Residents and STA officials framed competing concerns about local service levels and the future of regional transit funding at the Dec. 15 committee meeting.

Kathy Tam, a longtime Peaceful Valley resident, urged the council not to cut bus service to the neighborhood, saying the area has an increasing aging population and limited stairway access. "If you get to the middle of Peaceful Valley and had to take the bus, you'd have to walk a quarter of a mile, climb 50 stairs," Tam said, and recommended alternating headways rather than full elimination. Marianne Murphy, another Peaceful Valley resident, warned that new housing without transit access would harm neighborhood connectivity and submitted historical neighborhood planning documents to the council.

Spokane Transit Authority representative Carly Courtright briefed the committee on outcomes from the earlier STA Moving Forward program and the new Connect 2035 strategic plan. Courtright said revenue service hours rose from just under 400,000 in 2016 to nearly 525,000 in 2024 (a roughly 35% increase) and that youth now comprise "about 20% of our ridership." She described several projects—City Line (the region’s first BRT), Route 4 (about 3,500 daily weekday riders), new transit centers, electrified routes, and planned HPT lines under Connect 2035—and urged attention to the sales‑tax measure (two‑tenths of one percent) that funds much of STA’s local investment and sunsets Dec. 31, 2028.

STA also described near‑term pilots to expand mobility‑on‑demand (three‑year pilots to test scheduling demand in areas without fixed routes), and noted that shelter and bench investments are ongoing but constrained by maintenance obligations. In response to council questions, STA staff said they are monitoring use patterns, scheduling frequency, and youth free‑fare impacts; "we exceeded 10,000,000 rides last year," Courtright said, and STA is recovering ridership faster than many peers post‑COVID.

Next steps: councilmembers asked staff for follow‑up on mobility‑on‑demand indicators and community outreach regarding benches and shelters; residents asked the council to treat neighborhood access concerns in upcoming service and budget discussions.