By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

No single issue has irritated residents more than the saga of Beacon Avenue's median. For 20 years, the city has thoughtfully, albeit slowly, transformed the avenue into a pleasant, landscaped boulevard with pathways and parking. But the missing link is the strip through Jefferson Park, between South Spokane and South Alaska streets.

The median has been a graveled parking lot for golfers, workers at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center and for pickup-driving entrepreneurs, who sell everything from mangos to live chickens and ducks.

"I grew up in Columbia City in the 1960s and remember as a kid going to the Community Center for dance lessons and it was gravel back then," says Katherine Claeys, who grew up to become a city engineer and was assigned to help with the Beacon Avenue median project.

After several years of community negotiations, the city has crafted a "dramatic" $2.8 million solution for redirecting traffic along the busy boulevard.

The project calls for building two new lanes for north-south traffic, divided by a center turn lane. The roadway will be built on the east side of the existing street right-of-way.

About 350 new parking stalls will be built on the west side of the right-of-way, set off from the through traffic by a six- to 10-foot median, says project manager Bill Anderson.

About 350 parking spaces will be lost as a result of the improvement, but city engineers say the payback will be a much safer roadway. No longer will drivers be pulling on and off the median into fast-moving traffic. "We are making a dangerous situation much more safe," Anderson says. The improvements are slated to begin this winter.

The project will mean less free parking for the busy VA Medical Center, which employs 2,000 workers and is used by about 275,000 patients a year. The hospital recently began to offer patients free valet parking in an attempt to pack more cars onto its campus lots.