WA: Getting There: Wheat Line offers bus service between Spokane, Moses Lake and Pasco, thanks to FIFA World Cup

Thanks in part to the FIFA World Cup, a small bus has been making two round trips per day between Spokane, Moses Lake and Pasco, offering rural commuters a new avenue for intercity transit.

Stopping also in Cheney, Sprague, Ritzville, Othello, Connell and Mesa, the Washington State Department of Transportation's Wheat Line began service May 1 and will continue until at least 2030.

The route was made possible through $1.8 million from the state Legislature to connect Spokane's designated FIFA Team Base Camp and Fan Zone with the Fan Zone in the Tri-Cities, along with funding from the federal Formula Grants for Rural Areas program.

The route serves communities that lack a consistent or direct option for commuting between cities through both public and private operators.

"So what our program really aims to do is subsidize service in areas where the existing private market and private network really can't do business because it's not feasible. They can't make enough from fares to operate a service," Intercity Bus Network Director Nina Stocker said.

Residents of Moses Lake have been without an intercity bus service for years, Stocker said, and community members elsewhere along the Wheat Line's route told the department of transportation during public comment periods that they experienced a similar lack of access.

"Folks were struggling in really small cities around the state that really didn't have, in many cases, even a local transit system to access the next urban city where they could, you know, get medical care or attend university or get better jobs," she said. "Whatever it is."

The Wheat Line joins the Apple Line, from Ellensburg to Omak; the Gold Line, from Kettle Falls to downtown Spokane; the Dungeness Line, from Port Angeles to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport ; and the Grape Line, from Pasco to Walla Walla.

It is the first addition to the intercity route offerings since the Dungeness Line in 2008, a year after the 2007 launch of the program. Stocker said the program has been looking to expand route offerings since 2019, but was foiled by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic the next year.

When efforts resumed, it was $1.8 million in state World Cup funding that made the Wheat Line possible, in addition to the federal funds for rural community support.

"We used those dollars in a number of ways," Stocker said of the FIFA funding. "It helped pay for essentially half of (the Wheat Line) to start with. The other things we did were create some robust marketing around the Travel Washington program in hopes that, as folks were moving around the state, and even the country, to attend these matches ... they were utilizing the transit system and the public transportation system and not only renting cars and creating more of a backlog on the highway system than we have already."

An additional $1.85 million in state funds went toward launching pilots for the Grape Connector, which connects Yakima to Pasco, and an overnight ride service between Spokane and Seattle through Northwestern Stage Lines, Stocker said. Contracts for these currently are set to run through June 2027.

"We've tried really to stretch that little bit of World Cup funding that we were awarded to not only address a short-term need for fans and travelers that are here for those events," she said. "But really to support Washingtonians well beyond the World Cup, and try to build a system and an inner city bus network that serves all of these communities well beyond, you know, June and July for the soccer events."

In 2025, the Gold Line carried 4,100 people and the Grape Line carried 4,300. The Gold, Grape, Grape Connector and now Wheat lines are operated by Ferndale-based company Central Washington Airporter, owned by Richard Johnson.

"I think one of the things that most frustrates the public is when they see a transit bus, for example, that's a huge 45-footer, 40-footer with two people on it," Johnson said. "And so we have the ability to allocate the proper vehicle size to the passenger counts."

Johnson said that by having these public transportation networks in place in rural areas, individuals can make travel connections "literally anywhere." He recalls years ago meeting a man on the Grape Line who was heading to Pasco to catch a flight to Australia.

"It just sort of struck me then that this is what it's all about," he said. "It's a lot of local stuff, you bet, but it could be also 'and beyond.' "

More than anything, the company focuses on punctuality, reliability and "good, thorough operations," Johnson said.

"It starts with the detail crew, you know, you need to have clean vehicles because people are sitting inside of them and that's their focus. They just simply expect them to drive or to brake or to turn," he said, adding that crews spend a lot of time testing vehicle reliability in their shops. "And then the drivers make a huge difference to people just in how they care for folks ... we're not like the city bus. We're there to serve people."

Fares for the Wheat Line vary depending on trip length, ranging from $7 to $62 one way. Reservations are encouraged.

For future expansions, the Travel Washington team has proposed a new route between the Tri-Cities and Ellensburg, an extension of the Gold Line to connect with Republic and an additional daily run of the Gold, Wheat and Apple lines.

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