Every four years, SRTC updates our long-range transportation plan, Horizon 2040. Part of that process includes taking a look at the people who live in our county and the transportation challenges they may face. For this year’s update, our GIS analysts mapped populations such as people with disabilities, minorities, people who speak English less than very well, households with no vehicle available (not necessarily an indication of being disadvantaged), people over age 60, and households living below the poverty level.
Why did we feel like we should know where these demographic groups are living and how much of our population they make up? Because these are groups that traditionally are “disadvantaged” when it comes to transportation. That means they may have challenges getting to medical appointments, grocery stores and other destinations we often don’t even think about, because it is hard to get on a bus when you have a disability or if the bus stop if very far from your home.
Here are a few things we found in looking at these populations:
- While the County average for people with disabilities is almost 15%, he downtown and lower north Spokane averages almost 30% of residents having a disability.
- There is also a dense area of people with disabilities living between Nevada and Division and Francis and Wellesley.
- Spokane County has a fairly small minority population at just 13%.
- The majority of households that do not have vehicles available are located between Division and Maple, I-90 and Indiana.
- People aged 60 and over are spread widely throughout the county, there doesn’t appear to be a trend as to where seniors are choosing to live.
This information will be used to make decisions on transportation investments in the future.
To make the numbers easier to understand, and make it more visually obvious where the above-mentioned populations are living in our area, SRTC’s GIS analysts have put together an app of maps for each population. You can click here to see all the maps in one place.