When Spokane Valley incorporated as a city, it inherited an infrastructure that had been taking shape for more than a century.

The transportation corridor defined by Sprague and Appleway, for example, was being promoted as a traffic route from Spokane to the Idaho state line since shortly after automobiles first appeared in Spokane County. The city of Spokane drafted its first rudimentary traffic code -- requiring motorists to drive on the right side of the road -- in 1910, the same year the local Good Roads Association made a case for the "Great Apple Way" even though it might cost $85,000 to build.

In the years since, the route has been subjected to relentless grading, paving, widening, straightening and other improvements, right up to the creation in 2000 of a one-way couplet involving sections of Sprague and Appleway just east of the Sprague exit on Interstate 90.

What happens next is up to the new city. Three general options seem to be on the table: leave it alone; extend the couplet farther east; convert the streets back to two-way.

The last approach is full of idealism but not plausible in the face of driving habits and patterns that have evolved over 94 years of Valley development.

The historic tide is too powerful to turn.

Understandably, Spokane Valley leaders want to establish a pedestrian-friendly downtown with a traffic pace that's conducive to commerce and civic vitality.

Six and seven lanes wide in places, Sprague is nobody's candidate for "Main Street." It's hard enough for pedestrians to cross when they only have to look one direction for approaching cars.

Making a couple of left turns to get from one arm of the couplet to the other is a dream compared with the collision potential that arises when cars start turning left through multiple lanes of oncoming traffic.

Moreover, no traffic studies have been done to reveal whether the motorists who travel the couplet have departed from Spokane Valley, are headed there or are passing through.

Whatever the case, a bustling traffic flow was there before the municipality and has enough momentum to frustrate the best traffic-calming efforts.

If it's a new-urbanism flavor Spokane Valley wants, it might be easier to attain by encouraging its development along north-south patterns and accepting the high-volume role that has evolved for Sprague/Appleway as the Valley itself has grown.

The cost of abandoning the one-way couplet and reverting to two-way streets -- an estimated $4 million to $5 million -- is too much to risk on an enterprise with almost 100 years of history against it.