Trail Backers Propose Bridge Wooden Bridge To Span River Near High Bridge Park

Concrete pillars that stand like stumps in the Spokane River soon may be topped with a wooden bridge for the Centennial Trail.

Blocked from building the trail along the edge of Riverside Memorial Park, trail planners now propose taking it through High Bridge Park, about 1-1/2 miles west of downtown Spokane. They would use roads - part of the Bloomsday course - to skirt the cemetery.

The new route would require a bridge linking the north bank of the river to the south bank, on abutments that once supported a railroad bridge.

Trail builders in 1991 received a federal grant that would cover most of the cost of building the bridge. They’ve spent five years debating whether to put it at High Bridge Park or farther downstream.

Since board members for the Fairmount Memorial Association rejected the cemetery route last month, trail advocates - along with city, county and state parks officials - see the High Bridge route as the only alternative for filling a three-mile gap between downtown Spokane and the T.J. Meenach Bridge.

Trail users now follow crowded streets in the West Central neighborhood to connect those loose ends. The cemetery route would have followed the river bank, separate from roads.

The new proposal would follow Government Way from High Bridge Park to a trailhead near Mukogawa Fort George Wright Institute. That road has a wide shoulder for bicyclists and pedestrians.

“It’s not a good solution. It’s the best solution we have,” said Greg Bever, a member of Friends of the Centennial Trail, a volunteer group.

There’s only one other place in Washington where the trail follows roads. That’s in the Spokane Valley, through the Pasadena Park neighborhood.

Trail builders were promised $480,000 in 1991 from the U.S. Forest Service’s Timber Bridge Initiative. They worry the grant will be rescinded if they don’t use it soon.

“We need to get going on it right away,” said Bill Fraser, trail planner for the state Parks and Recreation Commission. He hopes Spokane’s parks board and City Council will give approval to begin construction this year.

The Forest Service normally provides no more than $30,000 toward the cost of a wooden bridge. The agency offered more for the Spokane bridge at the urging of Tom Foley, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time.

Still, Fraser said, the grant falls short of the $583,000 engineers predict will be needed for the bridge, which has not yet been designed. His agency has applied for a federal transportation grant to cover the difference.

Building the bridge and designating Government Way as part of the trail will not complete the Centennial Trail west of downtown. There still would be a 1-1/2 mile gap between Riverfront Park and the wooden bridge.

Metropolitan Mortgage owns the land on the north river bank, and plans to develop houses, offices and stores there. The company’s plans allow space for the trail, and the city recently applied for a $3 million grant to help pay for trail construction and to reroute roads near the courthouse, said Metropolitan spokeswoman Maryellen Johnson.

Work won’t begin on the subdivision or the trail until Metropolitan has an anchor tenant, Johnson said. The company hopes to break ground within a year.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of area.