The Spokane City Council Monday night heard from several residents upset with plans to expand the Centennial Trail in their neighborhood.
The city is poised to begin work on the trail from Boone Avenue along Summit, through Mission and West Point.
Neighbors have several concerns, including the fact the trail will be cutting through 14 driveways. Nance Van Winkle lives on Mission where it intersects Summit and Cochran.
“I’m going to have to back almost onto that trail, in order to see both directions, and also I’m going to have to look a third direction, down Cochran, since that runs perpendicular, right into my driveway. Now I’ll have to look for traffic in three directions and also more bikers,” she said.
Also testifying was neighbor Laura Garrabrant, who lives on Mission. She says there are several important hoops the city has yet to jump through.
“They haven’t done any traffic studies, when we asked them about it in November, they said it was the wrong time of the year to do studies. Then there’s no SEPA [State Environmental Policy Act], and when we checked yesterday with the Department of Ecology, there was no record of an application," Garrabrant said. "The DAHP report [which deals with cultural or historic impacts] came in, but it’s incomplete because they left off every home on Summit Boulevard, and at least one on Mission,” she said.
Others testified the city should look further into what is described as an alternate route for the trail that will not impact private property. City Council President Breean Beggs has said that route and the current one being discussed are both portions of the same plan, and it’s not a case of one trail being chosen over another.
The comments came during the open forum portion of Monday’s meeting. The council did not respond to residents’ concerns at that time.
