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STA briefs Spokane Valley on Connect 2035 and the city pursues safety and federal grant opportunities
Summary
STA officials told council the 2016 'Moving Forward' investments have increased service and ridership to pre-pandemic levels; Spokane Valley staff sought consensus to pursue State DOT City Safety Program grants and asked council to prioritize candidate projects for a competitive application process.
Spokane Transit Authority officials and city staff briefed the Spokane Valley council on STA's Connect 2035 initiatives and several grant opportunities that could affect the city’s transit and street-safety work.
STA representatives described the 2016 voter-approved funding program and Connect 2035 plans for future high-performance corridors, mobility-on-demand pilots and park-and-ride expansions. STA said it reached about 10.1 million rides in 2024 and expects roughly 10.4 million in 2025 as service recovered to pre-pandemic levels. "In 2024, we surpassed our 2019 ridership. We had 10,100,000 rides," STA staff reported.
The council also discussed the Washington State Department of Transportation’s City Safety Program, a competitive grant program with roughly $30 million statewide for projects that reduce fatal and serious-injury crashes. Engineering Manager Adam Jackson recommended possible Spokane Valley applications—projects at Barker/Appleway, Appleway midblock crossings near civic destinations, Sprague crossings and Barker corridor crossing improvements—and sought council consensus to prepare cost estimates and apply.
Council members asked staff to prioritize projects and identify which applications best align with grant scoring; staff said they would return with a ranked recommendation and refined cost estimates to guide which projects the city will pursue. Jackson noted the City Safety Program requires a local road-safety plan and crash-data analysis and typically funds projects up to approximately $1.5 million per award.
