Barker bridge plan saves access

Next summer, the Barker Road Bridge in Spokane Valley will be replaced, closing one of the city’s four routes across the Spokane River for more than a year but preserving a popular river access point.

Last March, preliminary drawings of the new bridge called for the structure to be built on the site of an informal parking lot and path to the water on the river’s north bank. The access point is used by people who float, canoe and kayak on the river.

Fearing they would lose access to two popular stretches of water, 19 groups that use the river banded together and petitioned the Spokane Valley City Council to keep it open.

“It worked out really, really well for us,” said city Senior Engineer Steve Worley. “We were not so far along that we couldn’t change and move the bridge to the west to save the access.”

Initially, plans called for the new bridge to be built while using the existing structure to help keep traffic moving during construction.

River access as well as the cost associated with keeping the bridge open during construction prompted city officials to favor tearing down the old bridge and building its replacement slightly farther west.

Much parking will be eliminated, but the path to the river will survive and new parking will be available on the bridge deck.

A more formal access point would be ideal, said Terry Miller of the Spokane Canoe and Kayak Club, but river users are glad the city found a way to accommodate them.

“We’re ecstatic just to have the access there,” Miller said.

Because environmental regulations stipulate that construction work in the river can only take place during a handful of weeks in the summer, building the new four-lane bridge is planned for 2008 and 2009.

Drivers make an average of 7,500 trips across the bridge each day, according to a map of city traffic counts.

Proposed detour routes will send traffic east to the Harvard Road Bridge in Liberty Lake via Mission and Euclid Avenues.

A Centennial Trail parking lot sits just to the south of Barker Bridge, and the trail winds beneath it. During construction a detour will route trail users through about a mile of residential streets between that trailhead and another access at Flora Road.

Floaters upstream will be warned that the river is closed beneath the bridge, Worley said.

Shortly before Spokane Valley incorporated, Spokane County was promised a $10 million federal grant to replace the 55-year-old bridge because it has reached the end of its useful life.

The city is trying to stay within the grant amount; because of the way the grant is written, exceeding that amount would require the city to pay 20 percent of the cost of the project.