If the Washington State Department of Transportation learned anything this week in Poulsbo, hopefully it was this: poor planning often breeds poor solutions. Such is definitely the case with State Route 3.

The bottleneck from Poulsbo north on this highly traveled roadway should have never been allowed to begin with. Now that it’s there and traffic oftentimes gets to look like the 520 Bridge during rush hour, the state is scratching it’s head as to what it can do to rectify the dilemma.

While it’s at it, WSDOT should consider scratching something else — the Big Valley idea. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

A single car making a left turn can grind things to a halt. Absurd? Of course. Easy solutions to this include adding more left-hand turn lanes to reducing the number of driveways that empty onto the stretch and often create dangerous scenarios.

Going from two to four lanes seems to make sense but would still bottleneck at the Hood Canal Bridge. Still, widening — even in a few key areas along the route — would have its benefits. Take SR 104 in Jefferson County for instance. While it also bottlenecks at the bridge, it also affords excellent passing opportunities, although it should have more, and allows cars to get ahead of large trucks as they creep up the grades.

Sure, WSDOT’s train of thought on the Big Valley Highway hasn’t left the station yet but hopefully before it does, the time, money and effort needed to solve the SR 3 problem will stay right where it belongs. On SR 3.