Engineers Hope To Start Argonne Bridge Revamp

Sat., Jan. 3, 1998

By Angie Gaddy angieg@spokesman.com

Spokane County engineers hope to begin design work this year on the reconstruction of the Argonne Bridge.

Plans call for widening the bridge’s four traffic lanes, adding a turn lane, along with 5-1/2 to 6-foot shoulders and protected sidewalks on each side of the bridge, county bridge engineer Neil Carroll said.

The project is expected to cost $2.7 million. Construction could begin in the year 2000.

The existing four-lane bridge, which spans the Spokane River at the north end of Millwood, was built in 1920. It now carries about 30,000 vehicles a day, he said.

Originally, the county wanted to add more traffic lanes to the bridge. But that would have meant widening Argonne Road through Millwood, and the town opposed that plan. “We would just see a freeway through there,” Millwood Mayor Jeanne Batson said. “That’s what we pretty much have got now.”

The new bridge would also support widening Argonne Road north of the bridge if the county chose to at a later date.

“The roadway is at capacity right now,” Carroll said.

But the county will not spend money adding more lanes to the bridge, if it can’t widen Argonne on both sides, too.

“We’ll do improvements, but we won’t add lanes,” he said.

The county plans to schedule meetings with Millwood residents about the bridge project, Carroll said.

, DataTimes

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