The Spokane Transit Authority’s board of directors recently approved a change in design plans for the planned West Plains Transit Center project that has reduced its projected cost.

 The project originally was anticipated to have a total cost of $16.2 million, but with design changes and updated cost analysis, that total has been reduced to $12 million.  

Brandon Rapez-Betty, spokesman for the STA, says the new plans are partly a result of efforts to reduce the project’s cost, but also to better integrate the center with the Washington State Department of Transportation’s planned improvements to the Interstate 90-Medical Lake interchange and the I-90-Geiger Boulevard interchange.  

The facility, which will be located southwest of the Medical Lake interchange along the freeway, was originally was planned to include a bus lane with a “flyer stop” in the median of the freeway, which riders could access via a pedestrian bridge from a park-and-ride area.

Rapez-Betty says the design no longer includes the median flyer stop, or the pedestrian bridge. 

“The costs of those two items were higher than we’d anticipated, so we had to look at alternatives that would still bring us in on time and within budget,” he says. 

“Rather than the bridge and flyer stop, we’ll look at transit-only lanes from existing freeway exit routing to quickly arrive and depart the park-and-ride.”  

The West Plains Transit Center now will include a park-and-ride lot with 190 parking stalls, and two passenger-loading platforms, a main park-and-ride platform with three bus bays, and an eastbound off-ramp flyer stop. Construction also will include shelters, benches, bicycle lockers, signage and security cameras. 

“It will still function as a park-and-ride, but we will also be able to use it as a transfer location to all the West Plains communities,” says Rapez-Betty.  He says the project is part of STA’s Moving Forward plan for more and better transit services.

The Washington state Department of Transportation earlier had awarded a mobility grant for the West Plains Transit Center project to be issued in two phases, with a $1.7 million first phase to be funded under the 2015-17 biennium and a $6.9 million second phase under the 2017-2019 biennium.

The project also was awarded a $951,500 federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant, which was matched locally with $148,500 from funding set aside through STA’s capital improvement program. 

In addition, the STA intends to seek further capital support from either a federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, or a Bus and Bus Facilities grant, in the amount of $1 million. It is estimated that an additional $1.2 million in funding would come from STA funds reserved for right-of-way acquisition, although that figure is subject to negotiation. 

Construction on the project likely will start in 2017, and is expected to be completed in 2018. 

Karl Otterstrom, STA’s director of planning, says the STA has been working with WSDOT to ensure the project’s design will be compatible with future changes the department plans to make in a project that will include improvements to both interchanges. 

WSDOT’s website for that project states it will include interchange ramp terminal intersection roundabouts, with the goal of enabling the interchanges to handle increased traffic volumes. The two-interchange improvement project is funded for design next summer, and will be up for construction bids in early 2019.  

STA officials say the West Plains Transit Center likely won’t be fully integrated into the WSDOT’s project until the state’s project reaches completion in 2021.