Rob Johnson to Host Restructure Forum Saturday in the UDistrict

49 Replies to “Rob Johnson to Host Restructure Forum Saturday in the UDistrict”

1. This meeting was announced in my NextDoor feed a few days ago, and the comments in the thread were almost all negatives from people who have a hard time giving up the old system and seeing any benefit to the new system. Personally, I’m thrilled for light rail, increased bus frequency, and the new 62. Bring it on.

   1. Looking for optimism on Nextdoor is like looking for needle in a comically-large haystack.

      1. Certainly certainly true in Madison Park…

      2. Lloyd, +10000

         I joined them when I realized that was how the “neighborhood” was organizing against changes to the 11. It took me only a couple of days before I dumped that whole thing. It’s a scaaaaaaary world out there for a lot of people, apparently….

   2. Change is very scary for some people. I expect the hysteria level to build to full panic as the 26th approaches.

      An no amount of meetings or community outreach will quell the panic.

      The world is about to change. It will be fun to watch.

      1. I wonder if the pitchforks and torches will be out in the same force as the Wallingford HALA meeting.

      2. Transit in Seattle is lucky to have Rob Johnson on the City Council for a lot of reasons, but he’s especially valuable for contacts like this. Which no project like this ever fails to do, for just plain reassurance.

         Major changes in transit routes can have serious complications in the daily lives of everyone who really depends on transit. So it’s only human to react with some worry, especially for a change this large and sudden.

         A system always had to be careful about any route or schedule change, and except where there’s visible damage, not pull service after a shake-up or two of low ridership. It can take several years before passengers even know that a route is there.

         Of course it doesn’t help any for even a large and important element to be both unmarked and also underground for 25 years. Hard to comprehend for an imformation firm on Zorkon, where everybody has X-ray vision.

         Mark

      3. It is sort of amusing to observe the casual disdain some transit wonks have for folks who have been riding some transit routes for decades and who are not so sure that the new order will make their lives easier. . It’s all for the “greater good” I know, but it is not easy to match up that abstract good with the variety of inconveniences that individuals are going to “enjoy” under the new route structure.

      4. Transit in Seattle is lucky to have Rob Johnson on the City Council for a lot of reasons, but he’s especially valuable for contacts like this.

         I don’t see him as particularly vulnerable here. By the time name will be on the ballot again, the benefits of the restructure will have been fully realized, and this sturm und drang will have long been forgotten.

      5. @Frank,

         Dude, the fact that some of you transit riders “have been riding the same route for decades” is a measure of exactly how far behind Seattle is in transit. It is totally unrealistic for anyone to expect their world not to change in decades. This is not the same city as it was in the 70’s and 80’s, and those old transit solutions just won’t work in today’s world.

         Whine all you want, and throw disparaging remarks at transit advocate if it makes you feel better, but things will change on the 26th. And they will change because they really need to change.

         Link offers a great improvement over the status quo. Embrace it. This change will be good, and it is long overdue.

      6. @Lazarus,

         I wonder if you live in NE Seattle and if you don’t then you have no idea the affect these major changes will have on the ability for riders to go to their destinations on buses they have been riding without having to transfer which they will have to do now in some cases with these changes.

         You make it sound like Light Rail is the godsend to all transit and it is not. In my case it will take me 15 to 20 minutes longer to go by Light Rail then it does now on route # 72 because I am forced to walk across the UW Campus instead of a non-stop trip right now. I also lose my direct service to the Roosevelt district around the high school and the upper part of the University District and to do so now I will have to transfer.

         If you call that an improvement in service then your definition of improvement is a hell of lot different then mine.

         The whole attitude I got from Metro planners was that this is our plan and we are going to shove it down the riders throat whether they like it or not.

         I am hoping that the s**t will hit the fan when these changes are made and that the reaction will be such that Metro will have to backtrack on some of these changes.

      7. @Jeff,

         Actually I live in N Seattle, although only about 3 blocks from where the designator a change to NE. And except for a few years of “hard time” in SoCal I lived here most of the last 30 years or so. My first Metro experiences were on the 70′ series in the early 80’s. Those routes used to be my bread and butter.

