Transportation service gaps and deserts seemed significant enough for CCT DOT to seek grant funding to identify how to address transportation barriers throughout and connecting to the Colville Reservation.  CCT DOT was awarded funding from Washington State Department of Transportation's (WSDOT's) Consolidated Grant program.  The project for which CCT DOT is receiving funding is a three pronged approach to public transportation planning.  The three transit planning efforts in the grant are: to gather information for a transit needs assessment, develop a transit hub feasibility study, and establish an asset management program.  

The first step in the transit needs assessment is gathering information about travel needs from persons living, working, or visiting within the reservation boundaries of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (CTCR) including Tribal properties not directly connected to the main body of the CTCR reservation. 

In order to understand if public transportation (transit) may greatly assist vulnerable populations in each of the four Districts on the reservation, customary planning steps will be taken.

These surveys fit into the transit needs assessment portion of the planning deliverables.  CCT DOT will perform outreach to surrounding transit agencies as well as seek gathering needs from persons living, working, or visiting others on the Reservation of the Colville Confederated Tribes.  To keep the surveys shorter, CCT DOT will be preparing surveys for each District.  CCT DOT's first survey will be for the Inchelium District.  

CCT DOT will use the reservation-wide surveys to gather needs, identify gaps in services, and then feed that information into a transit market study which explores the feasibility of expanding the transit program to cover the needs identified. 

As the three planning efforts progress, we will be updating the CCT DOT webpage and presenting reports to the Tribal Council, and also to the communities through presentations in the District meetings.

No.  CCT DOT does ask that you participate in the surveys applicable to the Districts in which your home, work, education, shopping, family connections, cultural connections, other social connections, camping, hunting, fishing, gathering, or recreation may be located. 

Please do.  We plan to keep each survey open for one month.  During that time in addition to spreading the opportunity through Tribal announcements, we will be engaging with schools, towns, other transit agencies, internal department heads to include medical clinics, employers, post offices, and other places where people gather both in person and online.  If you are sharing the posters, please send me an email (deborah.lacombe.dot@colvilletribes.com), so that I can add that outreach event to the study.

Thank you for taking our transit needs surveys! Inchelium District Link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZM8YTVX

Funding was also requested from a variety of sources to develop outreach materials and CCT DOT sought a visualization team which could help CCT DOT develop the types of outreach materials to bring the discussions to the community level.  We are preparing in August to host the visualization team as they collect on-site video using drones, gather visual and audio interviews to use in the outreach materials, and pull in historical and cultural information to make the outreach video and handouts meaningful for our upcoming outreach events. 

This simple survey focuses on providing information, gathering local knowledge, offering opportunities to interact with the visualization team, and guiding when and how the completed outreach materials could be presented to encourage meaningful public participation.  Please take a few minutes sometime this or next week to provide feedback in the 4-minute survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/InchBridgeSurveyRev

The survey was concluded on August 12, 2025.  The following link will take you to the summarized survey results.

CCT DOT will announce when the 3-D modeling team comes to Inchelium to conduct the drone flights and interviews.  If you provided your name and contact information, we will contact you directly to ask if you are still interested in providing an interview.  If you didn't leave your contact information but wish to be considered for an interview, please contact Deb LaCombe at: deborah.lacombe.dot@colvilletribes.com to provide your name, phone number, and email address now.  Thank you in advance!

• Nespelem Area agency has a large number of employees and an observably high number of recreational walkers throughout the day. 

• Washington State fatalities of active transportation users have been rising at an alarming rate.  

• From 2019-2023 there were 161 American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) traffic deaths in Washington State.

  • One in four fatally injured AI/AN people were active transportation users (2019-2023).

  • 53% of AI/AN fatalities occurred in a rural setting (2019-2023).

• Active transportation users (walkers and rollers) are our most vulnerable transportation system users and they take risks which result in fatalities.

  • 122 of the 177 active transportation users' deaths (all races) in 2023 occurred on the road and not in a crosswalk.

  • 53% of the active transportation users were impaired, 18% were distracted, 12% were in the roadway improperly, 30% of the deaths were caused by improper crossing of the roadway, and 55% failed to yield the right-of-way (2023).

• Drivers involved with active transportation users' fatalities also displayed risky behavior, but at a far lesser degree.

  • 7% of drivers involved with active transportation users' deaths were impaired, 14% of the drivers were distracted, and 6% were speeding (2023).

• The severity of injuries among the active transportation users is tied to the speed of roadways when pedestrians and bicyclists share roadways with vehicles.

  • Of the 177 active transportation users' deaths, 157 occurred at speeds over 25 mph (2023).

  • 10% chance of death occurs at 23 mph compared to 50% at 42 mph, and 90% at 58 mph (NHTSA statistics).

• AI/AN have the highest traffic fatality rate per 100,000 population, and not just marginally:

  • White - 9.80 

  • Hispanic - 10.27

  • Black - 11.88

  • American Indian/Alaska Native - 37.62

The statistics above may be grossly under- or over-estimated for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and we will be able to bring our safety intelligence closer to reality through the data analysis we are doing at CCT DOT.

Washington State (Washington Traffic Safety Commission and Washington State Department of Transportation) tracks Washington traffic fatalities on most urban streets and some rural roadways.  Their databases are lacking data on roads other than state highways and county fatalities within the Reservation of the Colville Confederated Tribes.  CCT DOT is analyzing the previous 10 years' of State and County data (Okanogan and Ferry) to start coordination with Tribal Police about determining how best to infill our data into the State database appropriately

This is simply the first survey in Nespelem District, please look for upcoming surveys in the Keller, Inchelium, and Omak Districts this year.  CCT DOT plans to continue surveying each district with observably high recreational or commuting walkers or rollers.  These surveys will help CCT DOT and the Tribe prepare planning documents, prioritize roadway improvements, and seek funding to implement projects. 

Please do not hesitate to phone with questions (509-634-2540) or email with questions (deborah.lacombe.dot@colvilletribes.com).