Consultants from Washington, D.C.-based Cardinal Infrastructure LLC revisited Spokane Transit Authority headquarters this month with encouraging updates regarding progress toward obtaining a $50 million-plus Federal Transit Administration grant to help fund one of the STA’s largest projects, the Central City Line.

Last September, STA applied for 75 percent of the project’s needed funding, $53.4 million, through the FTA’s capital investment grant program. STA applied for a Small Starts Grant through the program, which provides funding for projects in small to mid-sized cities.

Sherry Little, former FTA acting administrator and co-founder of Cardinal Infrastructure, says the Central City Line project’s application met the statutory requirements for funding and received a medium rating, making it a competitive project eligible for federal funding as a bus-rapid transit project.

She says bus-rapid transit project requirements include efficiency features like specific branding, traffic signal prioritization, higher service levels, off-board fare collection, and real-time consumer information.

Little and Severn Miller, former FTA chief counsel and a Cardinal Infrastructure co-founder, say the project meets all of those requirements, and that fact—combined with STA’s history of delivering projects on time and under budget—makes it an attractive project for the FTA.

“Those factors help to show the FTA that this is an agency with a history of good financial management,” says Little. “That will only strengthen the project’s appeal when it comes time for the FTA to decide which projects receive funding.”

As has been previously reported, the Central City Line is planned to be a six-mile bus route between Browne’s Addition and Spokane Community College that would connect downtown, the University District, and Gonzaga University. Vehicles along the route would be rubber-tired and battery-powered buses.

Now that the project’s application has received a rating, Miller says it must now obtain National Environmental Policy Act clearance from FTA.

“We expect the project will receive environmental clearance in the very near future, which is a big milestone,” he says. “Once that is completed, other project features should begin falling into place more easily.”

Miller says the list of additional requirements is long, and will take some time to fufill, but both he and Little are confident STA will be able to complete them.

“(STA CEO Susan Meyer) and the STA board understand the requirement process and have maintained a close relationship with elected representatives and the FTA to ensure continued interest in and support for the project,” says Little. 

Meyer says STA plans to complete the remaining requirements and receive FTA funding for the project by 2019, in order to begin construction later that same year. 

“We haven’t yet started planning for construction, but we do still expect the Central City Line will be ready for service by 2021,” she says. 

Meyer says the Central City Line project will cost an estimated $72 million to complete. So far, STA has secured $18.6 million in state and federal funds toward the project.

Little says some have expressed concern that the Small Starts Grant program could face budget cuts under the Trump administration, but she and Miller are confident those concerns have been put to rest.

“In the past two budget cycles, the Trump administration zeroed out the Small Starts grant,” says Little. “But the program ultimately received high levels of funding anyway because Congress wants to see funding for programs like this continue.”

The two consultants say both they and STA officials were pleased with the project application’s medium rating, as it meets the minimum requirements needed for FTA funding.

STA officials maintain construction needed for the project is modest and is planned to take place in phases that won’t necessitate the closure of city streets.

Little says it’s been exciting to see the Central City Line move toward becoming a reality, especially as the project includes so much input from Spokane citizens.

One example she points to is voter’s approval in the November 2016 general election of STA’s Proposition 1, which is planned to fund 25 projects designed to maintain, improve, and expand public transit as the region grows. 

Prop. 1 created a tenth-of-a-percent sales tax increase within the STA ridership area starting in April 2017. Meyer says a second tenth-of-a-penny increase will be assessed starting in April 2019, and both tax increases will run through 2028 unless reauthorized earlier.

Revenue from the increase will go toward funding the projects in the STA Moving Forward plan, including the operating costs for the Central City Line.

Going forward, Meyer says projects like the Central City Line continue to be important for urban areas, as many businesses rely on public transportation for worker commutes and customer traffic.

It’s for that reason, Meyer contends, that STA has been working closely with higher-education institutions, and neighborhoods such as Logan, Chief Garry Park, Browne’s Addition, and Riverside, that will be impacted most by the Central City Line’s route.

“It takes time to build the infrastructure that will make this project successful,” she says. “That is why we’ve gotten to know the players involved and tried to include them as much as possible in planning and design decisions along the way.”