March Transportation Technical Committee Meeting Cancelled

A reminder that the Transportation Technical Committee (TTC) meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, March 23, has been cancelled due to a lack of agenda items. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the TTC is Wednesday, April 27 at 1:30 p.m. That meeting will be held at our new office at 421 W. Riverside Ave. 

Use Your Smartphone to Avoid Road Construction Delays

How did it get to be mid-March already?? Well, however it happened March means construction around here. There are already two City of Spokane construction projects starting next week and many more will follow when this rain lets up.

Unfortunately, with construction comes traffic delays sometimes. Because traffic jams and backups cost us all time and money, SRTC each year puts together an interactive map of all the road construction projects across Spokane County that will impact traffic. You can check out the 2016 Spokane Regional Road Construction Map below or click "view map full size" to go to SRTC's map page.

You can use the map on any device- computer, tablet or smartphone. Zoom in to your neighborhood to see smaller projects or follow your commute route to see what upcoming projects could slow you down. Click on the icons to get a description of a project, or follow the project sponsor link for more information.

As the construction season progresses, the Regional Road Construction map will be updated to reflect when projects are completed or new ones start. The map is updated weekly. All projects planned for the year will be on the map at all times, but they will be opaque until construction actually starts, then transparent again after they are completed. 

So check it out and plan ahead in order to avoid projects that could slow you down.

View larger map

Seattle Business/Political Leaders Get Together to Address Transpo System Flaws

Former Governor Christine Gregoire joins with the heads
of Seattle businesses to announce "Challenge Seattle."

Seattle is taking a long hard look at it's transportation system and saying "it's not good enough." According to GeekWire, leaders from the region's public and private sectors have started a new non-profit initiative led by former governor Christine Gregoire called Challenge Seattle. It includes participation from 17 major companies like Boeing, Amazon and Microsoft and will take on issues like education, job creation, and now, transportation.

The group yesterday announced a plan to address a transportation system that's not up to par with the rest of what the City has to offer. It includes making I-5 into a “smart corridor”; building a better framework for coordinated operations and planning; putting citizens at the center of transportation planning; maintaining existing assets; creating a sustainable funding model; and integrating planning and policy development officials.

Challenge Seattle also committed to have no more than 35 percent of its employees commuting via single-occupancy vehicles by 2035. Microsoft is contributing by offering space on its campus to test intelligent highway solutions as part of the initiative.

SRTC Makes the Big Move Friday

If you haven't picked up on this from a million other recent posts, SRTC is moving. Soon. As in this week. So make a note of it. The office will be closed, and no one answering phones, this Friday, March 18 while all or our furniture, desks, computers, electronics, etc. are moved to our new home at the Paulsen Center, about a block away.

Starting Monday, March 21, we will be in our new office at 421 W. Riverside Ave., Suite 500, and will be answering phones. There isn't expected to be any hiccups in email or getting our computer system back online in the new location, but be patient with us because problems happen sometimes. 

The Paulsen Building is two blocks east of the STA Plaza and served by all Spokane Transit bus routes. Please refer to STA’s website for routes to the Paulsen Building at https://www.spokanetransit.com/. From eastbound I-90 use either Exit 281 (Division St) or Exit 280B (Lincoln St). From westbound I-90 use either Exit E280 (4^th Ave/Monroe) or Exit 281 (Division St). 

Paid parking is available at various surface lots around the Paulsen Building, the closest being

 at the southeast corner of Washington St & Riverside Ave, the southwest corner of Washington St & Sprague Ave, and the southeast corner of Howard St & Riverside Ave.

Crazy Pictures of Seattle's SR 520 Floating Bridge in Yesterday's Storm

Did you see the pictures out of Seattle yesterday of the waves swamping the SR 520 floating bridge during a windstorm? They're pretty crazy.

The bridge was closed down, according to Q13 Fox News, after 50 mph winds slammed waves into the bridge deck and even threw driftwood into the traffic lanes.

