Airway Heights Seeks To Define City Center But Project To Install Stoplight, Curbs, Getting Mixed Reaction

More a drag strip than a city, Airway Heights may be ready to stand up and be noticed.

The state Department of Transportation hopes to begin work this summer on a wide array of improvements that will define the city’s center, which now is split in half by U.S. Highway 2.

The $3.5 million project would install the city’s first stoplight near downtown, as well as curbs and sidewalks. It also would narrow the highway median from 22 feet to 14 feet.

The project is generating mixed feelings in the town west of Spokane.

“It will define the city, it will create a safe zone for pedestrians,” said Airway Heights Mayor Don Harmon. “After it’s done, there will be an area where it’s unlikely a car would go.”

Resident Barb Cochran, a 35-year-old daycare worker, also welcomes the project. Cochran said the highway is so dangerous and wide, she won’t let her 14-year-old son cross alone.

Just last week, she pulled up to Highway 2 and waited at a stop sign when a truck, riding the shoulder, careened past. The highway supports 21,000 vehicles a day through the city, population 2,600.

“He drove past me and clear to the police station going faster than people on the highway. If we had sidewalks and curbing it would eliminate all this,” she said.

Three business owners, including tavern owner and former mayor Joe Martella, are circulating petitions against the project.

Bill Silvernail, owner of Zip’s restaurant, said the improvements would make it more difficult for traffic to pull off the highway and may make walking more dangerous - unless the state can promise to reduce the speed.

The state has promised to consider reducing the speed limit after the project is finished, but that depends on traffic volumes and how many cars now exceed the 45-mph limit.

“I don’t understand how pedestrian safety will be enhanced by moving the lanes closer together and not reducing the speed limit,” Silvernail said.

He also thinks sidewalks would be difficult to keep clear of snow in the winter, forcing pedestrians back onto a smaller roadway.

Motorists, he said, will have to slow to exit the highway and turn into businesses instead of moving onto the shoulder before slowing down.

He and others support a traffic light, but don’t want Airway Heights to look like North Division or East Sprague. The petition he’s circulating complain that the improvements would create “a walledoff Airway Heights.”

The group has gathered about 100 signatures to present to the state.

Backers of the project say there’s no doubt curbs would make the road safer because they offer a clearly defined area where traffic cannot go.

“Logically, a driver is more aware of a curb than a painted line,” said Al Gilson, spokesman for the Department of Transportation.

“The petition is misleading,” said Harmon. “We are opposed to barricading the highway, I’ll sign that myself. That’s not what this does, this is a good project.”

City Administrator Mike Patterson said if the area looked more like a city, drivers naturally would be more cautious.

“If the city doesn’t want this project the state will … go someplace else to spend their money,” he added. “I’m sure a lot of communities around Puget Sound would love to have it.”