         That said, much of the Metro routes in N and NE Seattle need to change. They are old and long in the tooth, and the Seattle of today is not the same Seattle of 40 years ago. Those old transit solutions make no more sense today than would an 8-track player in a modern car.

         And, yes, LR at the U will be a huge improvement. It won’t be the same, but it will be an improvement.

         I’m sorry if you personally feel unconvinced by the changes that are occurring around you, but changes need to be made for the good of the greater community. It has to be done, and it will be done.

      8. Until the U-District station opens, this is really only half a change. For some people it’s an improvement, for others it’s a wash, for others it gets worse. It really depends on where you are. Trying to get to upper U District? That’s worse now. College student going to the HUB or patient going to UWMC? That’s better. Northgate? Great if you’re heading to UW, worse otherwise.

         My main travel patterns are Ravenna-UW, Ravenna-U-District, and Ravenna-Northgate. All of those are now worse for me, mainly because the 68 is gone, and the 372 won’t stop at my street. So every time I take the bus, including going grocery shopping, it’s a 10 minute longer walk. That will add up quickly!

      9. @Lazarus

         It is obvious that you and I don’t agree on most of these changes but I do have to say that your response was civil compared to sometimes in the past when I have posted comments that other people didn’t like and in response I was shredded for making my comments.

         In the past month I wrote a note to Victor Obeso bringing up my complaints and the affects that the deletion of route # 72 will have on some riders. Now let me be up front and say that I didn’t expect the route to be continued to downtown after Light Rail was extended to Husky Stadium but I did expected it to be routed directly to the light rail station like routes # 71 and # 73 will be. In his response Victor wrote back and gave me different options to be able to get to the Roosevelt area and the upper part of the University District.

         He suggested the new route # 45 except that will be coming from Loyal Heights which doesn’t do me any good from Lake City Way.

         He also said route # 73 was available except you cannot walk from Lake City Way to 15th Ave NE because there is only road that goes between those two streets between Northgate Way and NE 85th and that is NE 98th. The problem is that it is straight up hill and has enough cars traveling on it that some years ago the city put in bumpers to force it down to one lane and slow the cars. So that option is not ideal.

         And of course he suggested route # 71 which would require a transfer which I don’t have to do today. So here you have a higher at Metro giving me options that are not available in the case of route # 45 or just not convenient in the case of routes # 71 and # 73. And of course the latter two routes will not operate on Sunday so forget that day. So you have a higher up in Metro giving information and options that are not viable.

         As far as Light Rail being a huge improvement it will be when it gets extended to Northgate but when it only goes to Husky Stadium and Metro makes changes that takes service away and replaces it with a half baked effort it is not a huge improvement.

      10. “The whole attitude I got from Metro planners was that this is our plan and we are going to shove it down the riders throat whether they like it or not.”

          Metro tried hard to balance everybody’s needs. It took feedback from the community and changed the proposals substantially based on it. There’s only so much you can do with limited service hours. It was absolutely necessary to get a crosstown route like the 62 to improve the grid and end Sand Point’s isolation from the rest of central north Seattle, and it was necessary to get all-day service on the 372 and rationalize the 71/72/73 spaghetti. And Metro had a longstanding goal to split the 48 which a significant part of the community has been asking it to do for years to improve reliability. The ultimate problem is the isolated location of UW Station, the inability to get U-District station opened at the same time, and the unwillingness of the UW to do anything that would benefit transit riders’ mobility unless they were UW students. Metro did what it can to saturate the gap between UW Station and 45th, and to try to get to the most people to the station and around town. With any complicated change there’s going to be addresses that benefit and addresses that lose something. The best Metro can do is to try to keep service levels up where it benefits the most people, which means the denser areas. I don’t know where you live but I know a lot of the tails of the 71. 72, and 73 is single-family blocks, which not only have fewer people but use transit less. And even if it takes five minutes to walk across campus, it’ll be just six minutes more to get downtown, which is a helluva lot faster than the 71/72/73 are except at 6 and 7am, plus avoiding the zigzags to get to the express lanes (which I can’t even use because I reverse commute). And four minutes to Capitol Hill, which no bus at all will do now.

