News Roundup 6/16/14

Ben Franklin Transit

Dayton Street TC Temporarily Closed For The Summer
Beginning tomorrow, June 17th, the transit center on Dayton Street will be temporarily closed through the end of August as the City of Kennewick works on replacing the bridge over the canal. The temporary transfer point will be located on the west side of Auburn Street next to the Kennewick Senior Center, just northwest of the Kennewick Post Office. All routes serving Dayton TC (41, 42, 47, 48, 160, and 810) will be detoured to serve the temporary transfer point. The detours and related temporary stop closures will be explained in further detail in a post to be uploaded later today. (Link will be active at 1:00PM PST.)

Spokane Transit Authority

Jefferson Lot Temporarily Closed This Week
The parking lot under I-90 will be closed for the week between June 16th and June 21st as STA is going to be repainting the parking spaces, though there will be limited parking available on the west end of the lot. Later in the week, they’ll also be holding the annual Bus and Van Roadeo (operator skills competition) in the lot. Route 62, 66, and 165 will all be detoured when heading outbound from The Plaza. On 2nd Ave, buses will go past the normal turn at Jefferson Street and continue to Cedar Street, turning left and then continuing down to make a right onto 4th Ave, and then heading towards Maple Street and resuming the regular route onto I-90. A temporary bus stop will be set up at 4th and Cedar. Inbound buses will follow the regular route.

(Editor’s Note: There was a high-profile incident last week that occurred at The Plaza in Downtown Spokane, but the view of this website is that it was not a transit-related story. Therefore, there will be no coverage on the story here.) 

Yakima Transit

New Schedule And Fares For Yakima-Ellensburg Commuter
Starting today, a new schedule and an fare increase for one-way tickets and monthly passes go into effect. As part of the deal to preserve the Yakima-Ellensburg Commuter,  the schedule has eliminated one round-trip on school days and two round-trips on non-school days. The fares also go up from $4 to $5 for a one-way and from $125 to $150 for a monthly pass. Today is also the first day that new operator Central Washington Airporter will be running the route, taking over for Hopesource who dropped out of the contract after a dispute arose during discussions on the future of the service. CWA will be using buses they own to run the route, so the buses may be labelled with that name and/or “Bellair Charters.”