Bigelow Gulch Road, various bridge construction projects, and initial plans to create a northwest connector between the West Plains, Nine Mile Road, and eventually to U.S. 395 are the big-ticket items in Spokane Countys recently adopted six-year transportation plan.


But its Bigelow Gulch that gets most of the attention in the plan.


Of about $88 million proposed to be spent on county road, bridge, and rail projects from 2006 to 2011, about $34 million is targeted to widen and reconfigure the 8.5 miles of Bigelow Gulch Road and related roads on the thoroughfare that serves as a connector between Spokanes North Side and the valley.


About $18.5 million of the six-year plans total budget will be spent next year, and those projects and funding already have been approved, says Bill Hemmings, the countys roads funding specialist.


Funding on other projects targeted in the plan through 2009 will be heavily influenced by the recently signed federal Transportation Bill that Hemmings says has a lot more money for rural roads.


How much money comes our way and how they fill out the urban and rural priority list will hopefully be known within the next two weeks, he says, adding that another transportation bill probably will be enacted to help fund projects beyond 2009.


Calling Bigelow Gulch the countys highest priority and Spokanes northeast connector, Hemmings says completing an environmental assessment for the project is a key to pushing forward the seven-phase plan.


Another key piece is buying right of way, although that process could easily delay construction, other than the ongoing first phase of work at the intersection of Argonne Road and Bigelow Gulch, which didnt require environmental analysis.


The overall project will extend from the Spokane city limits at Havana Street east of the edge of Hillyard, to where Wellesley Avenue and Sullivan Road intersect in Spokane Valley.


If the environmental analysis and right-of-way acquisitions go as planned, the project will include well over a mile of new road.


Phases two and three of the project, which include widening Bigelow Gulch, will begin at Havana and proceed east for about 1.5 miles, says Hemmings.


Northwest connector


The six-year plan sets aside about $4.7 million in 2009 and 2010 to begin work on an envisioned northwest connector for Spokane.


Similar to the proposed goal of using Bigelow Gulch as a northeast connector to provide access from North Spokane to the valley, the northwest connector, in the infancy stages of planning, could provide access from north of Spokane to Airway Heights, says Hemmings.


He goes so far as to suggest a connector that would start on Hayford Road in Airway Heights and go due north where no road now exists.


The plan lists three tentative northwest connector projects in the Seven Mile Road area.


They include potential proposed routes stretching from Inland Road to the Spokane River, from Garfield Road to Inland Road, and from Newkirk Road to Seven Mile Road.


Hemmings says any plans beyond 2007 are not real now, but suggests that a study regarding a potential connector route northwest of Spokane will begin once the environmental and right-of-way concerns are addressed at Bigelow Gulch.


Also included in the transportation plan is a combined $6.5 million set aside in 2006 and 2007 to move the portion of the Geiger Spur rail line thats inside Fairchild Air Force Base, and connect the new spur to the Palouse River-Coulee City line to the south.


The new spur would connect the PRCC with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line to the north and enhance West Plains rail service, says Hemmings.


Another two-year project estimated to cost about $3.6 million has received funding; it would involve reconstructing, widening, and realigning substandard curves on Denison Chattaroy Road between U.S. 395 and U.S. 2, north of Spokane. That work is scheduled for 2006 and 2007.


Meanwhile, the county expects to spend $2 million a year in 2009, 2010, and 2011 on bridge work, but those figures are primarily placeholders in the budget at this time because specific projects havent been identified, says Neil Carroll, bridge engineer for the county.


Those dollar amounts are comparable to county bridge expenditures made in 2002 through 2004, and the amount expected to be spent this year.


Local bridge replacement and rehabilitation plans for 2006 received a jolt in recent weeks when the state Bridge Replacement Advisory Committee distributed an e-mail saying it would fund no more bridges until further notice.


Made up of state and local agency representatives who work through the Washington state Department of Transportation, that committee decides how federal transportation funds for bridges built and maintained by local jurisdictions in Washington state will be spent.


Carroll says the county has an inventory of about 200 bridges and inspects about 90 of them each year.


Findings from those inspections are submitted to the Washington state Department of Transportation, which classifies each bridge with a sufficiency rating of between 0 and 100, based on its need for repair, with a lower rating meaning the bridge is in worse shape.


The county then can select which bridges rated 50 and below that it wishes to seek money from the Federal Highway Administration to repair.


The only bridge funding request submitted by Carroll and cancelled recently by the advisory committees decision to postpone bridge funding was a $700,000 request to replace the bridge that carries Idaho Road over the south fork of Rock Creek near Stateline, Idaho.


Carroll says he will resubmit that proposal next year, and submit a second proposal at the same time to replace a bridge that carries Newman Lake Drive over Thompson Creek, north of the lake itself.


He estimates the cost of that project to also be about $700,000.