DOWNTOWN: Reduce vehicle noise
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 1 month AGO
One Friday well into Covid time we decided to venture downtown. Mistake. Traffic was lined up bumper-to-bumper as far back as Government Way. Street parking was full, with about 2/3 from Washington. We skedaddled.
Fast forward to last summer when we reserved a sidewalk table for after we had browsed downtown’s shops. Again, traffic was bumper-to-bumper along Sherman. Both cars and motorcycles (some in club-like groups, many individually) all had one common trait — loud exhausts. It was a bad experience, comparing very unfavorably with European-style sidewalk dining and making us very reluctant to return.
Dateline circa 1979, when business owners would routinely gather at the Iron Horse. Meeting after meeting, owners expressed a common dread of an oncoming mall killing our downtown, but nobody did anything. Finally, after one such meeting, I called together several business owners including Duane Hagadone, Bob Templin and a couple of other property/business owners. From that meeting we formed the Coeur d’Alene Development Association: CDA. A central need in my original proposal was that a one-way couplet be formed around the central district with foot traffic only in the core of downtown. At that point, the bank called on me to take over its Post Falls office, so I dropped out of CDA. Successful redevelopment took place, but without the one-way feature.
Our downtown should be easily twice as good as it is now, for both area residents and visitors. The traffic and congested parking has to be dealt with for that to take place. Education will have little effect and issuance of tickets would be pure chaos, inviting disorder. We can have a paradise of renown here but need to get the vehicles out just as downtown Boise has done very nicely. Development which has taken place has erased some of the originally proposed links of a couplet but I’m convinced that it still could be done. We just need to have vision, resolve, cohesion and endurance to get it done. To use a quote from Nike ads, let’s Just Do It.
PAT TEBO
Hayden Lake