Pinch Point Already A Traffic Mess, Intersection At Pines Road And I-90 Is Likely To Get Far Worse When Mall Opens

Tow truck driver George Brown is on the road a lot. And although Divine’s Valley Towing is right at the corner of Pines Road and Mission Avenue, Brown never uses the Pines interchange system.

When returning to the shop, Brown instead takes Interstate 90 to Sullivan, then heads back west. He said Pines is impossible to use during rush time. And when in the shop, he’s treated to the rubbery squeals of near-collisions outside.

“People are locking up tires there,” he said. “You hear it quite a bit.”

Pines Road is jammed, and people who use it to get on and off I-90 can wait longer than one minute at traffic signals there. Planners and engineers give the interchange a failing grade when it comes to efficiency. If no changes are made before next year’s opening of the Spokane Valley Mall, the intersection could become impassable.

But there’s good news - and yes, some bad news.

The good news is that the Washington State Department of Transportation has a short-term fix in mind that would raise the level of efficiency at the Pines interchange. That should happen by the end of summer 1997. The bad news is, the mall should open up about the same time - and waits on Pines would again be the same as today.

“I don’t want to kid anybody,” said DOT’s Eastern Washington Planning Engineer Leonard Cash. “There’s no magic bullet to fix the Pines interchange … (this plan) is really a short-term gain.”

Drawings for the plan, finished up three weeks ago, show an additional turn-lane added to the eastbound freeway off-ramp. That would allow more people to exit from I-90 onto Pines during a green light. Then, a second turn lane would be added to the south-bound portion of Pines, making it easier for people to turn east onto Mission.

The new turn lanes should also help prevent some some accidents. In the last three years, there have been 154 accidents along Pines from Mission through to the interchange system. A whopping 118 have been rear-enders, most likely attributable to the stop-and-start of drivers trying to rush through each traffic signal phase.

Barring any snags, construction of the $500,000 project would begin in May 1997.

The reason the mall is expected to negate the improvement is because of the volume of traffic it is expected to draw. At current afternoon peak times, 1,500 cars per hour travel along the stretch of Pines between Mission and the interchange. Ralph Robertson, a state construction development engineer, said one study predicts that number will jump to 2,000 per hour once the mall opens.

Developers are doing their part to help ease commuter tension. Both Hanson Industries, developer of the Sullivan Park Center business park, and Price Development, builder of the Spokane Valley Mall, are paying for the extension of Indiana Avenue that would link Pines and Sullivan. Dave Carlsen, Hanson’s director of real estate, said the five-lane arterial will be complete by next August.

The Indiana project will take some heat off I-90, but not Pines Road. The project driven by the two developers that will most help there is the planned construction of a new $11 million interchange at Evergreen Road. Evergreen currently now ends at Mission, but would be extended to I-90, Carlsen said.

Hanson said that interchange is probably five years away. Initial work on the extension of Evergreen could begin in 1998. Just what percentage of the total cost would be footed by Price and Hanson isn’t clear yet, but Carlsen and state officials said it will be a generous chunk. The remainder will come from state and county sources.

Any major improvements to Pines, though, are a long way off. “It will be 10 years before we could get a final fix, and that’s assuming we had a funding stream,” Cash said. There is no money now. The state needs to divert more money to Eastern Washington, Cash said.

Cash said people planning future developments such as Mirabeau Point - the community center planned to occupy the old Walk In The Wild Zoo site - should include lobbying for road improvements.

Just in case funding does appear, planners and engineers want to be prepared. One idea being batted around is installing elevated lanes that would route traffic directly from Pines onto the freeway without stopping for lights. It wouldn’t be a full clover leaf. There simply isn’t room for that, Cash and Robertson said, and it would be too costly to buy out area businesses to make room.

But even that fix alone won’t be enough to prevent problems at Pines, Cash said. The only real solution is offering other routes.

“No matter what we do, we need to look at a roadway system to take traffic off of Pines.”

But right now, some drivers who use the Pines interchange each day are glad to hear of any fix, short-term or not.

Off-ramp signal lights there now “only let three cars through at time,” said Laurie Phitzer, who works at a jewelry store along Pines. She said the more turn lanes, the better.

“It’s got to help.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 color)