Essentials

Most Spokane-area residents drive to work. The average commute time for Spokane County residents is 21.2 minutes.

Spokane Transit Authority is a regional public transportation agency, providing fixed-route service throughout the City of Spokane and to Airway Heights, Cheney, Fairchild Air Force Base, Liberty Lake, Medical Lake, Millwood, and Spokane Valley. STA also offers handicap accessible buses and paratransit services for the disabled.

In North Idaho, Citylink provides free transportation over 200 miles of road in Kootenai and Benewah counties. The service, which has more than 40,000 riders a month, is a partnership between the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, the state of Idaho, the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization, and Kootenai County.

Spokane serves as a hub for a host of trucking companies. The city sits at the crossroads of Interstate 90, a major east-west freeway that stretches all the way from Seattle to New York, U.S. 2, and north-south corridors, U.S. 195 and 395. Spokane also features distribution centers like Food Services of America, Jensen Distribution Services, and Inland Empire Distribution Systems. A Caterpillar Inc. subsidiary will open a major parts-distribution facility along I-90 just outside of Spokane in 2012.

The Spokane Intermodal Center, located at 221 W. First, houses Greyhound and Northwestern Trailways bus stations, as well as the Amtrak rail station.
The Washington State Department of Transportation is building the North Spokane Corridor, a freeway that, when complete, will allow motorists and freight to efficiently move north and south through Spokane, from Interstate 90 to U.S. 2 and U.S. 395 at Wandermere Road.

Spokane International Airport (SIA) is the second largest airport in Washington. It sits on 4,800 acres west of Spokane and served more than three million passengers in 2010. Passenger airlines offering service to and from SIA include Alaska, Southwest, Delta, United, U.S. Airways, Frontier, and American. Some of the airport's shops and dining establishments feature local items and fare.

In addition to SIA, the region is host to several municipal airports, including Felts Field, Deer Park, and Coeur d'Alene.

BNSF Railway or its predecessors have been the main freight carrier in Spokane since 1873. The company considers Spokane one of its intermodal hubs, connecting freight to local, national, and international destinations. About 60 trains pass through Spokane's main-line switching yard a day, carrying everything from food to automobiles to lumber.

Union Pacific has more than 500 miles of track in Washington and operates a large rail yard in Spokane that is key to its statewide operations.

Amtrak's Empire Builder passenger train travels from Seattle to Chicago through Spokane, a route that began in 1929. The line has 500 destinations in the U.S. and Canada

Future of Transportation

A civic group called the Inland Pacific Hub is researching and advocating for a strategic, multimodal transportation plan that will expand the Spokane region's capacity for global commerce by building on existing assets. Those assets include the Spokane International Airport; the Columbia and Snake river systems; the Port of Lewiston, Idaho; and the Geiger Spur rail project. In addition, trade through the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Eastport, Idaho, has increased significantly, partly due to new pipeline construction and U.S. 95 road improvements. It is one of few 24-hour secure, state-of-the-art border crossings in the country.

Bike trails and bike lanes along arterials like Southeast Boulevard provide opportunities for this alternate mode of transportation. The Centennial Trail, a popular bike and pedestrian route, stretches 37 miles from the Washington-Idaho border, through downtown Spokane, to Nine Mile Falls. As construction of the North Spokane Corridor continues, bike lanes will be added. In Northern Idaho, the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, a 71-mile paved bike path, follows the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way from Plummer to Mullan.