Slack Action
- Sound Transit is getting some of its U-Link money as part of the Federal Stimulus bill’s New Starts grants. $44 million of the $813 mn total will show up now instead of about this time next year. Good stuff! Full list of stimulus funded New Starts here.
- Sound Transit has a transit savings calculator, illustrating with hard numbers what you could save riding transit. I talked to Komo about how much I save (it’s $880 a year, not a month, but I’m saving more by ditching one of my cars soon.)
- I chatted with Goldy from HA about the Viaduct, Light Rail and Metro bus hours (among other topics) on Tuesday. You can listen here.
- The fine for fare violation on Link could be $124. Make sure tap your Orca in!
In 1971, Amtrak began operations as the US’s intercity passenger rail service provider. President Nixon created Amtrak out of the remains of the few local and national providers left, and secretly Nixon had planned on shutting Amtrak down within a few years. Its future looks fairly bright today. 1971 was a dark time for Seattle as well.
The first comment on the KOMO story:
It sucks that so many people are in that situation. I used to be one of them. To solve this, I quit my job and moved.
Also, that calculator is pretty awesome. If you put the right values in you see this:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/6797/43712252.gif
Hm, only $468.05? And they’re including the replacement cost of their vehicle? Maybe we need a higher car tab fee…
$124 fine for not having a ticket, sounds pretty good.
Interesting down in San Francisco, as they are getting ready to send MUNI No.1 off to Pennsylvania to be restored, the 97 year old Historic Streetcar, which has not run in a few years, made one final run between carhouses as they were getting ready to build a canopy so the historic cars at the Geneva are not exposed to the elements anymore when they are parked.
http://blog.streetcar.org/2009/05/1s-last-run-for-awhile.html
I was listing to KUOW on the way home. They had a short blurb about the money ST is getting early from the feds. But what was interesting is the spokesman they interviewed said that ST might move up the schedule for the extension to Northgate. He said that if they start on engineering now that they could get to Northgate 2 years earlier than planned, 2018 instead of 2020. I think this might depend on some stimulus money coming in though. It would be great to get to Northgate 2 years after University Link opens.
Do you remember the name?
No, I don’t remember his name. I wasn’t really paying attention to the beginning of the interview, too distracted by traffic! I’ve been trying to find confirmation, but can’t come up with anything at this point.
That would be awesome. And that would be great for publicity for ST too. Not just the questionable “on time and under budget” that we kept saying last year, but really early and on budget.
My crazy 2018 prediction may come true after all!
http://seattletransitblog.com/2009/03/18/author-poll-link-completion/
Fine in L.A. is $250 plus 48 hours of community service.
A couple of other important things came out of 1971: Southwest Airlines and UNIX.
It was also the year Jim Morrison died; A Big Blue Bus is referred to twice in The Doors’s classic 1967 song “The End”. The Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines as it was called at the time, would have been very familiar to Morrison in his life around UCLA and Venice California and they have always painted their buses in varying shades of blue. The agency is today officially named Big Blue Bus.
$250 plus 48 hours of community service, even better for a fine. I shudder to think what could happen to a fare cheat in Phoenix, with that tough sheriff of their’s!
Oh, man, community service would be great. We could make them clean stations.
Seems like $124 is a little low. Something like LA’s fine of $250 minimum along with community service would be more along the lines of what I think.
Good post on the sinkholes! at the Capitol Hill blog:
http://tinyurl.com/pduygb
Does someone know what the width is, curb to curb, where Link runs down the center of the street? I’m curious how this compares to other planned ROW clearances.
$124 is ridiculous.
in europe (germany/switzerland) it’s 40 euros, you have to pay on the spot- they’ll escort you to an ATM. more than 3 times and foreigners can get deported.
they also make it so that you purchase passes on the train/bus so you don’t end up waiting forever at stops where large quanitites of people board. stops are also usually more than a block away, so the bus system is a lot more functional and efficient. ah yes, those crazy quasi-socialist countries and their efficient public transportation systems…