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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Transit station on SFCC campus to consolidate area’s bus stops

STA bus picks up riders at the Sprague and Napa bus shelter, Tuesday, April 2, 2019, in Spokane, Wash. STA is beginning construction on a transit station on the campus of Spokane Falls Community College, according to city permit data. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
By Nicholas Deshais nickd@spokesman.com(509) 459-5440

Spokane Transit Authority is beginning construction on a transit station on the campus of Spokane Falls Community College, according to city permit data.

The $3 million project will relocate three existing bus stops on Fort George Wright Drive to one on-campus station. The work will rebuild Elliot Drive and install traffic signals at the intersection of Fort George Wright and Elliot.

The station will continue service for STA routes 20 and 33. The project is paid for with a $2.1 million regional mobility grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation and $830,000 from a local sales and use tax approved by voters in 2016 to fund STA’s Moving Forward plan.

The transit agency has a busy construction season ahead. Last week, permits were issued for a $5 million project to build a transit station on Spokane Community College’s campus, the eastern terminus for Spokane Transit Authority’s Central City Line, a bus rapid transit route that recently received $53.4 million from the federal government and will begin operating in 2021.

The station at SFCC is not related to the Central City Line but is part of a larger plan developed by STA, SFCC and the West Hills neighborhood seeking to build on the momentum in development that has happened near the campus over the past decade. Construction began on River Run, a housing subdivision, in 2005 and dozens of homes have been built, but the project has yet to fulfill its original vision of raising commercial buildings as well as multiple housing types beyond the single-family home.

The larger plan also envisions a different Fort George Wright Drive. Instead of four lanes of traffic along a street lined with a few trees and utility poles, the arterial would have two lanes, townhomes, restaurants, bike lanes, a treed median and traffic lights. Planners envision an urban, walkable development in place of a motorist’s thoroughfare.

The SFCC project was designed by ALSC Architects, of Spokane. Coffman Engineers, also of Spokane, did the engineering.