Murphy Bros. Inc., of Spokane, has submitted an apparent low bid of about $1.3 million for a city of Spokane project to widen and resurface a stretch of east Francis Avenue between Freya and Havana streets in northeast Spokane.

That half-mile stretch of road before Francis turns into Bigelow Gulch Road currently has two narrow lanes of travel in each direction with almost no road shoulder space, and is in poor condition.

The city plans to widen those existing four lanes of travel to five lanes with the addition of a continuous center two-way turn lane, says city spokeswoman Ann Deasy. Bike lanes, sidewalks, and a planting strip also will be added to each side of the road, Deasy says. The project is being funded by the Washington state Trans-portation Improvement Board and with some city real estate excise taxes, she says.

Construction on the project originally had been anticipated to take place last summer, but work now is expected to begin next April and should wrap up in mid-summer, Deasy says. It's been moved to next year due to the additional time it took the city to obtain the needed right of way to widen the road, she says.

No traffic detours are being planned for the project at this time, she adds, because its contractor will perform half of the road widening at a time.

The low bid for the street-widening project came in about $206,000 lower than the city engineers' estimate.