[Vision2020] City Council wants to waste $500, 000 on unneeded span

[Moscow Cares]

Courtesy of today's (August 16, 2017) with thanks to Lee Rozen.

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Our View: City Council wants to waste $500,000 on unneeded span

By Lee Rozen, for the editorial board

There needs to be a bridge over Paradise Creek on Third Street.

Students from homes east of Mountain View Road, who are trying to get to the high school or university, cross the creek there, often carrying bicycles as well as backpacks. For the young and agile, it's a challenge worth daring.

Despite what the Moscow City Council thinks, there really doesn't need to be a bridge there big enough to handle motor vehicles.

Three blocks to the south, Sixth Street connects to the courthouse, downtown, the university and the road to Pullman. Eight blocks south a driver can get on state Highway 8 and speed off eastbound or westbound.

Four blocks to the north B Street connects to Hayes Street, and in another two blocks D Street connects to Main Street.

But here's the rub.

The Moscow City Council seems determined to spend $580,000 of local taxpayer money on an unnecessary bridge.

The necessary bridge - the one that would handle walkers and bicyclists - would cost $75,000 to $85,000, according to city estimates.

The City Council is determined to waste just short of half a million of our tax dollars on a bridge no one needs.

There is no traffic problem that a motor vehicle bridge there would solve. Opponents are convinced it will create some problems, instead, when more cars jam Third Street than it is designed to handle. That traffic is now spread over D, B and Sixth streets and Highway 8, because drivers know Third isn't a through street.

True, Moscow's traffic problems, if any, are on Third Street, now. But they are on the approaches to Jackson Street from the west and to Third Street from the south on Washington Street. A bridge over the creek, Paradise, is a bridge too far away to have any effect on that.

A better solution would be to take some of the half million dollars the City Council wants to waste on an unnecessary bridge to make Third Street friendlier for bicycles from Mountain View Road to Washington Street by actually discouraging auto traffic there. In turn, discouraging bicycles on D and Sixth streets over that same stretch makes sense.

What the council is doing doesn't make any sense.

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
  
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