Indian Trail Traffic Expected To Worsen

Traffic planners have now come to the same conclusion about congestion in and around Indian Trail as commuters: The situation is not only unbearable but perhaps hopeless.

Even with improvements, traffic will get markedly worse with new growth as cars shift and take shortcuts to avoid busy intersections and carbon monoxide hot spots.

The study recognizes growth in Stevens County as being a factor but cannot quantify its impact on northwest Spokane except to say there needs to be a regional solution, perhaps a beltway, to obtain real reductions in vehicle emissions.

All this is hardly rocket science, but it now goes beyond anecdotal frustrations.

The Spokane Regional Transportation Council studied traffic around Five Mile Prairie and Indian Trail as part of an analysis for the new Indian Trail Specific Plan.

The regional council, an independent planning organization, looked at several scenarios by using the land-use information proposed by a committee studying a new comprehensive plan for Indian Trail.

“Put simply,” the study concluded, “building out of the Indian Trail Neighborhood Specific Plan as well as Five Mile Prairie will overwhelm the existing transportation in north Spokane.”

If there is optimism, the study suggests that a variety of solutions from high-occupancy vehicle lanes along the Ash-Maple corridor to improvements on Strong and Barnes roads would reduce congestion at some Francis Avenue intersections.

But that would also have an effect on other roads, such as Five Mile Road and Woodside, which both would see more commuters if the proposed improvements were made. Traffic volumes on Woodside, for example, would climb from 114 vehicles a day to 664 in 15 years.