Reconfiguration of Broadway proposed

As most people who live on Broadway in Spokane Valley can attest, it’s not easy backing out onto a street that carries about 11,000 vehicles every day.

With two lanes each way, several busy intersections and dozens of driveways right on the street, engineers say a driver has a better chance of getting in an accident there than on Sprague Avenue.

Striping the road differently after construction this summer might help, but the proposal has provoked sharply divergent reactions from the City Council, as well as people who use the road.

“We’ve got some pretty strong advocates each way, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” said Mayor Diana Wilhite after Tuesday’s council meeting.

Since last month, the city council has quizzed engineers on the possibility of repainting the road with one travel lane in each direction, bike lanes and a center turn lane.

During recent presentations, traffic experts have said that in Seattle a study of 16 similar conversions reduced collisions by 27 percent, and three-lane streets in the Spokane area operate smoothly even with higher traffic volumes.

The new layout provides a refuge for crossing pedestrians, improves visibility while turning and could slow down traffic because cars can’t pass each other, they said.

For some on the council, the three-lane figures made sense, but others deduced that fewer lanes of traffic would mean cars passing by driveways more frequently.

As soon as the restriping idea came up, Councilman Rich Munson was quick to make a point that the county made a similar proposal before the city incorporated and was met with fierce opposition from neighbors on Broadway.

The sentiments of the people living there now are as mixed as the council’s.

“With two lanes of traffic (in each direction), it gets pretty hectic” said Kent Odekirk, who lives on Broadway.

His three kids would benefit from having a bike lane between them and the traffic when they walk to school. It also would be easier to turn left into his driveway and might slow traffic, he said.

“Nobody does the speed limit,” said John Schneider, another Broadway resident. While slowing traffic would benefit the neighborhood, he said the proposal will simply back up traffic.

“I think it’s going to clog it up more,” he said.

Ultimately, the decision is left to the City Council, which will take public comment and decide on the lane configuration at its meeting next week.