The city of Spokane is proposing to revamp a busy East Spokane traffic route near the Freya Way and Freya Street bridges, which it also plans to upgrade as part of a series of projects along the Freya corridor.


The combined cost of all three projects is expected to exceed $12.3 million. The two bridge projectsaccounting for about $9 million of that totalalready have been funded, and one of them is expected to get under way this fall.


Some of the most dramatic changes for motorists would involve the as yet unfunded project, which calls for realigning the Broadway Avenue S curve just east of Freya Street by moving it a block to the south.


The S curve currently extends eastward from a signaled intersection at Springfield Avenue and Freya Street, near the south end of the Freya Street Bridge, then winds north one block, turning into Broadway Avenue. The city contends, though, that the bridge is too steep, the intersection is too dangerous, and the S curve is too sharp.


With the truck traffic and other traffic in that area, we need to follow acceptable horizontal curves, says a city engineer Steve Hansen. This is essentially what it will take to get there.


To improve driver and pedestrian safety, the city is proposing to move the traffic signals at Springfield a block south to the intersection of Alki Avenue and Freya, and to create a new S curve link one block east of there to the intersection of Broadway and Julia Street, which would be revamped. A three-block section of Alki west of Freya also would be improved.


In conjunction with those projects, the city plans to raise the approaches to the Freya Street Bridge to reduce that bridges steep incline and strip the Freya Way Bridge to its girders and rebuild its deteriorating deck.


The citys proposal to move the traffic signals one block south would put an end to through traffic across Freya where Broadway and Springfield avenues, respectively, meet with Freya, Hansen says. Those street sections each would end at Freya, possibly becoming dead-end cul-de-sacs, he says.


Truella Stone, the owner of Moran Fence Inc., at the northwest corner of Freya and Springfield, says the proposal to block that traffic could be detrimental to her business.


It will eliminate any business we might get from people coming west on Broadway, Stone says. Weve got a valuable piece of property in a prime spot, and they want to put in a cul-de-sac from hell.


There currently are three access points to Moran Fences property, but if the city goes ahead with its plans as proposed in the conceptual designs, Stone says customers only could access the business from the west end of the property. She says she was too upset to speak at a public meeting the city held on the proposed changes two weeks ago.


I was just floored, she says. I couldnt believe what they were telling me. She adds, though, that city engineers have visited Moran Fence a few times in the last year and a half inquiring about her property and whether shed consider moving her building to part of her property farther from Freya and Springfield.


Stone also acknowledges that the intersection outside her business is a dangerous one, especially during the winter.


They do need to do something, she says. People fly over that bridge, and they do not know that the light up ahead is stopped. There are a tremendous amount of accidents here.


Selling the 1.5 acres she owns there and moving Moran Fence to another location likely wont be an option, Stone says.


If they do what they say theyre going to, Im not sure this piece of property would be saleable, not for what Ive got in it, she says.


City would need to buy land


Building the new S curve would require the city to buy a significant amount of right-of-way to accommodate the 80-foot-wide arterial, Hansen says. As envisioned now, the city would have to acquire parts of three city blocks, and one building would have to be demolished to make room for the road.


At this point, I dont believe we have any options besides knocking down that building, Hansen says.


The right-of-way acquisition and S curve realignment would cost about $3 million. Although funds for that project arent yet available, Hansen expects that money would come mostly from federal coffers, along with some from the citys capital budget.


Hansen says that despite concerns from a few business owners, the projects objectives were well-received at the public meeting.


This is something that is needed, he says. Although individually a lot of owners are concerned about how they will get in and out (of their properties) and how it will affect them, overall the sentiment was positive.


While designs for the new S curve are only conceptual now, right-of-way purchases could begin as early as next year, and construction likely would occur in 2005 and 2006, Hansen says.


The work planned for the Freya Street Bridge is expected to cost more than $4.1 million and to be paid for with federal and city funds, Hansen says.


The highest point of the bridge will remain at its current level, but to decrease the bridges steep incline, the approaches to the bridge will be filled and its abutments will be raised by up to eight feet, he says. The bridge spans Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway Co.s tracks, so it couldnt be lowered because of the clearance space needed for trains, Hansen says. Its deck will be removed and rebuilt.


The funding for the project is in place, but the work might not begin until 2005 to be done concurrently with the S curve realignment project, he says.


The Freya Way Bridge, which is about two blocks north of the Freya Street Bridge and spans BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad tracks, will be reconstructed in a $5.2 million project that is expected to begin this fall, although the bulk of construction will be completed in 2004, Hansen says.


Other Freya corridor work


In other projects farther south along the Freya corridor, the city plans build a concrete roadway on Freya to replace the deteriorated asphalt between Sprague Avenue and Alki, and turn the stretch of Freya between Eighth and Sprague avenues into a northbound and southbound couplet, Hansen says.


Those projects, both funded, will cost about $3.1 million and $3.2 million, respectively, and are expected to be begin next year, he says.