Residents say they favor couplet
When Spokane Valley residents are going home for dinner at night, they don’t want to slow down and smell the roses.
Otherwise, they tend to like the city’s proposed Sprague-Appleway corridor revitalization plan, if the 20 or so who turned out Thursday evening are representative.
At a meeting to present the plan to the public, Jeanie Gadberry said she likes the idea of creating distinct and attractive districts along the corridor, but not the part about restoring two-way traffic between University Road and the Sprague interchange on Interstate 90.
“There’s a lot of us that would like to see those one-ways stay in place,” Gadberry said. “Everyone I talk to says that.”
Her contacts may not include business owners, senior planner Scott Kuhta suggested. Kuhta, the city’s manager for the corridor plan, said business owners blame the one-way traffic for a ruinous loss of customers.
“We’re trying to find a happy medium,” Kuhta said, but Gadberry and others weren’t buying it.
“Everyone knows where those businesses are,” and can go around the block to get to them, Gadberry said.
Gene Hinkle didn’t want to be held “hostage” by auto dealerships in search of customers.
“If I want to go to the airport or someplace, I want to be able to cruise down the road,” Hinkle said. “If I want to buy a car from them, and I’ve done that, I know how to find them.”
Eastbound traffic that used to pass in front of auto dealerships and other businesses on Sprague Avenue now zips along on Appleway Boulevard. Like Hinkle, Richard Mayer didn’t like the proposal to narrow Appleway from four eastbound lanes to one lane in each direction.
“I want to see Appleway move traffic,” Mayer said.
The plan would create “one huge bottleneck” on Appleway and residents can “forget that for going home in the evening,” Richard Poston said.
Other aspects of the plan were well received.
“It sets us off from Spokane,” Jon Adams said of the proposal to spruce up and diversify the corridor with new standards for architecture, landscaping, parking and dominant uses.
“This plan makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways,” Mayer said.
He liked its flexibility and focus on promoting economic growth.
“I think you can do all this stuff and still have a one-way couplet,” Hinkle said.
Kuhta urged those with traffic concerns to attend the City Council’s 6 p.m. study session on Feb. 19 at City Hall. He said urban design consultant Michael Freedman, whose firm headed up development of the plan, and transportation consultant Troy Russ will be on hand to discuss traffic aspects of the plan.