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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Cities look at making Seltice Way safer for cyclists, pedestrians

“Riding through the dirt and gravel is not fun,” Jesse Vedder, of Coeur d’Alene, said Monday as he biked along Seltice Way in Coeur d’Alene. (Kathy Plonka)

Seltice Way is a fast-moving and increasingly busy street linking Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls. It also serves as a handy detour when Interstate 90 gets gummed up.

If you’re on foot or riding a bike, though, Seltice is far from inviting. Cars and trucks rule the road, with narrow shoulders and no curbs or sidewalks along most of the 4-mile stretch from Northwest Boulevard in Coeur d’Alene west to Ross Pointe Road/state Highway 41 in Post Falls.

The two cities are in the early stages of a joint effort to make Seltice a bike- and pedestrian-friendly corridor with a possible combination of bike lanes along the street and wide paths separate from the street.

“Currently, you can ride your bike, but it’s not safe. There’s a gravel shoulder with potholes,” said Hilary Anderson, community planning director for the city of Coeur d’Alene. “I’ve done it; it’s not ideal.”

The scope of the project also may cover public transit stops and better connections to the Centennial Trail up the hill along I-90 and to parks and paths down along the Spokane River.

Jesse Vedder rode his bike Monday along Seltice from his girlfriend’s place in Post Falls to his job in the Riverstone development. He expects he’ll make that commute more often, dicey as it is.

“It’s a little scary not knowing if that car coming up behind you is actually going to see you or how close they’re going to be,” Vedder said. “Maybe they’ve got a wide trailer on the back, and if somebody clips me, well, it’s going to hurt.”

He kept to a narrow strip of asphalt and packed gravel outside the fog line as drivers buzzed past.

“A bike path would be fantastic, because I was riding just off the side of the white line,” Vedder said. “I noticed cars were cutting into the center line to go past me.”

Officials from both cities met last month at an Idaho Community Mobility Institute training session in Boise to begin brainstorming how to rebuild Seltice Way collaboratively, with matching curbs, bike lanes and trails. Coeur d’Alene aims to begin designing its half of the project in 2015.

“I think it would be a huge thing to tackle to improve the regional connectivity and amenities and safety for pedestrians and bikes,” said Anderson, who previously was planning and economic development manager for Post Falls. “And it’s a gateway into both communities, so it would be really beneficial in that way as well – provide beautification and increased potential for economic development.”

Bill Melvin, Post Falls city engineer, said Post Falls will work with its neighbor to consider what makes sense for Seltice. That includes asking a question. “How can we get people out there to use it from a mobility standpoint, to bike and use the sidewalks or multiuse trails?” he said.

The Coeur d’Alene city staff is exploring what Seltice would look like with new bike lanes in each direction as well as separate bike/pedestrian paths. Bike commuters or those training for a race likely would choose the faster bike lanes.

“Separating those modes is ideal,” said Chris Bosley, chairman of the Coeur d’Alene’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee and an engineer with Welch Comer Engineers. “And you’re going to have to have sidewalks anyway out on Seltice for the businesses, so it might as well be a wider, more comfortable thing that the recreational users would use.”

Monte McCully, Coeur d’Alene’s city trails coordinator, said another goal is to make Seltice less of a barrier for those who want to get across the street.

“It’s a big, fast road – 45 miles an hour – with very few crossings,” McCully said. “So we’re going to address getting pedestrians and bikes across the road safely.”

That may include a traffic light at Seltice and Atlas Road and a pedestrian signal at Grand Mill Lane, he said. “There’s probably four places we’re going to look at in this corridor for pedestrian crossings,” he added.

Grand Mill is seeing more foot and bike traffic, McCully said, because of new apartment complexes springing up in the area and the proximity to the city’s Johnson Mill River Park on the Spokane River and to a trailhead for the Centennial Trail at the Frontier Ice Arena north of Seltice.

The Seltice project is in an early conceptual phase. The bicycle advisory committee would be involved in the design process next year. The public also will have opportunities to weigh in on the design.

Coeur d’Alene has money from a federal grant and its urban renewal agency to design the project. That work likely will extend into 2016 and construction could take several more years, depending on the source of funding, McCully said.

Post Falls trails Coeur d’Alene by a few years, Melvin said. The next steps are to review existing conditions on Seltice, prepare some rough cost estimates and take the ideas to the City Council and public, he said.

“It’s a matter of, is this a priority for the community or not a priority as we move forward?” he said.