The bridge was shut down at 2:30 p.m. Sundays for several hours and an inspection afterward revealed damage to the mechanical system that raises and lowers the draw span. Despite the damage, the WSDOT says the bridge is structurally sounds and is reopen to traffic today.  

American Airlines Changing Terminals At Spokane International Airport

If you fly American Airlines, you will be going to a new location to check in and catch your plane
next time you fly out of Spokane International Airport. American is moving from the A/B concourse to the C terminal to be closer to Alaska Airlines, with which it's developed an alliance. That means passengers changing plans from American to Alaska, or vice versa, will not have to move between terminals and go through security checkpoints a second time.

Also, Spokane Transit Authority turns 35, the Washington State Department of Transportation is addressing concerns over the safety of U.S. 195 and State Highway 26, and work starts on two Spokane City projects this month. It's all in today's Spokesman-Review Getting There column.

Expect Some Congestion If You Come Downtown Tomorrow

If you will be downtown for business or to shop tomorrow, remember that it could be a zoo with the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade happening. All parade route streets will be closed by 11 a.m. Any vehicles parked along the parade route will be towed before 9 a.m., Saturday, March 12.   

No parking signs will be set up and meters will be bagged.  Any city block that has "No Parking" signs out will be strictly enforced; this includes parking between the signs. Cars parked at any parking meters bagged, Friday, March 11, will need to move their car by 8 a.m., Saturday, March 12. NOTE: This year's Parade Route has changed. Click the map below to view it full size.

o   Staging on Washington south of Boone

o   Entries move into downtown on Washington

o   South from Spokane Falls Blvd to Riverside on Washington

o   West on Riverside from Washington 

o   North on Stevens from Riverside 

o   North to Spokane Falls Blvd

o   West on Spokane Falls from Stevens

o   Finish in front of City Hall

Anticipated parade completion is between 2 and 3 p.m. 

Map courtesy the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick

How Does Your Car Spend It's Time?

All those cars just waiting for us to get off work...

It's 9:40, do you know where your car is? Mine is at the park n ride until 5:30 tonight. After that it According to Streetsblog, cars are very inefficient forms of transportation for many reason, but the biggest being that most the time they just sit there taking up space.
will be in my driveway until 7:00 tomorrow morning. It seems to sit around a lot. Apparently that's the case with most people's cars.

According to a UK report on parking put out last year by the RAC Foundation “… there are about 25 billion car trips per year, and with some 27 million cars, this suggests an average of just under 18 trips per car every week. Since the duration of the average car trip is about 20 minutes, the typical car is only on the move for 6 hours in the week: for the remaining 162 hours it is stationary – parked.”

With 168 hours in a week, that means the typical UK car is parked 96.5% of the time. The point? The massive savings we could reap if cars were used more efficiently such as with car-sharing or on-demand services like taxis or Uber.

Spokane Police Looking For Owners of Stolen Bikes

Not sure how I missed this late last week but I did. If your bike has been stolen, Spokane police may have it. SPD is hoping to return a collection of stolen bikes and bike parts to their rightful owners.

Officers last week arrested a man on investigation of possession of stolen property after discovering bicycles in “various stages of disrepair” in the vehicle he was riding in. They went to the man's home and found more bike parts and other items they believed were stolen. This added four additional stolen property charges, as well as a drug possession charge, to the man's problems.

Now the department is hoping to return people's property to them. The department posted photos of the recovered items on its Facebook page. Anyone who thinks a bike or other item belongs to them should call Officer Stephanie Kennedy at (509) 370-1583.

You are also encouraged to register your bike online in case it ever is stolen on the City of Spokane website or at a local COPS Shop.

U.S. Drivers Are Distracted 50% of the Time

The only thing he doesn't have going on is smoking a
cigarette too.

