We just had the chance to talk to a class of Planning students from Eastern Washington University, which was pretty cool. They came into our office for a class, to learn what it is we do here at SRTC. And while I always worry about boring the heck out of visitors with our technical talk, I feel better about this group because they are after all planning students. And they were sharp too.

After going through everything that we do here, we asked them for some input on the transportation system of the area. Some of their observations included:

  • The lack of stop signs at intersections in the neighborhood near 5th and Cedar make riding a bike kind of scary.
  • There are no safe or comfortable routes to cross either I-90 or Freya to get from the south hill to downtown.
  • There are long stretches of Francis avenue without crosswalks to get across it.
  • One student commutes from Sandpoint to attend EWU and can’t wait for the North Spokane Corridor to be complete because it will take time off his commute.
  • Another student has always been in towns without bus infrastructure or transit options and is now intimidated by riding the bus. As a result he’s never ridden public transit in his whole life (we’re going to have to take him for a field trip I think).

So that’s what you have to look forward to folks. These kids will be getting out of school in a couple of years and taking the planning world by storm. Hopefully they’ll let us old timers keep our jobs when they take over.

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