(...) The data contained in the Urban Mobility Report, released Tuesday by Texas A&M University, supports what a local nonprofit group has been preaching since the beginning of the new millennium: our regional traffic congestion can’t be used to justify spending billions of dollars on the north Spokane freeway.

The mobility report demonstrates that Spokane’s congestion problems are the smallest of the 85 metropolitan areas studied nationwide. The Spokane area’s head transportation manager is quoted as saying that this mobility report is the "top authority when it comes to national traffic trends."

By the time the state’s department of transportation is finished with the new freeway, Washington taxpayers will have shelled out more than $3 billion. It is fiscally irresponsible to be spending billions on an unnecessary project when serious congestion problems go unfunded elsewhere in the state.

It is time for this ill-conceived project to be downsized, phased out and integrated into the county’s existing transportation grid.

John Covert
President, Citizens for Sensible Transportation Planning

Is hope for the North Spokane Corridor not worth the price?

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