We're definitely a distracted nation but these numbers scare me. A new study out of Virginia Tech published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month says drivers are distracted more than 50 percent of the time.

Citylab reports that nearly 70 percent of the crashes the researchers analyzed for the study involved some type of observable distraction. The study's lead says this could because the younger population of drivers, particularly teens, are more prone to engaging in distracting activities while driving; particularly using cell phones.

For study, the Virginia Tech researchers, used 3,500 study participants who agreed to let researchers mount cameras, sensors, and radar inside their vehicles, tracking and filming the drivers everywhere they went for a three-year period.

What did they see? Mostly cell phones. Drivers were observed dialing a phone just 0.14 percent of the time, but still raised the odds of an accident by a factor of 12 compared to what the researchers call “model driving,” or driving while “alert, attentive, and sober.” Texting occurred 1.91 percent of the time, leading to a risk increase by a factor of six. Drivers talked on the phone 3.24 percent of the time, and chatting more than doubled the risk of an incident. Just reaching for a handheld cell phone increased the odds of an accident nearly five times.

Researchers also witnessed "driving while emotional;" aka being sad, crying or displaying "emotional agitations." This only happened about 0.2 percent of the time, but it increased the risk of an incident by nearly 1000 percent compared to model driving.

What distractions seemed a-okay? Applying makeup while driving didn’t appear to be as risk-averse as you would think. Eating and drinking (nonalcoholic beverages obviously) didn’t make much of a difference, either.

Drug and alcohol use was observed just 0.1 percent of the time, but it increased the risk of crash by a factor of 40.

Spokane County Receives Federal Funds to Cut down on Vehicle-Pedestrian Collisions

From 2010 through 2014, Spokane County had 24 pedestrian fatalities and 123 pedestrian serious injuries. 

Because of this significant pedestrian safety issue, the Spokane County Target Zero Task Force has received federal funding from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC) to implement Pedestrian Safety Zones to reduce pedestrian fatalities and serious injury crashes. The money will be used to conduct a data-driven education and enforcement campaign focusing in high pedestrian activity areas. 

Spokane County’s Pedestrian Accident Data:

Most pedestrian fatal and serious injury crashes occur:

·         During clear weather (70.6%).

·         Between the hours of 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. (45.9%).

·         With pedestrians in the roadway (41.2%).

The primary pedestrian contributing factors were:

·         Failure to yield (27.1%).

·         Impairment (21.2%).

·         Distraction (12.9%).

The primary driver contributing factors were:

·         Failure to yield (38.8%)

·         Distraction (16.5%)

·         Impairment (5.9%)

This is the only info I have at this point (sent out in a news release from Spokane County) so I will provide updates as I receive them.

Milan Proposes Paying Commuters to Bike to Work

Smog is so bad in Milan some days that pedestrians wear
masks.

Around here, we talk a lot about what would get people to change their transportation behavior. For instance, if you drive to work alone now, what would convince you to maybe ride the bus or ride your bike to work everyday instead? Would more bike lanes or better sidewalks convince you? Buses that come more often or run later? Or would it come down to cold, hard cash to get you to change your way?

That's what officials in Milan think. According to Money, city officials there are proposing to pay people to commute via bicycle in order to lower smog levels. Like Spokane, Milan lies in a low valley, where air pollution can get trapped. Unlike Spokane, it is considered one of the most polluted cities in Europe.

This idea isn't the first step in cleaning up the air. City officials recently banned cars from the city center, offered discount tickets on public transit and added 50% more bike lanes and bike share stations around the city. 

Toyota Builds A Device That Could Help Visually Impaired People Navigate Buildings

Toyota is branching out from just making cars. According to Fortune, the company's robotics division has a new product in development that could help the blind and visually impaired navigate through indoor spaces.

The auto giant yesterday unveiled "Project BLAID," a wearable device that resembles a small non-plush neck travel pillow that is worn on a shoulder. It contains cameras that Toyota claims can recognize escalators, stairs, and doors.

