If this is the best that the Washington State Department of Transportation can come up with, then we’ve got bigger problems than a dirty old bridge that’s splattered with bird poo.

Much bigger problems.

WSDOT announced this week its plan for cleaning the Agate Pass Bridge, the span that connects Bainbridge Island to Kitsap and a vital corridor for thousands of daily travelers on Highway 305.

The bridge needs to be deep cleaned for the first time since 1991, officials say, to get rid of debris and bird droppings.

The plan: To shut down the bridge to one lane for 21 days straight. That’s 8:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends, from Feb. 9 through Feb. 28.

WSDOT’s advice for travelers? Avoid the bridge during daylight hours.

Really? That’s the best they could come up with?

This will be a traffic nightmare of unimaginable impacts. But what’s really unbelievable is the apparent lack of consideration for people who use Highway 305 and the inability of WSDOT to come up with reasonable solutions to lessen the impending commuting crisis.

The duration of the daily shutdown and the length of the closure has us wondering if WSDOT has fully considered adjustments that might lessen potential traffic delays.

WSDOT has said traffic across the bridge will be done in alternating directions, and will be controlled by flaggers. We wonder if there has been ample consideration of shutting off the traffic signal on the Poulsbo side of the bridge, and stationing police at the casino intersection to direct traffic, rather than relying on flaggers on both ends.

WSDOT says it can’t do the work at night, but did they consider increasing the size of the project crew so more work could be accomplished during the closure hours? Was there any thought to ending the closure an hour earlier on Fridays, when westbound traffic is at its worst?

This closure will impact not only Highway 305 travelers, but neighborhoods along the highway that drivers will try to use as shortcut routes to move up-island when the ferry offloads in Winslow and they avoid the parking lot that Highway 305 will surely become. Let’s hope WSDOT’s plan for dealing with the traffic snarl on the highway doesn’t stop and end at both ends of the bridge.