Couplet likely to remain

Switching Sprague and Appleway back to two-way streets between Argonne and University is spelled out in the Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan. Now that the Spokane Valley City Council has voted to begin the process of killing the entire SARP, what happens to Sprague?

The short answer is: nothing. The couplet will remain the way it is unless the city council decides to address the issue separately, and that has some people upset.

Early in the week Mayor Tom Towey said the couplet could come up for consideration. “Even if we did away with SARP, certainly we would be open to any improvement that would help this community,” he said.

The catch is that it would cost more than $1 million just to restripe the roads and add stop lights and the city doesn’t have any money in the budget to pay for it. A more elaborate re-do with landscaping and other tweaks would cost millions more. Towey said he doesn’t think the city could afford to change the streets back to two-way for another nine to 12 years. “I know that they want it done, like tomorrow,” he said.

Even if the city doesn’t have the money now to pay for it, the issue isn’t going to fade quietly into the night. “That problem is not going to go away,” he said. “That problem we are going to have to address.”

Business owners have been nearly unanimous in their condemnation of the one-way couplet in a series of meetings about SARP over the last several months. They say the couplet is driving customers away and killing business. That refrain was repeated at Tuesday’s city council meeting, but some commuters also said that they like the couplet the way it is.

“I avoid two-way Sprague like the plague,” said Dennis Johnson.

Todd Whipple of Whipple Consulting Engineering said he initially fought the couplet idea because he realized what the impact would be to businesses. “Most of the damage has been done,” he said.

Mike Dixon said 50 percent of the businesses that used to be on Sprague are gone. “What happened to them? We killed them. We killed them with the couplet.”

The couplet may be good for traffic but it makes it hard for people to get to businesses on Sprague, Dixon said. And when businesses close the city loses money. “That’s tax dollars that are being lost left and right.”

Milt Neumann, founder of A to Z Rental, said Sprague Avenue should return to a two-way street because it isn’t pedestrian-friendly. “You try to cross that thing you literally take your life into your own hands,” he said.

Real estate agent Mike King said the one-way couplet is “death to small business.”

Business owners aren’t the only group worried about the couplet. In September the Spokane Valley Fire Department sent the city a letter saying that the one-way section of Sprague in front of Fire Station 1 adds a minute and 20 seconds to each call east of the station because their engines have to complete a large circle to get headed in the right direction. That time can be crucial in life or death calls where survival depends on paramedics arriving in under six minutes, the letter said.

Earlier this week Spokane Valley Fire Department Chief Mike Thompson said the department has not received a response from city officials. The department is concerned that going back to two-way traffic may be off the table and wants to explore other options, Thompson said.

Engines cannot go out the back way and use Main to connect to University and then head east on Sprague partly because of the city park behind the station. “It’s not a good option for us to come out the back,” Thompson said. “We’ve got people coming in for business, we’ve got all our vehicles parked there, we have foot traffic back there.”

Council members did not address the fire department’s concerns Tuesday, but did discuss the couplet briefly. Getting rid of SARP “still does not take care of the one-way/two-way question,” said Councilman Bill Gothmann. “That’s a separate issue.”

Councilman Dean Grafos said there is a simple way to settle the issue, which he brought up several weeks ago. “Put it on the ballot,” he said.

Council members gave no indication when or if they would discuss the couplet further.

In other business, the majority of the council voted to send to the planning commission an emergency comprehensive plan amendment to replace the City Center section of SARP with Mixed Use zoning. The change was requested by the Pring Corp. and Jim Magnuson, owner of the University City Mall. Brad Pring has agreed to purchase a parcel of land on the west end of U-City from Magnuson if the city will rezone it to allow used vehicle sales.

Declaring an emergency will allow the city to make a comprehensive plan amendment now instead of waiting for the usual amendment process that is only allowed once a year by state law, said former city attorney and consultant Mike Connelly. The city is only allowed to declare an emergency in certain circumstances. Since the City Center hinged on the development of a new city hall and a public library, it can be argued that keeping the City Center restrictions in place creates economic hardship, Connelly said.

“What is left is the restrictions without the benefits,” he said. Declaring an emergency does open the city up to a possible legal challenge, he said.

Councilwoman Rose Dempsey and Gothmann voted against the motion. “I really fail to understand how this could possibly be considered an emergency,” Dempsey said. She said the zone change should follow the normal procedure the rest of the SARP plan is following.

Gothmann noted that a 2004 survey of city residents showed 62 percent were in favor of a city center and more than half wanted it at University City. “I think I’ll vote with the people,” he said. “I also do not think it’s an emergency.”

City revenues are down, noted Grafos. “There is an emergency,” he said. “We need to get businesses going. Time is money.”