Speakers and vibration motors built into the device communicate information about the surroundings to the user, such as wear doors are located, signs for restrooms and other objects.

So far, no word from Toyota on when this device will be available to the public.

Area Residents Asking For Quiet Zones from Train Horns

A growing number of area residents are asking for railroad quiet zones in Spokane Valley and Cheney. According to the Spokesman-Review, these horn-free zones can be established if communities invest in extra safety measures at railroad crossings. Without the added measures, federal law requires trains to sound their horns at between 96 to 110 decibels as they approach at-grade crossings and continue to do so until the train clears the intersection.

In areas where there are multiple crossings in a short distance, such as between Barker Road and Evergreen Road, this can mean a lot of honking for people living near there, especialy with up to 70 trains passing through the area daily.

In the past, Spokane Valley and Cheney residents have lobbied elected officials for quiet zones, but failed due to the cost of safety equipment that has to be installed which can run to several hundred thousand dollars per crossing.

In 2011, Spokane Valley residents asked for a quiet zone but the City of Spokane Valley Council didn't want to pay for an engineering study, despite having 38 rail crossings where trains blow their horns. Mayor Rod Higgins says it would take more than one or two quiet zones to make a difference in noise levels.

Four years ago, an engineering study estimated the cost of creating a quiet zone through Cheney at more than $1 million. That wasn't an option at the time so the cause was abandoned. Now Cheney Mayor Tom Trulove (an SRTC Board member) wants recommendations from the Federal Railroad Administration on additional safety measures to install at Cheney’s crossings. If the horns cease, Trulove wants assurance that pedestrians and vehicles aren’t at higher risk for getting hit by trains.

In Vancouver, Washington, citizens got a quiet zone by paying for safety upgrades themselves.
Homeowners living closest to the tracks pay $150 per year through a local improvement district. People who live farther from the tracks pay $45 per year. Those payments will continue for 20 years.

SRTC Board Meeting This Thursday

The March meeting of the SRTC Board is this Thursday, March 10 at 1 p.m. at the SRTC office at 221 W. 1st Ave., Suite 310. The agenda can be found here. Everyone is welcome at all SRTC committee meetings so feel free to attend if anything on the agenda catches your attention.

An early heads up- the April Board meeting has been cancelled due to a scheduling conflict. And the May meeting will be held at our new office in the Paulsen Center. More information will be provided as that comes closer.

Spokane Valley Council Votes to Return Federal Grant Money

In a time when there isn't enough money for transportation projects to go around, it's rare that someone actually gives back grant money. But that's what happened Tuesday night when the Spokane Valley City Council voted to rescind the Valley’s part of a federal Community Development Block Grant allotted to Spokane County for 2016.

The Spokesman-Review reports that Spokane Valley is guaranteed 20 percent of the CDBG funds, or $337,075. The bulk of that money was to go to a project recommended by Spokane Valley staff that would sidewalks along Blake Road.

It is apparently too late in the grant cycle for the Valley to apply that money to another of its' projects, so the money will be redistributed to other projects within Spokane County.

So why did they relinquish the money? Apparently because other communities need it more. Spokane Valley Deputy Mayor Arne Woodard said smaller, but more essential projects, in towns like Rockford – which may need a new well – are more critical than a sidewalk in Spokane Valley. Woodard said smaller municipalities will turn into ghost towns if they don’t receive assistance with critical infrastructure projects.

Councilmen Dean Grafos in response accused Woodard of not representing the Valley’s interests and said he plans to ask the state attorney general to investigate Woodard’s conduct on the CDBG board.

Apparently the residents along Blake Road aren't upset about losing the project though, many were opposed to the sidewalks because they say the area has bigger problems like speeding and unregulated intersections that won't be solved by new sidewalks. 

