Comments Sought On Highway 195 Plan
FOR THE RECORD: 10-2-99 A meeting Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 314 S. Spruce, on improvements to U.S. Highway 195 is intended for informational purposes. It is not the community meeting required for proposed changes to the city’s comprehensive plan. A story in Thursday’s South Side Voice was unclear on that point.
The state Department of Transportation is proposing a series of arterial access roads, ramps and interchanges along the Pullman highway in the Latah Valley.
Its recommendations will be the subject of a community meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Spokane’s Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 314 S. Spruce.
The proposed work along Highway 195 is intended to increase the safety of the high-speed, freewaylike corridor.
In recent years, the highway has seen increases in local commuter traffic due to development along Latah Valley and surrounding areas.
In August, highway officials filed an application to change the city’s comprehensive land-use plan for Latah Valley to give a green light for its proposed projects.
The plan now being made public was the result of last year’s U.S. 195 Corridor Safety Improvement Study, which sought input from two neighborhood councils and motorists who use the highway.
Wednesday’s meeting will be attended by city officials, leaders of the neighborhood councils and state highway engineers.
A flier said the meeting will be a chance for the public to participate in the process.
In applying for the land-use changes, highway officials submitted an outline of their proposal.
“This study and resultant projects as described in the application will eliminate most of the existing atgrade intersections with S.R. 195, provide a series of new or improved city streets, grade-separated crossings and full access interchanges,” highway engineer Keith Metcalf said in a letter accompanying the application.
Frontage roads to carry traffic between interchanges would be built on the west side of the highway and on part of the east side. They would become new city arterial streets.
The west frontage road would use sections of the abandoned Union Pacific right of way, Marshall Road, Qualchan Drive and Meadow Lane Road.
The east frontage road would include portions of Inland Empire Way and Chestnut Street.
Full interchanges are planned for Hatch Road and Cheney-Spokane Road. Elevated crossings with limited freeway access are proposed for Meadow Lane Road and Thorpe Road.
Hatch Road would be realigned with a new bridge over Latah Creek.
The Cheney-Spokane Road interchange would connect over the course of about a half-mile of the highway. An elevated overpass would be built north of the existing intersection of the highway and the Cheney-Spokane Road.
WHAT’S NEXT MEETING PLANNED State recommendations for improving Highway 195 will be the subject of a community meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Spokane’s Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 314 S. Spruce.