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New Sidewalks Along Madison

New Sidewalks Along Madison

Lest it seem that our neighborhood requests routinely fall on deaf ears or get nixed due to lack of available funding, allow us to draw your attention to Madison Street, where construction crews are currently putting in new sidewalks.

The channel has been dug for the new sidewalk.

We’re hoping that these sidewalks will ultimately run all the way down Madison to Emerson Park. This tends to be the principal route that families and older children take toward Emerson Park, and it will be better for both them and drivers if they no longer have to be on the road.


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Unfortunately, the construction crews had to cut down very old and distinctive black locust trees in at least one block to make way for the sidewalk. We hope these will be replaced with new street trees — with more added to the parking strip along the way where they’re lacking.

We’ll keep you updated with photos of the new sidewalk as installation progresses.

What’s next for Madison? A bike lane, maybe?

July 11 Planning Meeting Wrap-up

July 11 Planning Meeting Wrap-up

Here are the main points of yesterday evening’s neighborhood planning meeting. The lingering questions — feel free to leave answers in the comments below — are in bold.

The October issues/solutions workshop will be two hours in length. In those two hours, it has to fulfill four goals:

  • explain to the public what exactly neighborhood planning is (in under 15 minutes)
  • highlight areas of consideration such as traffic, demographics, parks, economics
  • describe what our planning ideas look like so far
  • elicit feedback from neighborhood residents and business owners

To that last end, the workshop will pose the following questions to participants:

  • What do you like about Emerson-Garfield that should be preserved or enhanced?
  • What would you like to see done differently?
  • Are there things in other neighborhoods that you’d like to see in ours?
  • What do you see as our neighborhood’s priorities?

The exact date of the workshop is still undecided. Should we hold the workshop on the regular planning meeting date (i.e., Wednesday, October 10) or later in the month? Put another way: What’s the optimal date for holding the October workshop?

Holding it on October 10 would likely mean combining the workshop with the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council meeting. That would ensure attendance but might result in less time for the EGNC to conduct its regular business. There might also be city functions that our planning consultants have to attend instead. Holding it later in October would give us extra time to plan and announce the workshop, but it would mean asking people to reserve yet another evening for neighborhood affairs.

Once the date is decided, we will probably be able to reserve the Women and Children’s Free Restaurant as a venue. There’s ample parking there, being on Monroe it’s easy to find, and there’s plenty of open space inside.

There are pros and cons to addressing the workshop participants as a large group or breaking them up into smaller groups. Given the workshop goals and questions listed above, what is the best way to both inform participants and encourage their feedback? Handouts? Information and input stations? A giant group brainstorm session? A mix of all of them?

But even the smoothest-run workshop is of no use if no one is there. How do we spread the word and encourage public participation? We need to reach out to local churches and organizations and use a variety of media (e.g., mailings, our two websites, Twitter, Facebook) to notify residents and businesses alike. (Direct mailings via the city will cost between $1,000 and $2,000 depending on scope and quality.)

All that is easier suggested than done, which is why we will undoubtedly need volunteers to canvass the neighborhood with door flyers and/or get in touch with heads of neighborhood organizations to inform their members. Short notice and limited reach has been a problem in the past, so it’s extremely important that any notification is memorable and timely.

A copy of the board notes from the meeting is available for download here.

Oh, and there is no planning meeting in August. Stakeholders are encouraged to attend the neighborhood potluck on August 8 at Emerson Park and eat, drink, and be merry.

Several Headlines of Note

Several Headlines of Note

The city just issued several press releases that are of particular interest to Emerson-Garfield residents and businesses:

Spokane City Council Unanimously Approves Coal Train Resolution

This was a significant topic of discussion when councilman Steve Salvatori spoke at the June 13 EGNC meeting. Spokane could see up to 50 additional open-topped coal trains per day, creating dust, exhaust, noise, and halting traffic.

Traffic Calming Projects to Be Built Using Red Light Camera Dollars

Some of this money is funding new sidewalks on Post Street in Emerson-Garfield. The use of Photo Red money exclusively for traffic-calming measures was also a topic of discussion at the June 13 EGNC meeting; councilman Salvatori had proposed an exception to this rule in order to establish a COPS Shop in northern Spokane.

Cantwell, Murray, McMorris Rodgers Announce $10 million USDOT Grant for North Spokane Corridor

The North Spokane Corridor (or: WSDOT site) will be well east of Division but could potentially lead to less traffic on N. Monroe. Only after completion will we truly be able to gauge how it affects drivers’ habits and freight routes — but the possibility of fewer vehicles ought to have an impact on North Monroe Revitalization.

Corbin Park Swing Set Proposal

Corbin Park Swing Set Proposal

We received the following e-mail from Garrett Jones at the City of Spokane Parks & Recreation department:

The City of Spokane Parks and Recreation Department Operations Division is looking at updating a number of swing sets in the park system.

One of our highest priorities is addressing the swing structure at Corbin Park. Our proposal is to replace the existing swings next to the tennis courts and replace them with a two bay (four swings total) arch swing structure. We would like to relocate the new swings closer to the existing play structure to accommodate families and maintenance needs. The project would include the new swing structure, concrete containment curb and resilient surfacing (engineered wood fiber). There would be at least one toddler swing.

I have attached a general concept of the area we would possibly locate the swings [image below]. I have outlined two possible locations. The preferred location will be selected that will have the least amount of impact of existing conditions. I have also included a picture of type of structure we are proposing. This picture was taken at High Bridge Park where we recently installed a new playground.

The Park Operations staff is hoping to to proceed with this project provided that there are no concerns raised by our neighborhood. New and updated swing sets are always welcome, but there might be an issue we’ve overlooked.

If you have questions or concerns about this proposal, you can contact Garrett directly at gjones@spokanecity.org or simply leave a comment below. We’ll compile all feedback, if any, and present it to him.

The timeframe seems to be quite short on this, so the issue might not be able to wait until our August potluck/council meeting. We’ll post more if that changes.