Counting On Cars Division-Ruby Couplet Is Pumping More Traffic Into North Spokane And Adding Pressure To Major Arterials

Eighteen months ago, Sherri Young would stand outside her car dealership at 2319 N. Division and wonder if drivers had forgotten about the major north-south roadway.

That was back when stretches of Division were closed for construction of the new Division-Ruby couplet.

“The first three months (of the construction project) we could sit here all day and see three or four cars going by. It was like, ‘Do people still know Division is here?”’ she said.

New traffic counts for city arterials emphatically show that they do. Every day, the Division-Ruby couplet, completed in 1994, carries as many as 44,000 cars in both directions, up from 33,400 in 1992 on the old Division Street.

“I won’t say it’s surprising but it (the couplet) sure has caught on,” said Don Ramsey, city traffic engineer. There have been large traffic jumps in the past three years on other major North Side arterials.

Francis Avenue, the Ash-Maple couplet and the Hamilton/Nevada corridor saw increases of up to 36 percent.

The new traffic numbers, recorded in 1995, show that Spokane’s North Side is absorbing much of the increased traffic burden.

“For those that live on the North Side and those that live on the South Side there’s a different perception as far as what congestion is,” said Ramsey. “But all our heavy volume streets are on the North Side.”

The new numbers are compared to readings taken in the same location three years earlier and indicate the total number of vehicles per day.

The numbers were compiled over a two-year period by placing traffic counting tubes across a location.

Among the findings:

Crossings of the Division Street Bridge are up 28 percent from three years ago to 41,600 and crossings on the Maple Street Bridge up 9 percent to 42,500.

The Post, Washington and Monroe Street bridges have seen no change or a decrease in crossings, a reflection of the downturn in economic activity around downtown.

The Meenach Bridge has seen crossings increase 22 percent to 17,500 a day, a result of northwest Spokane commuters who access Old Trails Road and get to Highway 2 and Airway Heights and Fairchild Air Force Base.

Francis has seen a 16 percent increase at Indian Trail Road and an 19 percent jump at its junction with Nine Mile Road.

Traffic at the intersection of Assembly and Driscoll is now at 8,000 cars a day, an increase of 19 percent.

Along major arterials, some of the largest traffic increases are along the Hamilton/Nevada corridor between North Foothills Drive and Francis.

Almost 30,000 cars pass through the intersection of Hamilton and North Foothills, a jump of 23 percent. Farther north the traffic growth reaches 36 percent.

The increase in traffic along Hamilton/Nevada can be attributed, in part, to new development in northeast Spokane.

But part of the increase in traffic on Hamilton/Nevada may be because drivers are reluctant to get back onto Division in the congested areas around Franklin Park Mall and NorthTown.

Construction around NorthTown was especially bad this summer and continued into October.

Vehicle counts seem to indicate that some drivers are using the Division-Ruby couplet, which ends at North Foothills Drive, but detouring around the rest of Division.

For instance, there are some places between Wellesley and Francis on Division where traffic isn’t much greater than 33,000, about the same number on Division before the recent improvements.

South of Wellesley, the number of cars increases to 37,200 and the couplet is handling 44,000 cars around Indiana Avenue.

Bruce Steele, city transportation director, hopes that once Division is improved from Francis all the way downtown, the load on Hamilton will ease.

But Jeanette Harras of the Logan Neighborhood Steering Committee said the numbers raise concerns.

Traffic engineers predict drivers will go back to Division and that there will be no significant impact on Hamilton from development north of Francis. More than 3,000 new apartment units are planned in the next eight years.

But the impact is already evident, she said.

“They don’t disperse as the traffic department thinks and we’re wondering what’s going to happen,” she said. “If they don’t have to be on Division people will still avoid Division. That’s an old habit.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo Graphic: High traffic areas

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Intersections being studied The North Side has some of the county’s most congested intersections, according to an index compiled by the Spokane Regional Transportation Council. The agency analyzed the number of vehicles approaching intersections, along with the number of lanes and how they were functioning. It also took emission readings at the sites. Of the 40 most congested intersections, the 15 most troubled are being studied with an eye toward redesigning traffic flows. Of those 15, all but three are on the North Side. They are: Green and Mission; Hamilton and Mission; Division and Wellesley; Division and Francis; Market and Euclid; Monroe, Northwest Boulevard and Indiana; Wall and Francis; Maple and Francis; Hamilton and Indiana; Hamilton and Trent; Maple and Northwest Boulevard; and Nevada and Wellesley. Traffic engineers will be looking to improve the efficiency of those intersections without major construction, much like what the Department of Transportation did at Division and Country Homes Boulevard. That intersection was on everyone’s list of carbon monoxide hot spots until traffic from Country Homes was routed either north or south onto Division Street. As a result, carbon monoxide readings at the intersection dropped, said Ron Edgar of the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority. Edgar added that improvements on the North Side and elsewhere have to come first by looking at those types of solutions. “You look at Division Street and you realize the cost to do those types of projects aren’t going to show up,” Edgar said. “You have to do things like lines and striping and design.”