County Commissioners to Consider Condemning Property for Bigelow Gulch Project

The Forker and Bigelow intersection today (well earlier
this fall anyway)

A project that SRTC is helping to fund isn't popular with one family who may lose part of their land to make room for it. According to the Spokesman-Review, Spokane County wants to buy a piece of Kristina Brandvold's property near Forker and Bigelow Gulch roads to build an interchange, part of a multiphase project through 2020 to widen both Bigelow Gulch and Forker from Havana Street on the west to Progress Road on the east. According to the Brandvold's though, the price being offered, $26,000, is very low and they are holding out on selling.

Spokane County commissioners tomorrow night are expected to vote to pursue condemnation against the Brandvold property and four other parcels at or near the intersection.

The County has been working on the project since 2000 to ease heavy traffic and large number of accidents, including fatalities. There were 390 collisions between 2004 and 2014, including 128 injury accidents. From 1994 through 2006, there were seven fatalities.

Traffic volumes at Forker Road are approximately 10,000 vehicles a day, with a lot of semi and commercial trucks using the route. The county wants to build an overpass with two lanes in each direction from Forker to Bigelow Gulch. An underpass would serve vehicles wanting to turn.

Stormwater from the road would go into infiltration ponds at the interchange. The county would also reroute natural drainage through a culvert into a ditch that extends to the Brandvold property.
Brandvold is concerned that the excavation could contaminate her well due to the possibility of septic effluent mingling with drinking water.

To read the entire article, click here.