According to the Spokesman-Review, the Washington State Department of Transportation is squabbling with the city of Spokane over growth along U.S. Highway 195 and the threat of a development moratorium has been invoked. The bone of contention is highway improvements to 195 which intersects with U.S. highway 90, a major route that runs east and west just south of downtown Spokane. The state is threatening to remove median breaks in the highway and the city has yet to respond.
The information WSDOT sent the city on a flash drive accompanying the letter pertains to a history of growth and traffic issues that stretches back some 40 years, to at least 1981, when the city annexed land in the area. A crucial moment in that tangled history came in the early 1990s, when WSDOT allowed the city to extend sewer infrastructure in the department’s right of way to boost the possibilities for development. It worked.
By the end of the decade, the Eagle Ridge development was underway and the city was working with WSDOT to formulate a plan for improving the local roadways to head off future problems. The result was a 1999 study that proposed adding interchanges at Hatch, Meadowlane, Thorpe and Cheney-Spokane roads and building two new frontage roads to take pressure off U.S. 195. But with the exception of a new Cheney-Spokane interchange, those plans have largely remained just that: plans.
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