Thursday, January 6, 2011

Open House To Address Bicycling Issues In West Plains Area

For those of you who ride in the West Plains area, SRTC has recently developed draft recommendations for the West Plains-Spokane International Airport (WP-SIA) Transportation Study and we'd like to hear your thoughts on them. We will host a public open house on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011 to provide an opportunity for the public to view and comment on those recommendations. The open house is from 4-7 p.m. in the Kalispel Ballroom at the Northern Quest Resort and Casino, 100 N. Hayford Road in Airway Heights.

Among other issues brought to our attention in earlier outreach efforts, study recommendations address concerns on safety issues for bicyclists. People we've talked to throughout this study have said it's not safe to ride on Highway 2, there's no good way to get to the West Plains on Sunset, there's little bike parking at the airport (especially for employees) and the roads within the study area have narrow shoulders that aren't good to ride on.

So we've come up with some possible fixes, or at least improvements, to address those issues.

For more information on the WP-SIA study, click here. To view the flyer for the meeting, click the pictures below to see it full size.

4 comments:

EvilElf said...

Hopefully, their first step is to end the hunting season.

Rob Brewer said...

By hunting, do you mean aiming for cyclists? A volunteer with County Fire District 9 told me last year that cyclists have no business on the road and if it were up to him, he would intentionally run us off the road.

EvilElf said...

Rob, exactly. I bet the volunteer from Dist 9 drives a big truck too. Compensation (in the psych sense) is a cruel mistress/master.

SRTC Staff said...

Wow, I can't believe someone actually said that. Especially someone afiliated- even as a volunteer- with a fire district. The lack of safe routes to ride in the West Plains area, and aggressive drivers, came up repeatedly during the West Plains-Spokane International Airport Transportation Study. Eve Nelson on our staff is a bicyclist herself and rides in that area so took particular interest in coming up with some changes that could (hopefully) make the situation better.