The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

A pedestrian/bike path along SR-155 that would connect the Coulee Playland area to Banks Lake Park is still in the works. 

With the path in the design phase currently, the path between the north end of Electric City and the south end of Grand Coulee would be completed in 2021. 

The vision for the pathway is a half-mile-long paved area less than 10 feet wide on the lake side of the guardrail along Banks Lake, where pedestrians and cyclists can travel comfortably.

The $707,800 project will be paid for with $672,410 from a Washington State Department of Transportation pedestrian and bicycle program funding grant, and a 5-percent, $35,390 match from Electric City.

Since the city was approved for the grant in 2018, a new city council, clerk, and mayor in Electric City chose a new engineering firm. 

Steve Nelson of Century West, the city’s current engineering firm, told the city council Sept. 8 that a survey of the area would soon be finished, and that paperwork with the Washington State Department of Transportation was being done. 

Century West has the design contract for $89,015, paid for with the WSDOT grant money and is working on various designs. 

Nelson told The Star Tuesday that they are determined not to expand the shoreline or do any work in the waters of Banks Lake.

The pathway may require the guardrail to be moved away from the lake a little, and restriping of the road.

An additional topic that came up at the Sept. 8 council meeting is to reduce the speed limit along that stretch of SR-155  from 45 miles per hour to 30 mph, which would create a more consistent 30 mph speed limit from Coulee Dam through Grand Coulee and then through Electric City. 

That idea came up back in 2017 as well, but the WSDOT nixed the idea. 

Nelson said the pathway being there may open the possibility of a lower speed limit back up, changing the look of the road, and giving WSDOT a reason to reduce the limit there. 

A 2017 speed limit change from 40 mph to 30 mph on SR-155 between Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee drew much criticism from local drivers. 

The original pedestrian/bike path project proposal stated that around 20 people bike on the stretch per day, and 30 people per day walk it, and that at times of high traffic (such as the Colorama festival) there have been an estimated 3,300 vehicles driving on that stretch in a single day.