After much discussion and several public open houses, The STA Board of Directors was presented with a recommendation for the September 2011 service reductions at last week’s STA Board meeting. You can view all of the proposed cuts and changes here, but here are a couple highlights:

– Extend Route 22 to the 5-Mile Park & Ride and terminate at that location. Additionally, modify the route to travel on Rowan Ave between Assembly St and Driscoll Blvd. This reroute would eliminate the service on Assembly St north of Rowan Ave and on Driscoll Blvd north of Rowan Ave.

– Extend Route 27 just past Monroe St to Madison St and Rosewood Ave and end the route. Modify route to travel on Dakota St between Illinois Ave and Indiana Ave.

– Modify Route 29 to terminate at Spokane Community College.

– Discontinue Route 30 and 31.

– Eliminate service to the West Spokane Industrial Park along Lawson St, McFarlane Rd, and Garfield Rd. Serve the BX on Fairchild Air Force Base (FAFB) with select trips on weekdays only.

There are several more so you will probably want to use the link above to view all the changes. The cuts are going to be hard on everyone, but there is some good news here. The original plans called for discontinuing service to Medical Lake completely. STA managed to rework their reductions though to come up with a way to provide weekday service, with service to the hospitals during non-peak times only.

After looking over the proposed changes, do you have any comments? Well, a Public Hearing regarding the recommended service reductions will be held at the start of the STA Board Meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 16, 2011, at the Spokane City Council Chambers, Spokane City Hall, 808 West Spokane Falls Boulevard.

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