Trent Elementary Has Traffic Problem

A new construction question has popped up at Trent Elementary School, just months after renovation of the school and its parking lots were completed.

The issue is how to align a bus entrance for the school with Euclid Avenue, which now approaches from the east to create a T intersection with Pines Road in that immediate area.

The problem is that the school’s current bus access, on the west side of Pines, doesn’t match up with Euclid.

Across Pines Road from the school, construction is under way on a $16 million, 15-acre business park.

Traffic from the business park, plus added traffic on Euclid expected from the Spokane Valley Mall, surrounding development and Mirabeau Point community complex, makes necessary the addition of turn lanes and eventually a traffic light at the intersection.

There’s more construction planned for the Pines/Euclid area.

Developer Wes Crosby plans to build a 50-unit mobile home park for retirees to the south of Trent Elementary. That development will need access to Pines, preferably at the planned traffic light.

The challenge is creating a design that allows joint access to the Trent school and Crosby’s property, while aligning that access with Euclid. State Department of Transportation engineers are trying to solve that challenge right now, without cutting unduly into the parking lot just south of the school.

“I like the idea of a traffic light there,” said East Valley School Board member Karl Wilkinson. “Any time you have that many children close to a busy road, the more safety devices you have, the better.”

That traffic light could be installed next year, but more likely could be up to three years away, said John Miller, who is developing the business park on Euclid.

Miller has agreed to pay for that light. He will also pay for turn lanes on Pines at that intersection. The turn lanes are due for construction by May 1999, said Al Gilson, DOT spokesman.

The state expects to resurface that stretch of Pines Road next summer.