Funding for North Spokane Corridor may delay county road project

Newly secured funding for the construction of the North Spokane Corridor could delay another long-gestating Spokane County road project.

A regional board narrowly voted earlier this month not to return more than $1.1 million to Spokane County for work on the Bigelow Gulch/Forker Road connection project, which has been in the works for almost a decade. The county’s wishes to expand the road to four lanes with paved shoulders to improve safety and facilitate freight movement was not seen as a high priority by other members of the Spokane Regional Transportation Council now that the state highway is slated for construction.

“It wasn’t an indication that it wasn’t a priority, but a look at how do we move that project forward?” Kevin Wallace, the board’s executive director, said last week.

But Spokane County Commissioner Al French and colleagues called the decision “frustrating” after spending years securing funding and correcting errors in acquiring land for the project. Commissioners also were miffed that the decision not to return money to the county was made while Commissioners Todd Mielke and Shelly O’Quinn were out of town on county business.

“Some board members had their own interests ahead of the regional interest,” French said. The council is made up of representatives from the city of Spokane, the county, Spokane Valley, Spokane Transit Authority and state departments.

The transportation council drafts a list of projects it prioritizes for funding. The Bigelow Gulch project was put on hold while the county worked with federal and state officials to correct issues with the way the Division of Engineering and Roads acquired land along the road, which runs from Freya near the current terminus of Highway 395 to Forker Road north of Spokane Valley. Six Spokane County officials lost their jobs in 2011 as a result of those errors, and the project was disqualified from receiving federal funding until the county met certain conditions.

The county received notice earlier this year that it had met those goals and informed the regional transportation council it would be requesting the return of about $1.41 million to continue the project. A formal vote will come in September on the board’s funding priorities, but Spokane County engineer Mitch Reister said it was unlikely, based on the outcome of the meeting earlier this month, that the county would get the bulk of that money back, which would have been used for road improvements on Bigelow between Argonne and Forker roads.

The board did vote to return $250,000 for the Bigelow Gulch/Forker interchange project. But Reister said stakeholders shouldn’t be looking at the project in the planning chunks that were used to secure money for construction.

“They really shouldn’t be rated against each other,” Reister said of the project phases. “They’re in the order that they’re in because of the other funding partners that have come to the table.”

The county will explore its options to dedicate other road money to the Bigelow project, but Reister said it’s unlikely that will be successful. He said the county remains committed to the project, and that the traffic studies conducted to justify construction were based on numbers if the North Spokane Corridor were built.

“There’s definitely a need for freight movement from the northern portion of Spokane to the northern portion of Spokane Valley,” Reister said.

Wallace said it was unfortunate Mielke and O’Quinn were not available to attend this month’s meeting, but that the group needed to hold the vote in order to ensure funding for other regional projects would be available.

“This document needs to go out in August,” he said.