning east and entering East Port Orchard, serving a suburban area north of Long Lake. The roadway continues east and passes John Sedgwick Junior High School before turning north into Southworth, Within Southworth, Sedgewick Road ends as SR 160 travels onto a ferry route owned and operated by

Washington State Ferries Washington State Ferries (WSF) is a government agency that operates automobile and passenger ferry service in the U.S. state of Washington as part of the Washington State Department of Transportation. It runs ten routes serving 20 terminals loca ...

(WSF). The Evergreen State class ferries and , as well as Issaquah 130 class ferry serve the route, which travels east from Southworth into

King County King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...

. The ferries stop at the Vashon Heights terminal, intersecting SR 339 (the designation for the former Vashon–

Downtown Seattle Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by ...

run), before continuing east to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal in

West Seattle West Seattle is a conglomeration of neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington, United States. It comprises two of the thirteen districts, Delridge and Southwest, and encompasses all of Seattle west of the Duwamish River. It was incorporated as an i ...

. The ferry route is 45 minutes long, as the MV ''Klahowya'' and MV ''Tillikum'' travel at a speed of , and the MV ''Issaquah'' travels at . WSF operates the ferry every weekday with 33 crossings and weekends with 26 crossings, as a $5 toll for adult passengers is charged with prepaid Wave2Go cards being accepted. Every year the

Washington State Department of Transportation The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT or WashDOT, both ) is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. Establi ...

(WSDOT) conducts a series of surveys on its highways in the state to measure traffic volume. This is expressed in terms of

average annual daily traffic Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a y ...

(AADT), which is a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. In 2011, WSDOT calculated that between 1,500 and 24,000 vehicles per day used the highway on the

Kitsap Peninsula The Kitsap Peninsula () lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kits ...

, mostly at the SR 16 interchange in Port Orchard. The Southworth–Vashon–Fauntleroy ferry carried 2.886 million passengers and 1.674 million vehicles in 2012, according to WSF statistics.

History

SR 160 shield at Southworth ferry terminal

SR 160 was established in 1964 as a highway beginning at SR 16 west of

to Southworth. This highway was originally created in 1923 as a branch of the

Navy Yard Highway Primary State Highways were major state highways in the U.S. state of Washington used in the early 20th century. They were created as the first organized road numbering system in the state in stages between 1905 and 1937 and used until the 1964 ...

, signed as State Road 14 from Port Orchard to

Harper Harper may refer to: Names * Harper (name), a surname and given name Places ;in Canada * Harper Islands, Nunavut *Harper, Prince Edward Island ;In the United States *Harper, former name of Costa Mesa, California in Orange County * Harper, Il ...

. The highway was to terminate at a ferry dock in Harper, which was constructed by Kitsap County following an agreement with King County to begin ferry service from there to Vashon Island and Seattle. The general routing of the "water level" highway was established in 1919 and it was completed by 1921. The branch was included as part of PSH 14 during the creation of the Primary and secondary state highways in 1937. The PSH 14 branch was extended to Southworth in 1957, and became signed as SR 160 in the 1964 highway renumbering. SR 160 was re-aligned south onto Sedgewick Road in 1991 to better serve the Southworth–Fauntleroy ferry. The realignment of SR 160 was set to take effect on April 1, 1992, but was temporarily repealed by the legislature due to a mudslide on February 14 that closed the highway west of Port Orchard. The state government retained ownership of the highway through Port Orchard during cleanup operations, which allowed a partial reopening on April 17 but necessitated later closures for further inspection of unstable slopes. Through traffic reopened on August 28, 1992. In 1993, SR 160 was moved to Sedgewick Road as planned and a portion of its old route was designated as SR 166. The Southworth–Fauntleroy ferry was added to SR 160 in 1994 along with the rest of the

system. No major revisions to the route of the highway have occurred since 1994.

Major intersections

References

External links

Highways of Washington StateWashington State Ferries
{{State highways in Washington related to SR 16

160 Year 160 ( CLX) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Atilius and Vibius (or, less frequently, year 913 '' Ab urbe condita''). ...

Transportation in Kitsap County, Washington Transportation in King County, Washington