Midilome Area Wants Solution To Imminent Bottleneck

Neighbors of the yet-to-be-built University High School say they hope Spokane County will find a solution to traffic troubles in the Midilome neighborhood - even to the point of closing three streets that intersect with Bowdish Road.

“That’s not etched in stone. But it’s the best-known option we have now,” said Gayle Carrol, who testified at the rezoning hearing for the new U-Hi on Wednesday.

Carrol and other Midilome residents testified that they support the new high school. They simply want a way to keep drivers from Ponderosa and other neighborhoods from using Midilome’s house-lined streets as thoroughfares.

“I can almost set my clock by the increase in noise level” from school-related traffic, said Donna Scott, who lives on 38th Avenue.

“Just crossing the street is a major concern,” said Steve Hammond, who lives on Loretta Drive.

Hearing examiner Greg Smith, who was appointed by the county to decide on the rezone request by Central Valley School District, has plenty to sort out. Smith made no decision at Wednesday’s hearing. He is expected to rule on the matter within two weeks.

Central Valley plans to build a new U-Hi at Pines and 32nd. Just south of that site, two existing schools, Chester Elementary and Horizon Junior High, already cause traffic headaches in Midilome.

School district officials sketched out the history that led up to locating the new school at Pines and 32nd.

In 1998, when voters approved the bond issue that will build U-Hi and a new Central Valley High School, Midilome voters were strong supporters of the plan, testified Cynthia McMullen, Central Valley School Board chairwoman.

Central Valley’s traffic engineer studied traffic patterns in the area in 1998 and concluded that the existing problems would not be worsened by the new U-Hi.

The Midilome neighbors dispute that.

“It’s inconceivable that no traffic would use the Midilome streets,” said Robert Bernstein, a traffic consultant from Seattle hired by the Midilome Home Owners Association.

Bernstein provided county traffic counts taken earlier this year which, in several cases, exceed the 2002 projections provided to Central Valley by traffic engineer Todd Whipple of Inland Pacific Engineering.

The traffic issues are complicated by an action the county took about 10 years ago, without any public input, Carrol and others said.

Midilome was originally designed with arterials on all four sides. In 1988, it appears that the county improperly dropped the designated arterial on the south side, 40th Avenue. That stretch of 40th has never been built.

That has forced traffic from the west - “traffic that’s looking for the phantom 40th,” more than one neighbor said - to either cut through Midilome, or go around to the north and east, on Bowdish and 32nd Avenue.

Building 40th Avenue through from Pines Road to Bowdish is complicated because of the flood plain in the area, testified Pat Harper of the county Engineering Department.

The prospect of closing the three Midilome streets on Bowdish does not please fire officials.

Fire District 8, which has the closest fire station to the site, has written its opposition to such a plan, Carrol said.

There are, however, several ways of closing roads while preserving emergency vehicle access, Bernstein said. One possibility he cited was using electronic gates that would give access to fire and police officials.