Spokane, Washington, Is Betting on Buses, Benches, and Fourplexes

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  00:00

Hey everyone, Norm here. Before we jump into today's conversation, I want to give you a bit of context. This interview comes from our Strongest Town contest, where we had the chance to sit down with leaders from our top eight communities. As part of the contest, we featured interviews from the final four, and we released all four of those episodes at once into your podcast feed. I hope that was a burst of awesome discovery for you, or at least a good excuse to walk your dog just a little longer so you could listen to them all.

Some really great conversations didn't make it into the main series, and honestly, that would have been a shame to leave them unheard. So we're sharing them with you here. I think you'll quickly hear just how much insight, creativity, and care these communities are bringing to the work of building strong towns.

I also want to congratulate West Allis, Wisconsin, this year's Strongest Town winner. We're looking forward to recognizing their achievement at the Strong Towns National Gathering coming up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and then sharing more of their story in a mini documentary coming out this summer. In the meantime, think of this conversation as a window into places that are doing meaningful work and will very likely be strong contenders again in the years ahead.

Let's dive in. Hello there, and welcome to this special Strongest Town contest-themed Bottom Up Short. With me today are Sarah Rose and Erik Lowe of Spokane, Washington, which is one of our final four contestants this year. Both of them are part of Spokane Reimagined, which is helping to put Spokane on the strongest town map — and, really, to continue Spokane's presence on that map.

We have featured Spokane over the years in all sorts of ways: policy changes and efforts to legalize and normalize various forms of housing within the community, doing really cool things. We did a session on the fact that if you had a previous retail use on any given property in the city, you're now allowed to bring that back — bringing back corner stores and all sorts of good stuff that makes for great places for people to live. Sarah and Erik, welcome to Bottom Up Shorts.

Sarah Rose  02:21

Thank you. We're happy to be here.

Erik Lowe  02:23

Yeah, thanks so much.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  02:25

Erik, do you want to offer a quick intro and then pass it over to Sarah? Just introduce Spokane Reimagined, a little about yourselves, but also what prompted you to take up the torch of having Spokane be recognized as the Strongest Town this year.

Erik Lowe  02:40

Spokane Reimagined is a nonpartisan grassroots organization dedicated to remaking Spokane's transportation system, and it really stemmed from a need for safer streets. Spokane, like many cities across the country, experienced a sharp increase in traffic violence during the height of COVID, and that has continued. So we've been on the front lines of trying to advocate for policy changes there, but we also advocate for public transportation funding and smart land use that repurposes underutilized places for people.

A lot of what we do has organically followed the Strong Towns approach — maybe because my fellow co-executive director is such a huge fan of Strong Towns and has been to the National Gathering a couple of times. We've made a lot of policy progress in the last few years, and we're hoping to keep that ball rolling.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  04:00

Sarah Rose, in addition to being a Strong Towns member, you were also part of our inaugural Strong Towns cohort program, and so many other things. Do you want to share a little about yourself and this effort?

Sarah Rose  04:11

I'm an artist and an advocate from Spokane. I found Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes on YouTube, took a trip over to the Netherlands, got back, started riding the bus in a few feet of snow, and realized I had to make my way to a town hall if things were going to change. That's when I met Erik talking about streetcars — he had a big proposal, and I said, "You said streetcars, we're going to be friends."

Since then, we've been advocating together, and we finally got to do some tactical work this last fall, putting out community benches. It's been so rewarding and great to see how much community we've built and how many other people we've involved in the process.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  04:47

Your group is not "blank slate Spokane" — not "we need to totally redo everything from scratch." Instead, it's reimagine. I love that. In the contest nomination, one of the things you highlighted is that Spokane had a great streetcar network that worked together with a great gridded neighborhood system, allowing many hands to participate in making a really strong neighborhood and community, and incorporating key features of the city like the river and other assets to create a fine place for people to live in the eastern part of Washington state.

In that context, can you share a little more about reclaiming and reimagining what the history of the city of Spokane looks like, in order to project into the future: "Hey, we used to be good at this — let's continue on that trajectory."

Sarah Rose  05:45

A lot of our history can be easily forgotten with how quickly things change. Spokane really supported the automobile for many years, and people get so surprised and excited when they hear that we used to have trolley cars that would run sometimes 24/7 — including night owl ones that went to the Air Force base. We had this really interesting community built around transportation, and I think people are excited to get back to that.

We're not starting from scratch. We've had a great bus network, we still have a great bus network, and it's growing. I think we can reimagine from our roots where we can go in the future.

Erik Lowe  06:24

Spokane was founded before the advent of the automobile, and that's really where you see the streetcar suburbs pop up throughout the city. Those suburbs — back in the 1800s and early 1900s — were the result of a super robust streetcar network. There were actually two streetcar companies that competed in Spokane in the early 1900s. When you overlay the old streetcar maps with the current Spokane Transit Authority maps, there's a lot of overlap. Those streetcar lines really were the basis for our extraordinary public transit system.

Spokane Transit Authority was one of the first transit agencies in the country to rebound from the pandemic with ridership and eclipse its pre-pandemic numbers. We want to continue seeing that kind of growth and continue repurposing public spaces for people rather than for cars. The best way to do that is to allow people to use the streets. We operated as people for millennia in cities with streets before the automobile — it wasn't until the 1930s that we really started ceding those streets to the car. There's a way we can get people to where they need to go with public transit without having hundreds of thousands of cars on the road every day.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  08:16

You've mentioned several times the value of the transportation system as a whole, and the important role transit plays in it. Can you share a little about building and installing 29 benches — why 29, and what was that experience like? Sarah Rose.

