COLBERT, Wash. – Spokane County’s Hatch Road reconstruction project, closing Hatch Road from Midway Road to Ballard Road until the fall, kicked off this week and many neighbors who live in the area are frustrated with the long detour delays.
“I know the road is bad, I’ve driven on it, it’s not fun, but that’s a lot,” Molly Tanner, a neighbor in the area, said.
According to Ethan Murnin, the project manager with Spokane County, the Hatch Road project will ultimately be a full road reconstruction, including new pavement, plus drainage and pedestrian improvements. Once it’s done, people who live in the area will see a big difference, the hope being safer travel for drivers and pedestrians – especially for kids walking to and from school.
“The main driver of the project was the condition of the road, and with that opportunity, we’re also able to do the pedestrian and drainage improvements,” Murnin said.
Yet, for a commute that usually lasts just a few minutes, those who live near Hatch Road are in for a much longer drive home in the next couple of months.
Lara McHenry is part of the HOA board in her neighborhood, just on the other side of the southbound closure.
“You’re in auto-pilot trying to go home,” she said.
McHenry and her family have lived in their Colbert home for 14 years. She has seen the area grow and grow, and with that growth, she said these detours are incredibly inconvenient for the many people who live in neighborhoods nestled in between the road closures.
“Because there’s a lot of neighborhoods and developments in between there that you just can’t access, I mean how are the people that are two developments down supposed to get in if the entire street is blocked off? And I don’t think that’s good for the fire department, I don’t think that’s good for service workers, but mostly our residents because we’re the taxpayers who pay for this place,” McHenry said.
A frustrating process for long-time neighbors, and new ones. Molly Tanner and her family moved into the neighborhood, from as far south as Boise, Idaho, three weeks ago.
The Hatch Road construction has made navigating a whole new town, an already daunting adjustment, even more difficult for Tanner.
“There’s not really a way to get around because the neighborhoods aren’t connected so you have to go all the way around, which is like an extra seven minutes, on top of anything,” Tanner said. “So, it’s just frustrating, and then I don’t even know where I’m going already, there’s a lot of things that are like ‘woah.’”
NonStop Local drove the detour and set a timer, starting at the northbound closure. From a turn off Hatch onto Midway Road, to Little Spokane Drive, and all the way back around to Burke Road; the detour took us just under 12 minutes for a drive that usually should be a straight shot that lasts only a matter of seconds.
“So now you’ve got the service people happening, you’ve got FedEx coming, you’ve got all the people who live here, and it’s just getting so congested and it’s out of control,” McHenry said.
Neighbors like McHenry said they hope a thru-traffic lane could be a possibility soon.
“I think that makes sense for everybody who lives here, and I’d say the rest of us have to be very patient while they try to figure this out,” McHenry said.
Phase One of the Hatch Road reconstruction project will finish up by early October, according to the county, and the road will be fully open again after that. However, Phase Two will begin next spring, and Hatch Road will close again.
