Address Stress Reaches Post Falls
As Ohio Match Road curls west into the city of Post Falls, its name changes to Maplewood Street.
It’s a result of annexation by the city, whose streets extend into roads named by the county. It confuses residents and city planners. More important, wrong addresses and duplicate street names pose challenges to emergency workers who must know the exact location to reach someone in trouble.
The problem has been magnified by Post Falls’ rapid growth. The city grew to 15,700 people in 1998 - up 114 percent from 1990. Today, its population is about 16,500 and is expected to grow to 22,000 by 2002.
The city is preparing to change at least 39 street names along with more than 1,000 street addresses.
Unlike Kootenai County, planners for the city project don’t know who will be affected yet, said Collin Coles, senior planner.
“It cures ills, but it creates discomfort,” Coles said of the changes. “We hope the citizens will be patient because all this is to enhance the 911 system.”
The largest addressing problems are in east and west Post Falls, Coles said, because that’s where the city has stretched. Land annexed from the county didn’t easily fit into existing city streets or numbers.
It’s the city’s first, and hopefully last, overhaul of its addressing system.
Planners have avoided a complete adjustment of older areas of the city, especially nearby businesses.
Though the new mapping is done, residents will be notified in several months if their addresses will change, after the $40,000 project is complete.
Before the city approved the new 911 system in March, plans for a general re-addressing system were already in the works. No matter what, Ohio Match Road and Maplewood Street need to be one, not two, streets. City planners will call the street Maplewood.
The new emergency system will benefit people in the county more than the city, said Post Falls Police Capt. Jim Simmerman. More information will be accessible quickly for emergency workers.
“They look at this as an inconvenience, and I know it is,” Simmerman said. “But once they take a broader look, I know it may help somebody someday.”