Starr & Trent Intersection  

David and Krista Schreiber recently (2021) purchased property north of Trent Avenue overlooking Newman Lake and access their property via Starr Road. They love their new location and living in Spokane County.

However, they have some concerns about safety in terms of accessing Trent Road. As I am sure you are aware, the Newman Lake community is land locked by Trent Road/ SR 290 and the Burlington Northern Rail line that runs along it. Our community cannot access essential services without crossing these two routes. Getting onto Trent can be difficult and recently we have observed a number of traffic incidents which is disturbing. Along with a recent train incident on Harvard and Trent.

They could use Newman Lake community members help as they are new to the area and don’t have the history of the roads or access management practices.

If you are interested in helping please read the information below and contact:

David Schreiber
david@uncleskunkle.com
or
Krista Schreiber
schreiberkrista@gmail.com

Meeting Notes: September 7, 2021

Newman Lake Traffic Update onto Trent

Attending: Mike Gribner, Regional Administrator Eastern Region Washington State Department of Transportation, Glenn Wagemann, WSDOT Eastern Region Traffic Engineering Manager,
Josh Kerns, Spokane County Commissioner, Mike Padden State Senator, Tom Stebbins Newman Lake Property Owners President, David Schreiber Newman Lake resident and NLPOA lead.

Glenn Wagemann opened the meeting with traffic statistics and a brief history of the traffic improvements that have been done in the past to Trent road to improve the safety. As mentioned in the past Glenn and Mike Gribner explained that the state currently does not have any plans to fund any improvements along Trent road at this time.

Glenn Introduced David Schreiber as a member of the Newman Lake community and NLPOA member with concerns about the traffic safety. He presented the following;

Purpose: Discuss the opportunity to create and fund a Newman-Otis 290 Safety Corridor.
Existing Safety issues experience by a daily user and resident:
• Right of Way cross traffic confusion at Idaho/290 and Starr/290 road intersections.
• Safe left turn visibility and judgement at Idaho/290 (55mph oncoming) and Starr/290 during peak hours and poor visibility weather.
• Train back up and safe crossing at Harvard/290.
• Gas station & post office entrance to 290 blind spot with semi-truck traffic.
• 290 west bound to Starr to make left turn blind spot from oncoming left turn traffic.
• Traffic has increase in the 1 year we have lived here and will only increase more as Idaho greater growth and Amazon gets up a going.
Benefits of a safer corridor
• Less accidents, more lives saved less cost on the community
• Property values increase more tax revenue
• More direct driving benefiting the environment
• Less stress on the community as a whole, the less stressed the community is the more likely they are to vote for their incumbent leaders.
Discussion afterwards evolved around the concept of a “Safety Corridor” and what qualified as one and the steps to getting one in place. Mike Gribner and Glenn Wagemann both agreed it would be the quickest and most economical approach to seeing safety improvements along Trent Road from Harvard road to Idaho Road. Senator Padden and Commissioner Kerns both acknowledged that development in the state of Idaho and with the new Amazon facility that the traffic impact on the Newman lake community would only continue. Tom Stebbins communicated that the community support for any type of safety improvements along Trent road would be very strong. As the meeting concluded Glenn Wagemann took ownership of starting the exploration process to designating Trent road from Harvard to Idaho as a safety corridor. Once Glenn has completed this process he will communicate back to David and Tom on the next steps for community involvement.

Look for more updates in the future from the Newman Lake Property Owners Association. For specific questions or thoughts please communicate with David Schreiber who leads this important effort at david@uncleskunkle.com.