Friday, January 16, 2015

Some Spokane Valley Council Members Averse To Commute Trip Reduction Program

In 1991, the Washington State Legislature passed the Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) Law toCTR Efficiency Act, requiring local governments in urban area with traffic congestion, including Spokane, to develop programs that reduce drive-alone trips and vehicle miles traveled per capita.
address traffic congestion, air pollution and petroleum fuel consumption. It was followed in 2006 with the
By driving 154 million fewer miles since 2007, CTR participants have prevented about 69,000 metric tons of harmful greenhouse gas from being released in our state.

CTR participants also conserved about 3 million gallons of gasoline in 2009 and 2010, which saved them togehter about $30 million each month.

By encouraging people to ride the bus, vanpool, carpool, walk, bike, work from home or compress their work week; CTR makes transportation better for the entire state. I personally take the bus each day so I can participate in the program. Nine out of the 11 employees at SRTC find some alternative to get to work rather than driving alone.

All good stuff right? Then why are some Spokane Valley City councilmembers so averse to the program? And why is one even encouraging "push back" against Governor Inslee's Carbon Emissions Reduction Taskforce?

A Spokesman-Review reporter was at a recent Spokane Valley City Council meeting and reports on the outcry against the CTR program that occured.

2 comments:

Charles said...

The valley is set up for cars, and trying to get people living there to get out of their car is going to be a hard sell.

SRTC Staff said...

It's been working so far! The CTR program has a decent number of participants from the Valley. But we were talking about that- I90 goes right through the Valley and Sprague is five lanes in some sections- definitely car-centric. More options are becoming available though- the Appleway Trail is under construction!


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.