County roads get "quiet" rating

The quietest routes in each state were recently announced by Geotab, a GPS fleet tracking and management company, and the honoree in Washington was 27 miles of State Route 127 between Dusty and Dodge Junction. The quietness was determined by which routes had the lowest annual average daily traffic.

The state’s quietest was heralded in a front page article by Nicholas Deshais in the Spokesman Review. It’s headline noted the route was also the loneliest.

But Geotab, a Canadian company, only looked at interstates, US Routes and State Routes more than 10 miles long, so Whitman County’s quiet county roads were not even considered.

“We have way lonelier roads than that,” commented Mark Storey, Whitman County Public Works director.

Storey considered all the county roads, paved and gravel, and nominated Elberton Road and Pandora Road east of Rosalia as possible contenders, but even those are not quite the quietest.

The finalists all come from the southwest section of the county, same as 127. For paved roads, Storey had a toss up between Hay-LaCrosse Road and Big Alkali Road.

Storey’s number-one selection for the quietest road in the county is the 13.26-miles Hammer Grade Road from Hooper south to Riparia. The road goes down the grade and intersects with the Little Goose Dam Road above Riparia.