Hats off to Margaret Hurley

Great article in The Spokesman-Review (Dec. 18th) that brought back interesting memories of locating a “freeway” as transportation access to and through Spokane. Many choices to a difficult solution and Margaret Hurley, our longtime Washington state legislator, disliked them all.

The route of Interstate 90 through our city was nevertheless hurriedly built, but soon came President Lyndon Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act in 1965, which limited billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising as well as junkyards and other unsightly roadside messes along America’s interstate highways. The law was effective in certain ways, but today trash, littering and businesses established adjacent to routes are eyesores and are not promoting environment-friendliness.

The North Spokane Corridor route is awesomely placed around nature surroundings and from congestion. Along eastern parts of I-90 old houses were torn down, but leaving existing trees there temporarily created pleasant open-drive experiences. Those are like looping new highways around our southern towns of Rosalia, Pullman and others. Presently, WSDOT seem to follow what Margaret sought years ago by emphasizing cost-effectiveness through less destruction in designing highways bypassing the core of populated communities.

Larry Gorton

Spokane