City to experiment with Dogwood Street

| September 24, 2004 9:00 PM

Bike lanes, back-in parking among changes to downtown avenue

MOSES LAKE Dogwood Street will be the lab for a project that could mark a new beginning for the city's downtown.

Dogwood will be the demonstration street from Fourth Avenue to Broadway, for a series of changes, Harer said. These include sandblasting the Frontier School portion of the street and painting in new stripes.

Gary Harer, municipal services director, said there were three key components to the project.

First, new striping will reduce the traffic lane to 10 feet from 15 feet, in order to slow traffic down.

Second, a bike lane will be added between the diagonal parking and the traffic lane.

Third, the diagonal parking will be transformed from one where cars have to back out of it to one where vehicles have to back into it.

The advantages to back-in parking are several, he said.

"A car pulling out will have eye-to-eye contact with other motorists and bicycles," Harer said.

Other benefits are that by backing into the curb, loading will be made safer, including securing children into the back seats of vehicles, given that by opening the passenger doors, they are blocked away from incoming traffic.

Dogwood's bike lane will provide users with a direct connection between the Neppel walking trail and McCosh Park.

Bob Russell from the Healthy Communities Project's Trails and Paths committee said such connection is needed.

"McCosh Park is the center of our trail system," he said.

Russell pointed out the difficulties in crossing Broadway Avenue safely. The connection plus the use of bumpouts will make traffic slow down on Broadway and more aware that there is a crossing there.

He endorsed the diagonal back-in parking on Dogwood, too, saying that it was much safer.

The work on Dogwood is and will be conducted by city crews, Harer said, with a cost of about $5,000 to $6,000.

Neighbors and city residents will have an opportunity to discuss the changes with city authorities in an upcoming open house that has yet to be scheduled.