Deadlock holds up street grants

A political impasse over the new federal transportation act has also stalled grants for improvements to Spokane city streets. Thus, the city’s new six-year street plan is lined with projects awaiting federal grant money. The City Council approved the plan Monday. Spokane, like other cities, competes for federal grants to pay for safety improvements, hazard elimination, bridge repair, bike trails and congestion improvements. Congress last year failed to reauthorize its six-year transportation funding bill as scheduled because of a disagreement between Congress and the White House over funding levels. “It’s holding up a number of things,” said Spokane City Council President Dennis Hession, who sits on the Spokane Regional Transportation Council. The Senate is seeking $318 billion in funding through 2009, while the House wants $275 billion. The president has threatened to veto any amount above $256 billion. Work on a compromise is expected this summer. Jerry Sinclair, senior engineer in Spokane, said several major improvements are awaiting federal grant applications even though local matching money has been set aside for the projects. The local money includes $5 million in grant seed money out of a $15 million street improvement bond approved by the City Council late last year. The city hopes to take that $5 million and combine it with $4 million in other city funds to compete for $36 million in grants, Sinclair said. Among the projects awaiting money are safety improvements to 57th Avenue between Hatch Road and Perry Street and an extension of East Riverside Avenue to Trent Avenue in a project known as Riverside Drive through the city’s emerging Riverpoint campus. Others are the widening of Five Mile Road from Austin Road to Lincoln Road; widening of Crestline Street from Decatur Avenue to Lincoln Road; and an additional turn lane on Division Street northbound onto the Newport Highway at the Y. While the city waits for grant money, it continues to plan traffic improvements. Four transportation studies encompassing broad areas of the city are connected to the six-year street plan. One study will look at the feasibility of building a new Hatch Road extension from U.S. Highway 195 to any of three existing arterials to the east – Regal Street, Freya Street or the Palouse Highway. The route would travel up a draw below newer subdivisions at the boundary for urban growth on the south side. That project emerged from a south side transportation study earlier this year, but it has been controversial among homeowners living above the proposed route. It would eliminate the need to make costly improvements to the steep grade of the existing Hatch Road, an important route connecting U.S. 195 to the far south side. “I don’t know whether it is a good project or not,” Hession said about the Hatch Road extension. “I think it ought to be studied.” The project was listed in the street plan so the city could apply for grants for improvements to existing Hatch Road, which needs upgrading regardless of whether the Hatch Road extension is approved, Sinclair said. The transportation council will undertake the feasibility study. The six-year plan also calls for a study of traffic in the Indian Trail and Five Mile Prairie areas, including a connection between the Barnes Road intersection at Indian Trail Road and Strong Road on Five Mile Prairie. Currently, Strong Road turns into a winding gravel lane as it descends the bluff from Five Mile to the north Indian Trail neighborhood. Another study would occur in northeast Spokane, specifically to look at alternatives for reducing heavy truck and traffic volumes passing through the old commercial district in Hillyard and improvements needed once the North Side freeway is built. More study is going into the Riverpoint campus area to look at the possibility of constructing a new South River Drive route along the south bank of the Spokane River beneath the Keefe Bridge, which carries traffic between Hamilton Street and Interstate 90. An extension of the Ben Burr bike trail linking Liberty Park to Trent Avenue is one of the improvements under consideration. The study is being financed through a $1 million federal grant, Sinclair said. Hession said transportation improvements that emerge from the studies will be important to future growth. “They are significant not only from a transportation standpoint, but from an economic development standpoint,” he said.