Consultants review recommendations for Moses Lake traffic

MOSES LAKE — Another crossing across Moses Lake, or more than one, extending the lakeshore at Neppel Landing behind West Broadway Avenue and additional crossings of State Route 17. Those were among the suggestions from a planning firm asked to recommend ways to improve transportation options in Moses Lake. 

The planners conducted interviews over parts of two days, and Dustin Dekoekkoek of the Toole Design Goup said there will be additional interviews and analysis of the suggestions. The planners will continue to study possible costs and timelines, he said. 

Ian Lockwood acknowledged some of the ideas would take a long time to come to fruition, if they ever did.  

“The key is to get along with it,” Lockwood said.  

The planners also are still working on possible costs, he said. 

Brent Powell of Perteet, Inc. said the grant that funded the planners’ visit focused on improving the intersection at SR 17 and Stratford Road.  

“So, as we were exploring what to do with that interchange area, we recognized we needed to pan out (and) look at the entirety of the corridor through the city and really evaluate the intended purpose for SR 17 to begin with.” Powell said.  

Neppel Landing 

The planners then broadened their focus and studied traffic all along Stratford, as well as looking at West Broadway Avenue. Most of the people they talked to, said Derek Magee, wanted better public access to Moses Lake. 

Neppel Landing provides public access, but it’s narrow and the businesses all face West Broadway Avenue, Magee said. There is a rail line through that strip of land, but it will be removed once a new connection to the Port of Moses Lake is completed. 

“This space could be so much more,” Magee said. “So we’re looking to actually take some space from the water and turn that into land and build out.” 

The goal would be to move the lakeshore out far enough to build another street between the lake and West Broadway, he said.  

“This is a new street parallel to Broadway that gets created. This is possible because the rail is going away and we could reimagine our relationship to the water,” Magee said. “Building that out, creating those new buildings, new roadway, kind of would be (a primary) street, public space.”  

Crossing Moses Lake 

Magee said connections among various neighborhoods in town are limited by the lake, and the preliminary plan suggested looking at a number of possible crossing points. Additional lake crossings should also accommodate bicycles and pedestrians, he said.  

“You’re expanding opportunities to (increase) connections by water, new green space that could start to fill in some of the lowlands that are kind of on the backside of your downtown currently, and then making lots of new connections across the lake that start to link all these spaces and create a whole low-stress bike and pedestrian network that starts to knit things together, allow people to get around,” he said.  

With the pending removal of the railroad through the urban area, the rail crossings could be used for other purposes. He cited the rail line that runs parallel to South Milwaukee Avenue and crosses the lake at South Beaumont Drive. 

“This could be a potential new link, for not just bikes and (pedestrians) but for vehicles across the lake,” Magee said.  

He emphasized that the potential lake crossings the planners identified were just suggestions now. 

“Not all of these necessarily will happen or have to happen, but each connection you make is something that alleviates those choke points and really helps you make that network work,” Magee said. “Every bit of redundancy that you can add makes it easier to give people choices and not overload any one piece of the network.” 

In answer to a question, Lockwood said he doesn’t envision any new lake crossings would require demolishing existing neighborhoods. But city officials should identify possible lake crossings and plan accordingly, he said. 

“Because if someone builds a house in the way of one of these potential connections, that eliminates that whole possibility. So we go from five (possible crossings) to four, and it wouldn’t take long before you don’t have any options anymore,” he said.  

SR 17 revisions

The original grant focused on SR 17, and Powell said the planners spent a lot of time evaluating if, where and how it could be modified. 

Originally, SR 17 was built on the outskirts of the city, he said, but Moses Lake is growing in the road’s direction. It works as a regional traffic conduit, he said but access points are limited for Moses Lake residents, and walking and biking across is difficult.  

The planners would leave SR 17 with four lanes but suggested adding more access roads to cross it, possibly as many as 10 or 12 where it runs through town.  

“By doing that, you could expand the opportunity to use SR 17 as a corridor for local trips, making it easier to make those connections,” he said. 

While SR 17 would stay four lanes, the goal would be to decrease its speed, Lockwood said. As the city grows its primary function, which is allowing traffic to go by town rather than go through it, probably would be shifted to a new road system further east, he said.  

How long any of these projects would take and how much they would cost is still to be determined, the planners said. 

“The bridges take a long time. The waterfront changes take a long time. Altering SR 17 takes a long time,” Lockwood said. “You’re talking five to 10 years, typically, for most projects. We’re going to have to have a whole discussion about prioritizing things and figure out what makes sense first, what’s feasible first. We haven’t had those discussions, but we have to have them.” 

How much any of the projects would cost also is still to be determined.  

“I don’t think we know right now,” Lockwood said. “It depends on a bunch of things. There’s a whole bunch of factors that will come into play that we haven’t even had a chance to explore yet.” 

    A group of traffic planners suggested extending Neppel Landing, pictured, enough to add a new street between West Broadway Avenue and the lakeshore.