 |
If you’re tired of waiting for that stalled train at Havana, some relief may be in sight for later this summer.
Work is set to begin on the Havana Street overpass at the Yardley switchyard as early as August, which would be the latest development in the decades-long “Bridging the Valley” project to remove at-grade crossings in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.
Glen Miles, transportation manager for the Spokane Regional Transportation Council, said that bids for the project, which has received federal funding, will be solicited soon. The overpass, which will be similar to that of Fancher Road to the east, is expected to cost about $15 million.
Most savvy longtime area motorists avoid Havana like the plague between Trent and Broadway. About 60 to 100 Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains a day run through the crossing, and switching operations can cause it to be blocked up to 18 hours in a 24-hour period.
But the overpass is expected to relieve congestion in the area, especially on Freya Street to the west and Fancher.
“Just for safety reasons alone, it’s the kind of project we like to see done,” Spokane Valley Council Member Diana Wilhite said last year.
The upgrade of Havana is just the latest chapter of the larger Bridging the Valley project, which calls for grade separations or closures of 75 railroad/roadway crossings in this area. The idea is to keep cars separated from trains by constructing overpasses and underpasses at the most heavily used crossings. Crossings that don’t receive much traffic will be closed altogether, such as the one at Vista Road.
The other part of the plan involves aligning the existing Union Pacific Railroad mainline with BNSF’s tracks, thus taking crossings at Pines and the freeway and in the heart of Millwood at the paper mill out of the equation.
Funding of the projects is always tricky business, as the joint nature of responsibility means that the owners of many wallets have to agree to loosen them for the same projects. The Park Road project, expected to cost about $16.5 million, had been next in line for work.
Recently, though, city officials have been rethinking the priority list and want to see an overpass at Barker Road just south of Trent be the next job to be done. There is no traffic signal at the intersection, and further development in the area is causing more and more cars to use the crossing daily. Once the overpass is constructed, it would allow more commercial truck traffic to also get through to Spokane Industrial Park.
It may be tricky to get funds transferred from one project to another, however. While the state may allow the transfer of its allocated $5 million in federal funding for the Park Road renovation to the expected $22.6 million overpass at Barker, it’s unlikely the $2 million set aside by the state Transportation Improvement Board will get the same approval.
An underpass at Pines Road and Trent Avenue – expected to cost $13.3 million – would be done after Barker, with the Park Road job at No. 3.
Click
here to...
Subscribe to the Spokane Valley News Herald
|
|
By
Mike Huffman