Sarah Rose  08:35

That was really fun. It started with a meeting with Erik and a few other men in our volunteer group. I said, "Okay, we want to build some benches. We have a small grant. Who else has power tools?" They were all kind of like, "I can bring a drill." I realized I might have the most construction and carpentry experience on this project — which isn't much. That allowed for a lot of growth and a lot of fun teaching others, giving them that independence of using a sander for the first time, using a drill, things like that. It turned into a really fun learning opportunity for all of us.

We chose 29 because we wanted to put some benches out equitably, and we have 29 neighborhoods in Spokane. We're very proud of each of those 29 neighborhoods, and that felt like a great way to highlight them — to give a little landmark in each community, and to tell every neighborhood: we see you, and we support you. We also see you waiting for the bus, out in the sun and in the cold, and we want to give you something to brighten your day.

We decided to work with local artists, and it was really great because just the right amount of people reached out, and they were all perfectly spaced around Spokane, so almost every bench stayed in the neighborhood the artist lived in. We were able to minimize our transportation distances and allow the artists to get that dopamine hit of seeing their own work in the community and knowing they're still making an impact. That long-term reward is really important for those who volunteered their time. It was a great project, and I'm really excited to do more.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  10:14

It seems to be part of a bigger pattern — not only of unleashing local creative talent to make sure bus stops have good benches and places for people to not only gather but converse together and feel welcomed and dignified in those spaces, but that also has its roots in another approach around housing in the city. There's policy shift occurring alongside citizen activity that really stands out. Can you share why housing is one of those areas where Spokane is emerging as a real leader — a model worth emulating as we think about strong communities?

Erik Lowe  10:57

For the longest time — most of our childhoods — Spokane was a very affordable place to live. In the wake of the 2008–2009 financial crisis, property prices really started shooting up, and that escalated as we got into COVID, and remote work became more prevalent. A lot of people moved eastward from the Seattle and Bellevue area for more affordable housing. While it was affordable for them, it made it much less attainable for people who had grown up here.

I think the city's policymakers — from the planning department and building department to city council and the mayor — recognized how quickly things were changing when it came to affordability, and realized they had to make dramatic change. They did it in a really smart way: a lot of these proposals, like eliminating single-family zoning, were pilot programs initially. They said, "Okay, we're going to do this for a year — fourplexes are legal citywide." In practice, it was within a half mile of a transit stop, which essentially made it citywide. The result was the world didn't end. There were incremental developments that occurred largely on previously vacant lots, where suddenly development started to pencil out.

These homes — whether duplexes, fourplexes, or sixplexes — still fit into the fabric of the neighborhood really well. They still match the architectural styles of the places they're in. It really shows that there's so much space we're underutilizing in the city. I think a lot of people are also realizing: "Okay, I might not have been hit by this housing boom because I bought my home 30 years ago, but if I want to see my grandkids on a regular basis, my kids have to be able to afford a home here too." A lot of these discussions wouldn't have happened if the process had been slower. As unfortunate as it is that we were hit with huge price increases in a very short time, it opened so many people's eyes to the crisis that was happening — and it's really a crisis that's happening nationwide, not just in Spokane.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  14:06

What's the conversation been like on that? I'm sure there are still people who are alarmed or concerned, or feel like something is being foisted on them. But the vast majority of residents, when they're able to say "the things I feared are actually not the things that materialized" — the flip side is that the benefits they didn't even know were possible start to emerge: the thickening up of neighborhoods in almost imperceptible ways, and yet now that local merchant is a little more viable, that local store that emerges that otherwise wouldn't have been possible.

The gradual accumulation of benefits versus the sudden wall of fear — to me, that's the distinction, and that's where changing the conversation and helping it to be reimagined really stands out. So maybe I'll ask both of you: your community has now been not only nominated to be a strongest town, but has emerged, and people are standing with you. Why should folks vote for you?

Sarah Rose  15:11

I think they should vote for us because of our city motto. Our city motto is: "In Spokane, we all belong." I really feel like we've done a lot of work in building those communities — and I say communities because I feel like there's really a pocket for anybody in Spokane to find their people, their activity, their place, their special corner of their neighborhood. Once you tap into that and allow yourself to be part of the city — not just expecting things from it — it really opens your world.

Chuck said this really well at the National Gathering last year: be a steward of your city, not just a recipient expecting services. Going in with that mindset and connecting with your neighbors can really just open your world in something as simple as your hometown. We love Spokane because it's a mid-sized city with a small-town feel, and that's so true in the ways you get to know your community members, see them on a regular basis, and get that dopamine hit of seeing a familiar face. It's just a really great place to be. We also have a lot of sunshine, and we have gondolas that go across our cool waterfalls — so lots of good reasons to love Spokane.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  16:22

Yeah, also the fast festivals, the music that happens in Riverside Park, and just — I've had the privilege of dropping into Spokane on numerous occasions and just loving it. When you arrive, you suddenly realize: oh, there's so much here. Great bookstores, a cool game store, all sorts of fun stuff. As I think is clear, there are a lot of older buildings, and if Jane Jacobs is right that new ideas require old buildings, Spokane is definitely a place to not only visit but stay. It is a place where everyone belongs. Thank you, Sarah Rose and Erik, for participating in this Bottom Up Shorts today.

Sarah Rose  17:01

Thank you so much.

Erik Lowe  17:02

Thank you so much for having us.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman  17:03

Folks, head over to StrongestTown.com — that's where you can cast your vote. Remember, if you are a Strong Towns member — and if you're not yet, go become one today — your vote counts in a separate pool. We take the community vote as one pool, and the member vote as another, and we overweight it on the member side, because if you're a Strong Towns member, you have a deeper sense of what it takes for a community to prosper. You've been thinking about these questions and pondering them longer, and that gives us greater confidence. So please go out, support Spokane in the Strongest Town contest. Thanks again for listening — and take care of your places.

This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at StrongTowns.org/membership.

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