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New Public Plaza by Spokane City Hall

New Public Plaza by Spokane City Hall


Here’s a heads up on downtown construction and road closures that was issued by City Hall on Friday:

A new public plaza is planned in the parking lot north of City Hall that will include seating and gathering space for events. In appreciation of the 125-year partnership between WWP/Avista and the people of Spokane, the newly developed City Hall Plaza will be a gift from Avista Corp. shareholders to the City of Spokane.

Work on City Hall Plaza will begin on Tuesday, July 23. The north parking lot will close permanently following the City Council meeting on Monday, July 22. Three handicapped spots will be moved to the lot on the southwest side of City Hall.

Improvements will also be made to Post Street, which will close for several weeks beginning in mid-September. The Post Street project will be finished in late fall.

Current parking options during construction:

  • Street parking will be available before work begins on Post Street and after it is finished.
  • River Park Square parking garage with skywalk accessibility to City Hall.

More information on the Huntington Park improvement is given in this Spokesman-Review story. Avista also blogged about it here.

Roadworks in Emerson-Garfield

Roadworks in Emerson-Garfield

Say hello to your friendly neighborhood road construction crew (on Montgomery).

Montgomery Road CrewApparently they’re close to finishing here in Emerson-Garfield, but they only intend to do half of the western portion of Montgomery, Mansfield, Carlisle, Jackson and York this year. No one quite seems to know why.

Proposed Changes to Photo Red: Your Input Is Needed

Proposed Changes to Photo Red: Your Input Is Needed

The Spokane City Council is currently looking at the Photo Red program to see if they want to recommend to the Spokane Police Department to move forward with retaining or amending the contract language.

Neighborhood councils like ours need to be proactive when it comes time for open discussion as to where those funds may be allocated. There is expected to be discussion as to using some of the funds for purposes other than neighborhood traffic calming projects such as roundabouts and speed limit signs. Right now, Photo Red funds can only be used for traffic calming, and a recent vote by the EGNC came out in favor of keeping it this way.

The Community Assembly (which is sort of a roundtable of all Spokane neighborhood councils) is asking for our feedback on this issue so as to introduce it as a discussion topic for the City Council this autumn.

We ask that residents of Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood take the following informal poll(s) so we can provide feedback to the Community Assembly.

[yop_poll id=”2″]
[yop_poll id=”3″]

If you voted “No” on the poll titled Photo Red Funding, please use the comments section below to suggest where you would spend Photo Red funds in addition to neighborhood traffic calming projects.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Traffic Counters on Montgomery Ave

Traffic Counters on Montgomery Ave

Neighborhood drivers will probably have noted that traffic counters are out on Montgomery Ave (blocks west of N. Monroe). With any luck, these are the prelude to the ambitious traffic circles that the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council proposed about a year ago.

A bit of background: We’ve had to push just to get this far. Initially, we received a suggestion from the relevant city department that if the traffic light at the Montgomery/Monroe intersection seemed to be the cause of the speeding — that is, people were accelerating down Montgomery to make the green light — then they should just remove the traffic light.

Yep, you read that right. The city proposed simply removing the traffic light at an incredibly busy residential/arterial intersection and the only designated pedestrian crossing in the 20 blocks between NW Boulevard and Garland. We firmly nixed that suggestion, and so the traffic counters were (slowly) rolled out.

After all this, we hope that the number of cars logged by the counters will be enough to justify the traffic circles.

STA Moving Forward Open House, Apr 10

STA Moving Forward Open House, Apr 10

The Spokane Transit Authority is holding a free, all-corridor — which pretty much includes everywhere there’s a major route — public open house on Wednesday, April 10 from 4:30 to 7pm at the Lincoln Center [map].

The STA will use this event to showcase its proposed changes to the corridors — and there are some big ones under consideration that will effect the public transportation near you. By all accounts, these changes will be positive and, if enacted in full, stand to put Spokane on a par with any respectable urban center.

The STA has already solicited small-group input via a Corridor Advisory Panel as well as wider feedback through localized public open houses, so the April 10 event ought to offer a great opportunity to learn how the STA is planning for the future of Spokane and slightly beyond.

April 10 STA Open House Flyer

Please note that the open house falls on the same evening as the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council meeting. Fortunately, it was scheduled in a way that shouldn’t conflict with the meeting, which starts at the time when the open house officially ends. The EGNC encourages anyone who’s interested in the N. Monroe corridor to stop by the open house beforehand — because the STA’s proposed changes will impact our neighborhood’s business hub.

More details are available at stamovingforward.com.