Lower Prices May Have Higher Costs

Wal-Mart, the chain that made a fortune paving suburban fields and draining the vitality from local business all over the nation, wants to bestow its blessings on the Spokane economy, as well.

If consumers here respond as they have elsewhere, they’ll pile into cars and drive for miles to save a few bucks on a toaster oven, leaving empty the parking lots outside existing businesses closer to their homes. It’s the trend in retailing. And it’s a big contributor to urban decay, suburban sprawl, crowded arterials and air pollution.

It is futile, and usually wrong, for public policy to step between consumers and a business that’s providing what they want.

But it is a foolish community indeed that fails to protect its own fundamental interests - such as the need for free-flowing arterials.

Under a proposal now in the refinement stage, a Colorado developer would construct a huge retailing complex, with Wal-Mart a primary tenant, along the Newport Highway north of the Division Street Y.

Engineers estimate the complex will generate approximately as much traffic as NorthTown does. That should set off alarm bells. In spite of recent improvements, the Y is a congested bottleneck. Division is a primary thoroughfare - crucial to commercial shipping, shoppers, commuters and numerous businesses. The Wal-Mart project would hurt this corridor for miles in all directions.

Unfortunately, the region’s arterial improvement program lacks plans and public funding for major capacity improvements to intersections this project threatens, most notably the Y. So, even if the developer is required to pay part of the cost of needed street improvements, the lack of money to cover government’s portion means the work might not get done.

The simple fact is that modern growth pressures overwhelm the capacity of laws and funding mechanisms that keep arterials up to snuff. Throughout the Spokane area, major traffic generators such as big-box stores and apartment complexes have gone in without adequate improvements to nearby arterials and intersections they clog. That’s bad for the businesses involved, as well as for the community.

Unfortunately, local government has an incentive to turn a blind eye to the problem. Wal-Mart’s project would shovel new tax revenue into the maw of Spokane County government. Much of that revenue will be drained from Spokane city government, just as the “new” jobs will be drained from city retailers. Maybe there will be more jobs - in county government - but the area’s retailing capacity is finite.

The interests of the whole community require that local governments work together to insist that a project of this magnitude not go in, unless it’s located, designed and permitted in a way that protects the adequacy of our roads.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board