Work to begin on North Ash

Commuting from northwest Spokane is about to get a little harder.

Ash Street will be closed between Francis and Wellesley starting Monday as part of the first of Spokane’s street bond projects.

It will remain closed to through traffic for about two months while construction crews rebuild the road from the gravel sublevel on up, said Project Manager Bill Todd.

“We’re trying to get a long-lasting project out of it,” Todd said.

Local access will be maintained to homes along Ash, which is the southbound portion of the Maple-Ash couplet.

After Ash, crews will move on to Maple between Wellesley and Francis and then on to both Maple and Ash north of Francis.

The entire project will cost about $2.5 million.

Spokane voters approved a $117 million street bond last fall.

In the future, that money eventually will pay to rebuild Ash and Maple all the way south to the Maple Street Bridge, among other projects, said Todd.

To complicate matters for North Side drivers, the Washington state Department of Transportation is planning this summer to grind down and replace five miles of Division/Highway 2 from just north of Francis up to Mead.

Most of that work will happen at night, however, said Jerry Lenzi, WSDOT’s Eastern Region administrator.

And if the Ash Street detour gets you down in the coming weeks, keep this in mind: It could have been a lot worse.

Earlier this year, Spokane County had planned to tear up and fix Monroe Street north of Francis this summer. That project has been postponed until next year, said Spokane County Assistant County Engineer Bob Brueggeman.

“We didn’t want to tie up every north-south route,” Brueggeman said. “We wanted to leave at least one open.”