It's safe to say people aren't moving in droves to North Idaho because they want to sit in gridlocked traffic.

If central Spokane Valley's intersections were a high school student, he would be sitting in the back of the class, head down, barely scraping by. And his prospects for graduating would be grim. 

Lime announced a milestone in mid-June: 1 million rides had been taken on its scooters and bikes in Spokane since they first arrived in 2018.

There's no single source of the greenhouse gases that are warming our planet, and there's no definitive way to tie the Pacific Northwest's recent heat wave to those gases. But ample evidence indicates Spokane is getting hotter and drier, and that gas-guzzling vehicles are a major source of carbon emissions in our area. 

Since breaking ground on the $1.5 billion North Spokane Corridor in 2001, WSDOT has made about 5 miles of progress and opened the NSC from its northern terminus to Freya Street, north of Francis Avenue. But the department still has about 5 miles and eight years to go.

Suggestions for how to improve the pocky road running along the Spokane River bluff in northeast Spokane included telescopes for amateur stargazers. Other suggestions focus on improving access for cyclists and a smoother ride for motorists. 

Two months after activating the ramp meters, as these lights are known, the Washington State Department of Transportation is planning to increase their use.

You can't get anywhere on these roads, seeing as they only exist on paper. 

On my 60-plus-hour journey to Spokane from the nation's capital, I'm riding a diesel-powered Amtrak train with a top speed about half of the Acela's, traveling on 2,659 miles of track mostly owned by freight railroads, and I wanted to know how climate-friendly my choice really was.

Orion Donovan-Smith, the Spokesman-Review's Washington D.C. writer, embarked on a four-day journey to Spokane from the nation's capital. He used the trip to write a series of stories about Amtrak, its history and current state.

Fifty years ago this month, Amtrak took over operations of the "Empire Builder," the train route named in honor of James J. Hill, founder of the Great Northern Railway and for whom Hillyard is named. Local train historians recalled passage on the old-time passenger cars. 

If infrastructure broke apart East Central in the past, however, local leaders are hoping that new infrastructure projects can help stitch it back together.

City staff finalized the details of a long-awaited legislative proposal last week that would set parking rates between $0.50 and $3 per hour in downtown Spokane, depending on the demand for spaces in that area.

Although the two trails are separated by a short distance as the magpie flies, they remain unconnected. Bridging the two together would effectively add a nearly 10-mile southward spur to the Centennial Trail, or allow those riding the Fish Lake Trail direct access to the 65-mile Centennial Trail between Nine Mile Falls and Coeur d’Alene.

There were “about 50” registered voters living in the mile-square area that would become Airway Heights on April 19, 1955, the day they elected to incorporate as a city, according to a story in this newspaper.

For all the talk about roads in the state's budget, those who serve the city's visually impaired argue less expensive sidewalk solutions may be a better way to spend money. After all, a quarter of the population doesn't have a driver's license. 

Spokane's electric streetcar line may have hit its peak in 1912, as evidenced by the digital release of a new map showing routes and stop information. The same day it was published, Spokane Transit Authority showed off its new battery electric bus for the City Line opening next year. 

At a cost in the tens of millions of dollars, the region could help to alleviate some of the transportation problems that will be caused by booming growth the in Vinegar Flats area of town. But how to handle traffic headed west on Interstate 90 is a larger – and costlier – question. 

The system has a long, complex history, but one important factor, according to the latest draft of Spokane's new Downtown Master Plan, was a 1961 report that called for an "'inner loop system' of one-way streets defining the core area's perimeter to improve vehicular movement."