This day in history: Amtrak route through Spokane and Missoula was on chopping block.15-minute downtown parking limit proposed

From 1976: The federal government announced plans to slash Amtrak funding, which would eliminate one of the two major passenger train routes in Spokane.

The plan called for ending the North Coast Hiawatha route which ran from Seattle to Chicago, with stops in Spokane, Missoula, Butte, Bozeman and Billings.

Sen. Warren Magnuson, D-Wash., said the Gerald Ford administration was taking a “meat axe approach to rail passenger transportation needs of the Pacific Northwest.”

Magnuson said Ford “will have to ride over me” if he wanted to make those cuts.

The other Spokane route, the Empire Builder, would be retained under the plan.

Today, the Empire Builder still runs through Spokane, but the North Coast Hiawatha is only a memory.

From 1926: A new Spokane traffic code was aimed at solving a modern problem – congested downtown parking.

The proposed code called for a 15-minute parking limit in the downtown congested area.

“At present many drivers who come to work early park their cars along the main thoroughfares, moving them down the block at regular intervals as the parking time expires, thus making it impossible for those having business downtown to find parking space,” said Charles Hedger, the city’s commissioner of public safety.

Meanwhile, the city’s streetcar fares had just been raised to 7 cents, over the objections of riders.