Tuesday, March 24, 2009

SmartRoutes Update

A group of SmartRoutes supporters has just returned from Washington, D.C. where they educated our congressional delegation and their staff on SmartRoutes. The group included Spokane City Councilman Richard Rush, Barb Chamberlain from WSU Spokane, and Amy Johnson from Greater Spokane Incorporated.

Members of the group met with Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers. They also met separately with staff members from each office. All were reportedly very receptive and welcoming of the SmartRoutes proposal. Councilman Rush reports that Spokane's case statement for SmartRoutes was a hit – easily one of the best presented. He says that where case statements from other communities left questions, ours provided answers and supporting data.

So here's what comes next; the SmartRoutes group would also like them to experience what money provided to SmartRoutes would do on the ground. They will attempt to schedule a walk or ride with each when they are in Spokane on break this spring.

For more information on SmartRoutes, here's a link to the website.

3 comments:

Hank Greer said...

Oops! World's cheapest car article on the Beeb.

Regardless, I hope the program pans out. And we need more bicycles on the roads to make them safer.

SRTC Staff said...

Hmmm... the link goes to the SmartRoutes page on all of our computers. I quality controlled it to make sure. Are you drinking at lunch Hank?

SRTC Staff said...

Jeff told me to include that last part by the way. Just in case I get fired, I'm taking someone down with me :)

We meant drinking milk of course.


About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.