Our View: SmartRoutes paving the way for the future

A stretch of Driscoll Boulevard, on Spokane’s North Side, recently underwent a facelift. When it reopened, Driscoll Boulevard looked like a street from the future. It now has spacious – and clearly marked – bike lanes.

Spokane City Councilman Richard Rush hopes those bike lanes “call out” to people traveling in their cars to work and school. Call out for them to try a new way to commute to work or to school or to run errands.

“Build it and they will come” has become a cliché, but in the case of community biking, the cliché is a truism. Over the next several years, if some Spokane visionaries have their way, you’ll not only see many more streets that look like the redone Driscoll Boulevard, you’ll see many more bicycles on those streets’ state-of-the-art bike lanes.

“One percent of people are gonzo bikers; they will bike in any weather,” Rush said. “Six or 7 percent will ride in most conditions. And about 60 percent will ride only if it’s safe and convenient.”

The SmartRoutes project, sponsored by a coalition of community partners, is hoping to wake up this 60 percent to the benefits of alternative transportation – walking, biking and taking the bus. Spokane’s future economic health might depend on it.

In these dismal economic times, futurists, academics, economists and community planners have been brainstorming the next economic driver. Some are betting that green technology will be the big money-maker, as well as the continued building of sustainable living communities where people get around by walking, biking or taking the bus.

Spokane is dotted with established neighborhoods that already have amenities for sustainable living. Neighborhoods such as Hillyard, West Central and the Corbin Park area. But if the sidewalks are a mess, and the bike lanes nonexistent, then the mobility factor is lost. If you don’t build it, they won’t walk or bike it.

The SmartRoutes coalition knows that building it takes money. So the coalition is lobbying for a $50 million chunk of the multiyear U.S. transportation budget to pay for such projects as the addition of 15 miles of sidewalk and the closing of gaps on the Centennial Trail.

In the meantime, SmartRoutes is getting the word out. Walk your neighborhood. Are there sidewalks? If so, what kind of shape are those sidewalks in? Bike your streets. How safe does it feel? Catch the bus. How much gas do you save? The future of a sustainable Spokane is being fashioned now by the “pioneers” who are walking and biking their neighborhoods. Join them for a jaunt and see what the growing excitement is all about.