Targeting the 'transportation desert '

The Kootenai County Transit Services Department wants to connect residents with education, employment, recreation and health care not just locally but around the state.

To do that, Fixed Route Services manager Chad Ingle said the department is using a $15 million federal grant to develop an integrated mobility application. 

In a Hayden Chamber of Commerce event Thursday morning, Ingle explained that the multimodal application will connect public, private, biking, trail and other transportation possibilities within the area.

When launched, app users will set up a personal profile for transportation services that identify accessibility preferences, mobile devices and other information to individualize recommendations. Costs, timing and modes would also show the variety of options available to the public. 

Application development is presently in phase two of four, developing network, booking, ride confirmation and communication processes. When the project reaches phase four, the focus is growth, Ingle said. 

“We want people to be able to go from North Idaho to southern Idaho. We want people to be able to travel the whole state, and eventually, we’re hoping that it goes even further than that,” he said. “If we can provide transportation, then we’re going to help our area prosper and grow, and that’s what we want to do.”

Kootenai County offers public transportation through Citylink, which provides routes through the Coeur d’Alene metropolitan area, Plummer and Coeur d’Alene Tribe Reservation. 

Still, Ingle said, the department is looking to fill what he called “transportation deserts” in rural Kootenai County and up through the Panhandle. 

“If you’re traveling from here to Sandpoint, there’s a lot of areas in between that have no transportation options,” Ingle told the audience. “What we want to do is be able to provide for those individuals who don’t have access to health care or education.”

Partners working with Kootenai County Transit Services, Ingle said, are Whitetail Transportation in Bonner County, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, Selkirks Pend Oreille Transit (SPOT) and Kootenai Health. 

“We’re also continually looking to expand so that we can bring even more transportation networks into the system so that we can make sure that everybody can take part in this,” he said. 

Ingle said the department has reached out to organizations like United Way, the KROC Center, veterans services, the Idaho Department of Labor, Area Agency on Aging, Post Falls Food Bank, employers and cities to understand better community needs.

“We want anybody to be able to use it, and we want to make sure that it’s easy for them to use. That includes anybody that might have any disabilities or limitations to learning,” Ingle said. 

In response to a question, Ingle said a connection with the Spokane Transit Authority is an option, but those “conversations are down the road.” Partnerships with ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft are something that Kootenai County is looking at in the future but aren't currently defined. 

“There’s still a whole lot of planning that has to happen before anything like that was to take place,” he said.