Put Interchange Into Higher Gear
Washington state Sen. Bob McCaslin takes great pride in never voting for tax hikes. Yet even that staunch conservative has said he’s ready to support a fuel tax increase if that’s what it takes to get the Evergreen interchange built.
That’s how important the freeway project is to the Spokane Valley where Republican McCaslin’s voters live and drive.
McCaslin said the interchange is essential because without it, developers can’t proceed with the next phase of the new Spokane Valley mall. Actually, the interchange is important for more and broader reasons than that.
Even before the mall was in place, Valley motorists faced rush-hour gridlock, especially at Pines Road.
Meanwhile, several business plans, not just the mall, are on hold without an interchange to take pressure off the overloaded interchanges at Pines and Sullivan roads.
Most important, however, the exciting Mirabeau Point project, which will establish a long-dreamed center for cultural and recreational activity in the Valley, is in jeopardy unless planning officials are convinced there’s a way - namely, the Evergreen interchange - to mitigate the traffic it will generate.
The state Department of Transportation already has spent more than $800,000 pulling together the plans, specifications and estimates that will go to contractors who want to bid on the interchange project. For that package to do more than gather dust, and for the state even to begin negotiating for right-of-way purchases, certain critical things have to happen:.
McCaslin and his colleagues in the Legislature have to approve a transportation funding package that includes the state’s $4 million share of the $12 million-plus project.
The private property owners and developers whose properties are affected - JP Realty, Inland Empire Paper Co., and Hanson Industries - need to figure out how and when they’ll put up the $2 million or more each has agreed to contribute.
Creative minds need to find another roughly $2 million that the project still will be short when the other funding is in place. Could design revisions help?
Time is precious. State dollars have a way of getting diverted to other projects if local matches are slow to materialize.
It would be a shame, for the Valley as well as for the memory of Valley activist Denny Ashlock, who died last month, if the Mirabeau Point project should falter now. Mirabeau Point was the latest in a long list of community efforts for which Ashlock labored tirelessly - to include rounding up support for the Evergreen interchange.
But what a tribute to Ashlock if his life and work inspire a resolution of the present challenge.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Floyd/For the editorial board