Ridgefield landslide project partially funded, other city priorities left waiting in tight state budget

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Ridgefield will receive $1.5 million in state capital budget funding to address landslide risks along Pioneer Street, the city’s most urgent infrastructure priority, following the conclusion of Washington’s 2025 legislative session.

Ridgefield Mayor Matt Cole said the funding is a critical step toward stabilizing the slopes along Pioneer Street, formerly state Route 501. While the city had requested $3 million to fully cover the project, Cole said he was glad to receive support during a year marked by a state budget deficit.

“Anytime you have a state government that’s facing a $16 billion budget deficit, you’re probably not going to get everything you asked for,” Cole said. “We’ll look for other grant opportunities or other ways to fund it ourselves if we have to, because it is gonna be a priority for us in the near term.”

The funding will support engineering work to prevent future slides between 35th Avenue and downtown. The area has experienced multiple landslides in past decades, and city leaders say it poses both a safety and economic threat to Ridgefield.

“It’s only a matter of time before there is another mudslide that … blocks that road,” Cole said. “It’s going to create a lot of inability for residents to get in and out of town.”

Cole credited state Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, and Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, for pushing to keep the full $1.5 million in the final capital budget. Earlier Senate drafts had proposed cutting the amount down to just $400,000. Still, the total project is expected to cost around $3 million.

“I suspect we’ll probably still need to find other sources of funding to get it to where it really needs to be,” Cole said. “Still, this was an adequate amount to receive from the state this year, especially on a downward budget year.”

Other Ridgefield infrastructure priorities did not fare so well.
A $5 million design funding request to add a new southbound Interstate 5 access ramp was not approved despite being a key component of the city’s long-term traffic relief strategy.

The project is intended to reduce congestion at Exit 14, the city’s only current full interchange, which serves as a bottleneck for residents and commercial traffic. Ridgefield has seen rapid population and business growth, putting increasing strain on that single point of access.

“We’ve said for a long time that we need to have an additional ingress and egress from town, other than just the one,” Cole said, referring to Exit 14 on Interstate 5. “With each year, we’re kind of kicking the can down the road.”

A separate request for $750,000 to begin design work on an overpass connecting South 10th and 11th streets across I-5 also went unfunded.

The overpass would connect Ridgefield’s east and west sides with a multimodal route and help divert local traffic away from the nearby freeway interchanges, especially as businesses In-N-Out prepare to open nearby.

Another setback came in the form of budget policy. The state legislature diverted $288 million from the Public Works Assistance Account to cover gaps in the general fund. The account provides low-cost infrastructure loans to cities, including Ridgefield.



“We’ve benefited from it as have many cities,” Cole said. “The existing loans are preserved, but the future loan pipeline between 2025 and 2027 is at risk right now because there’s just not money in there.”

Ridgefield also advocated for a regional law enforcement training center in southwest Washington. A potential site in the city has been discussed, but no funding materialized this year.

“There is a lot of support for that,” Cole said. “But I think this year, just because of the budget shortfall, it just wasn’t going to get the dollars to provide any additional funding.”

Ridgefield also supported a statewide effort to lower the threshold for passing school construction bonds from 60% to 55%, a change that would help growing districts like Ridgefield fund new schools.

The request came months after the Ridgefield School District’s proposed bond to build a new elementary school narrowly failed with 58.91% approval in April 2024. The district later passed a special levy, which did not require a supermajority, to build an elementary school in February.

No such bill reached the governor’s desk this year.

“You get that supermajority requirement, and what that does is it essentially makes your democracy like a minority rule,” Cole said. “It’s hard to pass school bonds... We just need to be able to find something that’s going to give our district some longevity.”

While the city faces disappointments on some local projects, transportation work at the 179th Street interchange did receive support.

The state preserved $86 million in transportation funds for design, engineering and construction at the 179th interchange. Though located in unincorporated Clark County, the interchange directly affects Ridgefield residents who use it to commute or access schools within the Ridgefield School District.

The project will remove signalized intersections at the I-5 ramps and replace them with roundabouts to reduce congestion.

“We partnered with the county council on this,” Cole said. “We know that even with some improvements, that interchange will ultimately fail within a few years because of the growth in that area.”

Despite the mixed results, Cole said the session marked progress in building stronger relationships with lawmakers in the 20th Legislative District since lines were redrawn last year.

“We have some real needs here, we’re a growing community, and we need some support on that; they recognize that as well,” Cole said. “This was the first year where I felt like we got some traction and that familiarity and partnership, which is always important when you’re trying to get stuff done.”