Spokane Transit Authority outlines Connect 2035, accelerates mobility-on-demand pilot

Spokane Transit Authority officials on Tuesday told Spokane County commissioners that STA has increased service since 2016 and is moving to accelerate a planned mobility-on-demand pilot to late 2026.

Carl Otterstrom, STA chief executive officer, said the agency now provides roughly 524,000 revenue hours of service — about a 35% increase from 2016 — and has directed resources to both expansion and maintaining existing service. "We are now providing more service than STA ever has, and, with 524,000 revenue hours of service on the streets in our community," Otterstrom said during the Jan. 6 briefing.

Otterstrom and interim planning chief Emily Poole described Connect 2035 as an organizational roadmap with three goals: improve customer experience, deepen collaboration with community partners and strengthen STA’s capacity (employees, infrastructure and finances). The presentation highlighted investments such as the West Plains Transit Center and new high-performance routes, and stressed partnerships with employers, including Amazon, that have increased ridership.

On fares and riders, STA said the youth-fare program now accounts for about 20% of systemwide ridership after state support offset lost youth fare revenue. Poole said the program has eased pressures on school-district transportation costs in some cases, while some student-tripper routes remain subsidized by districts.

STA also detailed a mobility-on-demand pilot — an app- or call-based service to connect low-density neighborhoods to major transit nodes within 20–30 minutes — that had been scheduled to start in 2027 but was moved up into 2026. Otterstrom said the pilot will run in selected zones (including portions of the Spokane Valley) and be time-limited to test whether it can feed riders into fixed routes.

Electrification and shelter infrastructure were recurring themes. Otterstrom noted charging infrastructure at Moran Station and said STA has brought in substantial state and federal grant funding to support electrifying the fleet. On shelters, Poole said fewer than 10% of STA stops currently have shelters, although nearly two‑thirds of riders use stops with a sheltered waiting environment; staff briefed a target list and said right‑of‑way negotiations slow installations.

STA staff flagged a policy decision the agency will confront before the sales-tax sunset in December 2028: whether to ask voters to renew the two‑tenths‑of‑a‑cent tax that funds much of the system. Otterstrom framed the choice as a trade-off between investing one-time reserves now and preserving evidence of sustainable long-term funding for a renewal campaign.

The briefing closed with commissioner questions about pilot geography, shelter placement and school-district coordination; STA said it will continue planning and return with details as pilots and projects advance.

The STA presentation was informational; no formal county action was taken on STA policy or taxes during the briefing.