There are positives and negatives to all of this but this will help the businesses and residences of Port Townsend greatly.

The Positives – Gregoire’s Plan

The Negatives – Seattle Times

Port Townsend – Seattle Ferry Holiday Ferry Schedule

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/commuter_updates/index.cfm?fuseaction=press_releases_content&press_release_id=549

According to this there will be more no. 8 service along with more no. 70 bus service. The 70 will run every ten minutes, and the 8, which I sometimes take from Denny and Stewart when it’s raining, will start running every 15 minutes from 6-7:30 up from 30 minutes.

What’s interesting is that $109,000 of the approx. $800,000 needed to fund the increased service comes from SLU business. Seems scary to me, like wealthy business can throw money at the city and the city will buy them more bus service. What do you think, should we worry about county bus service for hire?

I have 33 photos on flickr. Check em out – http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_macster

Air France today announced it’ll begin codesharing on Alaska Airlines’ flights out of Seattle to 18 cities starting 05JAN08.

Flight numbers and bookings will be available starting 15DEC07.

Air France will place its “AF” code to the following destinations:
Alaska
Anchorage
Fairbanks
Juneau
Ketchikan

California
Sacramento

Idaho
Boise

Montana
Bozeman
Kalispell
Missoula

Nevada
Reno

Oregon
Eugene
Medford
Portland
Redmond

Washington
Bellingham
Pasco
Pullman
Spokane

The only mishap was at 5 p.m., when a train was jolted by a ball bearing, a bit bigger than a golf ball, that was found wedged in the track along Terry Avenue North. Police located a few more, and the train was delayed 10 minutes, Daniels said.

Sad that someone would try to “derail” the train like this….

Thanks to the Seattle Times for this.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004068617_streetcar13m.html

Update:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004069374_webstreetcar13m.html

A brief look at the Seattle Streetcar before it departs Fred Hutch’ in South Lake Union with the Space Needle looming overhead. To the right of this photo is one of the possible locations for the Kirkland/Bothell to Seattle Water Taxi

Via Slog, the Governor says the viaduct surface option is an “open question”. The state has $2.8 billion lined up for a viaduct replacement, with a rebuild costing about $4 billion, and a surface option something like $2 billion.

So I have an idea. You want Seattle to be an “international city” in the future, let’s do what hundreds of other “international cities” have done and spend the $2billion difference between the surface and the rebuild on light rail. $2 billion should be able to a buy LRT subway from West Seattle to lower Queen Anne and possibly even Interbay, especially with a bit of federal funding thrown in.

What do you say?

Here’s a bit of a streetcar opening round-up:

• The PI has a summary for those who haven’t been paying attention, they also talk about development and how the streetcar is good for business.
• Not everyone is so excited. Apparently Bicycles are protesting the streetcar because it hurts them.
• Please journalists, I emplore you, stop using the Streetcar named desire joke. Oh and the SLUT joke is tired, too, bloggers.
• Apparently, the monorail would have opened Saturday if magic, Santa Claus, GI Joe and unicorns got together, solved the inheritent technological, financial and organizational problems, and the bozos in charge could have actually got it out on time.

In other transit news:
Community Transit and Everett Transit are jumping on the BRT bandwagon with a “trainlike” (rofl) bus-service on 99 from Aurora Station in Shoreline to Everett. They have a nice map and describe BRT as this region thinks of it:

Sleek new, articulated buses will operate on a 17-mile corridor along Highway 99 — which in Everett becomes Evergreen Way and then Rucker Avenue — using automated ticketing, special lanes and signal priority at busy intersections to streamline trips. Buses are to arrive at stations every 10 minutes.

Yup, sounds like normal buses. Though I do laud Snohomish for increasing transit service up there. The program should be in affect by 2009.

Fourth New Airline to Announce Service in 2007

(Seattle — December 12, 2007) — The Port of Seattle is pleased to announce that Virgin America will begin serving Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with seven new daily non-stop flights to San Francisco and Los Angeles starting in March of 2008.

Virgin America’s new routes will begin on March 18, 2008 with three daily non-stop flights between Seattle and San Francisco International Airport. On April 8, 2008, three daily non-stop flights will begin between Seattle and Los Angeles International Airport. A fourth daily flight between Seattle and L.A. is scheduled to begin on May 11, 2008.

“We are pleased to welcome Virgin America to Seattle,” said Port of Seattle Commission President John Creighton. “Virgin America will offer Puget Sound travelers an additional airline choice with some unique, tech-driven features and flight amenities.”

Virgin America’s new planes feature mood lighting, custom-designed leather seats, and an advanced in-flight entertainment system which allows passengers to order food, watch one of 25 movies or satellite TV, play videogames, create an MP3 playlist, and access air-to-ground broadband internet service.

“The addition of Virgin America to Sea-Tac Airport will help further economic development and tourism for the Seattle region and the state,” said Creighton.

This is the fourth new airline to announce service to Sea-Tac in 2007; earlier this year, Air France started non-stop service to Paris, AeroMexico started non-stop service to Mexico City, and Lufthansa announced non-stop service to Frankfurt. And, earlier this week, Northwest Airlines announced new non-stop service to London.

–Source: The Port of Seattle

Now to see if the rails will stay or if they will be torn up to make Ronnie happy.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004066094_webrailline12m.html

With the streetcar in place and ready to ride tomorrow and all the talk of upzoning SLU, this David Brewster opinion piece makes a lot of sense.

Anyone going to ride the streetcar tomorrow? The opening ceremony is at 11:30 near Westlake Mall.