Guest column: City’s plan for residential neighborhood near high school would worsen traffic

The Moses Lake Community Development Department has a plan to increase the traffic near Moses Lake High School. Remember the high school rush hour traffic? We’ve already seen multi-family apartments built across the street from the school. Now imagine 31 more families cramming into the same street. That’s what Interim Planning Manager Vivian Ramsey has planned.

A new 31-lot subdivision is planned for the open lot south of East Nelson Road. There are currently four streets available that could potentially connect it in each of the four directions, but the plan is restricted to just one. The only entrance and exit planned for the new 31-lot subdivision will be south on Roberta Street that connects to Sharon Avenue just a block away from Moses Lake High School.

Sharon Avenue is just a small residential street. If the city wants to use it as a major thoroughfare, then they should commit to it, widen it, paint traffic lines and install street lights and turn lanes at the intersection with Monroe. But that’s absurd. Sharon and Monroe shouldn’t be a major intersection. The new 31-lot subdivision should be connected to Nelson Avenue which was designed to hold more traffic than Sharon Avenue. Or use Quintanilla Drive to connect it to Monroe or maybe even Horizon Drive to connect it to Skyline. Doing any of this would help direct the increased traffic away from the already crowded high school.

I’m asking for your help getting this message to Vivian Ramsey, the Interim Planning Manager of the Community Development Department at 509-764-3749 and email at vramsey@cityofml.com. Comments are being accepted until Monday, Aug. 31, 2020, at 4:30 p.m. A public hearing will be held virtually on Tuesday, Sept. 1, at 10 a.m. The link will be on the city’s website, www.cityofml.com.