Freeway Inches Forward North Spokane Freeway Plans Aired; Grading Contract Pending

Bulldozers could start clearing a path for the first segment of the long-sought north Spokane freeway by next summer.

State highway engineers on Wednesday said they are ready to give the green light to a $10 million grading contract between Hawthorne Road and U.S. Highway 2.

“Breaking that first shovel of dirt is so critical,” said Keith Martin, project manager on the $857 million freeway project.

But don’t expect completion any time soon. Full construction is still years away on a highway that was conceived more than 40 years ago.

Lawmakers must approve money next year for the initial earth work, and again in future years as the project proceeds.

Planners want to build the 10-mile freeway one leg at a time. They’ve divided it into nine segments, with each segment made up of several parts.

The idea is to fit the work into the money that becomes available from the Legislature every two years.

A $22 million appropriation last year has allowed the state Department of Transportation to purchase rights of way on the segment where grading is planned next summer.

Once completed, the 60-mph route will connect Interstate 90 in east Spokane with U.S. Highway 395 near Wandermere. It will be known as Highway 395.

On Wednesday, the team that is designing the project held an open house at Spokane Community College to show off designs for the elevated stretch south of the Spokane River.

The freeway would rest on piers above Greene Street south of the river. From Mission Street, it would remain elevated as it extends south across a mix of industrial sites and homes before connecting with I-90.

Trent Avenue would have an interchange.

At I-90, a complicated system of towering overpasses would be built just west of Thor and Freya streets.

The east-west lanes of I-90 would be linked to Highway 395 by a series of collector lanes running parallel to the existing freeway.

In the path of the project are some 370 homes and 50 businesses.

The largest properties south of the river include Lafarge Corp.’s cement plant, a Consolidated Freightways trucking yard, the SCC parking lot and an undeveloped tract on the southeast corner of Mission and Greene.

The low-income East Central Neighborhood faces the greatest residential disruption. Many of the homes on the proposed route lie along Second, Third and Fourth avenues where new collector-distributor lanes would be built.

The lanes would stretch from Liberty Park on the west end of the project to the Sprague interchange to the east.

Jerry Numbers, a member of the East Central Neighborhood Council, said his community wants to preserve as many homes as possible. They are needed for low-income housing, he said.

The Transportation Department can sell the homes, but if no one wants to buy some of them, they would be demolished under current state policy.

Numbers said East Central is seeking a program in which the unpurchased structures would be donated to nonprofit housing organizations and moved to new lots.

“There are some very nice houses in that area,” Numbers said.

Kirk Phillips of Spokane said he attended Wednesday’s open house because he is considering buying commercial property as an investment near the new freeway route.

He said the impact of the freeway will probably keep home values down in East Central.

“There is a real disconnect between the freeway and the residential districts,” he said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: THE ROUTE

The 10-mile route will connect Interstate 90 in east Spokane with U.S. Highway 395 near Wandermere.