Northeast area would get STA upgrade
About 9,700 Spokane residents living in northeast Spokane north of Francis Avenue do not receive convenient bus service on Sundays or after 6 p.m. on Saturdays.
Spokane Transit Authority has plans to upgrade service and routes in northeast Spokane as part of the STA Moving Forward ballot measure.
On an April 28 ballot, voters are being asked to approve a 0.3 percent increase in the STA’s sales tax to pay for a wide range of improvements across the agency’s service area.
Karl Otterstrom, director of planning for STA, said riders are increasingly using cross-town connections, which do not require a transfer at the STA Plaza downtown. One goal in the plan is to enhance what Otterstrom calls “natural connections” to make trips more convenient for riders.
Included in the proposal is a Central City Line that would provide frequent service from Spokane Community College to Browne’s Addition by way of Gonzaga University, the Riverpoint campus and downtown.
It would create new transfer points for riders not needing to go downtown.
If approved, the plan will allow for a range of improvements in northeast Spokane, including new bus stop pads and handicapped accessibility improvements on North Nevada Street, which is served by the No. 28 bus. Some of the improvements are planned with existing funding this year.
Extending service north of Francis on Saturday nights and Sundays is in the package going to voters.
Long-range plans call for extending the No. 28 route to South Perry Street and Lincoln Heights, providing a new cross-town connection.
The Nevada bus would be phased with the new Central City Line for greater convenience and mobility.
The No. 27 Hillyard route has the largest ridership among buses with 30-minute frequency.
The Moving Forward plan calls for increasing the frequency of the No. 27 to every 15 minutes south of Empire Avenue beginning in 2020.
In addition, the line would be extended northward on Crestline to Lincoln Road to serve the residential areas there. Currently, there are 4,500 residents in that locale. Also, the route would be changed to serve the Hillyard business area north of Rowan Avenue.
The cross-town bus No. 33 on Wellesley Avenue would have its Saturday service upgraded to half hourly from the current hourly service. That bus serves shoppers at NorthTown Mall and is frequently used for relatively short trips of a few miles or so along the Wellesley corridor, with numerous riders getting on or off at NorthTown.