Google Self-Driving Cars No Longer Blame-Free When It Comes to Collisions

Well, Google self-driving cars are no longer blame-free. Until recently, Google cars had driven more than a million miles without causing even a fender bender. The cars had been involved in a few accidents, but hadn't caused any.

On Valentine's Day, that streak came to an end, according to Vox. A report from Google says the self- driving car was in the rightmost lane  approachinh an intersection when it encountered a sandbag blocking its path and stopped. The car then tried to merge into traffic to the left to avoid the sandbag. It tried to merge in front of a bus, expecting the bus to let it in. The bus kept moving and the Google car hit the side of the bus, damaging the front fender, the left front wheel, and one of the driver's side sensors.

The bus was estimated to be moving about 15 miles per hour at the time of the crash, while the Google car was traveling 2 miles per hour. No one was injured.

Public Open House Tonight

Tonight is the night. We're hosting a public open house from 4-6 p.m. at SRTC, 221 W. 1^st Ave., Suite 310 to get input on a proposed amendment to the area’s Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP), Horizon 2040.

Horizon 2040 is the long-range transportation plan that guides how the regional transportation system will develop through 2040. It is based on projections for growth in population, housing and jobs and considers every mode of transportation, such as private vehicles, public transit, bicycling, walking, freight movement, rail and air travel.

The proposed amendment to Horizon 2040 adds three new City of Spokane projects. To be eligible for funding, these projects are required to be included in the plan. The projects being added include:

·         Main Ave. - Browne St. to Division St. - Reconfigure three lane arterial to two lanes with possible center lane angle parking, mid-block pedestrian crossing and streetscape improvements.

·         North Monroe St.- Indiana Ave. to Garland Ave.- Reconfigure a four lane arterial to one lane each direction with a center two-way left turn lane, sidewalk and pedestrian improvements, curb extensions and traffic signal modifications at the intersection with Montgomery.

·         Maxwell Ave.- Maple St. to Washington St.- Reconfigure to two lanes with a center two-way left turn lane.

More info on those projects and Horizon 2040 in general can be found at http://www.srtc.org/mtp_2040.html. We are looking for feedback on the proposed amendment and the projects to be added to the plan so show up and put in your two cents!

Transportation Costs Make "Affordable" Housing Not So Affordable

Here's an interesting article from Streetsblog USA titled "High Transportation Costs Make a Lot of HUD Housing Unaffordable." We discussed this phenomenon locally while developing our long-range transportation plan, Horizon 2040, in 2012. Oftentimes, housing is cheaper the further you get from city centers or metropolitan areas. Some people buy homes in rural areas because they are much more affordable. The problem comes when they need to commute to reach jobs, schools and services such as medical or groceries for those who are retired. The cost to fuel and maintain a car in an area that doesn't offer public transportation can offset the price of "affordable" housing.

The Streetsblog article talks about a new study done by the University of Texas and the University of Utah that evaluated transportation costs for more than 18,000 households receiving HUD rental subsidies. The results show that nearly half have to spend more than 15 percent of the household budget on transportation. HUD's criteria for "affordable housing" is that it consumes less than 30 percent of a family's income. However, that doesn't consider transportation costs.

The study looked at the areas with the highest share of rental assistance properties with high transportation costs, shown in the table below (click to view in a larger size).

Conversely, here are the cities with the highest share of properties with affordable transportation costs:

The Most Common Terms In Tweets to Airlines? Thanks and Profanity

If you were to guess, what do you think the most common words tweeted to airlines over the last holiday season were? Surprisingly, they were "thanks" or "thank you." However, keep in mind that some of those thanks were used ironically.

The Los Angeles Times reports that 1.3 million Twitter messages were recently analyzed to get an idea of the public sentiment when it comes to communicating with airlines. 

The resulting report says the term “thank you” got 101,798 mentions in the analysis, while “delayed, late and canceled” were used 66,831 times. "Lost," as in luggage, appeared 16,272 times and profanity was used in 14,490 tweets.