SPOKANE, Wash. — Pacific Avenue will soon be part of Spokane’s bicycle network.
The Pacific Avenue Greenway will be around a mile of designated paths for both bicycles and pedestrians to use that helps them stay off the busier streets.
The path will start at Howard Street and continue east to Perry Street. The city hopes this path will better connect the Sprague Union District, the University District and downtown.
“You can’t really have a network without the connection,” said Bicycle Advisory Board chair Lauren Pangborn. “Being able to connect the Ben Burr Trail, which then gets pretty close to the Centennial Trail today. Having that whole network intersection is going to be really helpful.”
One of the biggest concerns for bicyclists in this area is safety. The city says that in order to make sure people feel safe on the path, it wants to make it easy for them to cross the street and get on with their journey as quickly as possible.
“Narrowing the intersections, bringing those curb extensions out, slowing traffic down even further so that it’s kind of a shared street. That’s the priority, making a seamless experience where you can quickly travel through the area,” said senior planner Colin Quinn-Hurst.
There will be new traffic signals at both Browne and Division causing traffic to stop. There will also be crosswalk markings on the road and a countdown showing how much time is left to cross.
“Brown and Division downtown are definitely active transportation barriers currently just due to traffic speeds and the traffic volume being really high,” said Pangborn. “They’re loud and they’re noisy and they’re just not pleasant to ride around. I think having nice, safe, lighted crossings on both of those is going to be pretty critical to the success of this project.”
The Browne and Division intersections are part of Phase I of this project, which is fully planned and funded. Phase II includes Sherman Street to Perry Street and is still in the planning phase.
While the buildings along the route are not main attractions, the city hopes the safety features and the destinations on either end of the path will encourage bicyclists of all skill levels to come out and ride.
“It’s really to provide a safe way to get to those places where there’s a lot going on,” Quinn-Hurst said.
The city is hosting a workshop on Thursday where community members can see some of the proposed designs and give feedback to the project team. The workshop will be at Uptic Studios from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
You can find out more information about that workshop here.
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