SPOKANE, Wash.—A lower South Hill Neighborhood said it has been waiting for answers to a problem that has plagued it for years.
Residents said they have been asking the City of Spokane to pave a gravel road just off Thor Street from 9 to 10 Avenues, and nothing has been done.
Tiara Pschaida, a resident of the neighborhood for seven years, has been driving on the gravel road that leads to her home for close to a decade. She said the city’s negligence towards the ever-growing potholes and the health hazards posed by the dust from the road has left her and many others in the neighborhood frustrated and concerned.
“Enough is enough. We really need to get this road paved; otherwise, it’s going to be unbearable,” said Pschaida.
Now that a new development is being built at the end of the street where the city says 14 buildings are planned, she doesn’t know how the gravel road will even make it.
“The infrastructure doesn’t seem to be in place for this to happen safely.”
NonStop Local reached out to a city spokesman who said that they considered paving 9th Avenue as part of their “Unpaved Streets” program. However, the statement in part said due to a 1949 cast iron line underneath the road that would need to be replaced, it would significantly add to the cost of that project. In addition to this, there was “concern that new roadway paving, compacting, and vibration caused by the work could magnify water line problems or leaks.
However, the city said that the water transmission on 10th Avenue is a more modern, larger water supply pipe, but, as of now, there are no definitive plans to pave it.
The spokesman said there is currently $700k per year allocated to the city’s three council districts, roughly $233k per district for design, construction, and inspection of streets. However, for context, the city says in recent years, the $233k only covered the paving of 2 standard city blocks. They added in District Two, where Pschaida lives, there are roughly 250 unpaved blocks. NonStop Local did the math, and to pave them all with the current allocation would take 125 years.
The city spokesman also said it may be up to the builder to pave that road when three units have been built. We reached out to an employee of the contractor and asked if they had planned to pave the road. They said “not necessarily” and would not elaborate.
Pschaida said she may not be there to see what happens, but she said, “I think that if it doesn’t happen, we’re really considering moving.”
