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First Use of Park Bond Dollars Goes to the Bridges

Paige Browning
/
Spokane Public Radio

The redesign of Riverfront Park is still a few years away, but the city is ready to start repairing bridges now. Money from the renewed park bond will go, in part, to replacing well-worn pedestrian bridges.

In January, KPFFConsulting Engineers finished a study on eleven pedestrian bridges in Spokane. As a result, two of the bridges will be completely replaced: the Howard Street Bridge-South, and Howard blue bridge.

I caught up with city parks and rec director Leroy Eadie waiting to cross the street, and he said all eleven are completely safe, even the Howard-south.

Eadie: “And that one, as you know, in the middle of that area is cordoned off just to help with the weight load. There’s no imminent safety issue on any of the bridges, but if we don’t address these maintenance issues now, long term we could find ourselves in a safety situation.”

The study recommends major repairs on nine of the eleven pedestrian bridges, which will cost the city about $15-million. Eadie says that will include fixes to the suspension and wooden bridges, and major repairs on the Theme Stream Bridge to make it accessible for emergency trucks.

$13-million of the $15-million is already accounted for, coming from the new park bond, the utilities department, and some allocated from city council.

Copyright 2015 Spokane Public Radio

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