      11. Did you write an additional response pointing out these holes?

      12. six eight minutes more to get downtown

      13. @Mike Orr,

          I see you corrected your trip time on Link to DT from 6 mins to 8. You are right both ways. It will be 8 mins with buses in the DSTT and joint ops and 6 mins once the buses come out.

          It’s amazing to me that such inefficiency is considered acceptable. Late this year or early next the majority of DSTT users will be on Link. The DSTT really needs to be operated in a way to give the majority of the users the fastest, most reliable trip possible – and that means no joint ops.

      14. @Mike Orr

          I do catch the # 72 at 630 am at my stop and arrive at the Westlake Station just before 7 am so right now it is faster then what the combination of the # 372 and LT will be. Since I don’t know the new schedule for # 372 I am guessing that I will have to leave my home earlier to still get to downtown at the same time.

          @Glenn Martin

          Victor Obeso did give me 2 names and email addresses of people who are in Metro planning but my frustration with this whole process has made me wonder if they would even care what I wrote as I stand by my earlier comment that Metro planners whole attitude was they are going to show this down the riders throat whether they like it or not.

          The only person who I have communicated with at Metro who was willing to listen and respond is DeAnna Martin who is a professional in every manner. She understood my frustration and her responses have always been positive unlike most of the Metro planners who talked down to anyone who didn’t agree with their plans. I have the utmost respect for DeAnna in the way she does her job.

      15. @Jeff P,

          Huh? You are “guessing” that your commute under the new plan will get longer? All this angst and handwringing is only about a “guess”? You don’t actually know?

          I’m sorry, but save your angst for things that you actually know to be fact. Until then it is hard to see your concern as more than just fear of change. But change is coming, it has to come.

          In any big change there will be winners and losers. If Metro has done their job right there will be many more winners than losers (and that should be the metric). But if you have the bad luck to be one of the losers, then congratulations, go buy a lottery ticket maybe that is where your good luck went.

          And all this changes again in 5 years when NG-Link opens. Change is on the horizon yet again. Get used to it.

      16. I don’t know what the planners said to you or their attitudes seemed like to you, but they are in the position of having to defend the routes Metro chose whether they agree with them or not, and of not being able to offer extra coverage service even if they see a hole. So at the very least, please inform them that the service is problematic for particular trip pairs so that they know it’s impacting people and can consider it for the next revision. Their typical response will be to be to suggest a path on the closest available service. So maybe we can just allow these two basic communications to proceed and ignore for a moment the larger issues and emotional attitudes that may accompany them.

          The north part of the 72 does lose its direct connection to the U-District and by extension Roosevelt. I noticed that when I took the 372 southbound a few weeks ago. Going down 25th raises the problems of backtracking, the campus bottleneck, or walking up the steep hill between 25th and 15th. I debated whether a second route from Lake City to the U-District alongside the all-day 372 was justified or how many riders it would attract, but I wasn’t sure. Part of my railing about the 71/72/73 is the 72’s infrequent and slow service between Lake City and the U-District, which was never great in my mind. (I used to live at 56th & Univ Way and sometimes too the 72 to Lake City.) So you may in fact be in one of the biggest holes in the new schedule if you often go to the U-District. In that case, it’s all the more important to inform Metro of the problem and make them read and file a letter about it. (Or as you may prefer to describe it, rub their noses in it.)

      17. From the comments, it looks like you live somewhere around the junction of 20th Ave. and 77th St. After the change, the quickest way downtown will probably be to walk north along 20th to Lake City and catch the 522 (which will be gaining a stop there). The ride downtown will be nonstop, and probably faster than the 72, even with the extra walking. During peak hours, the 522 also runs a lot for frequently – every 5-10 minutes, compared to the 72, which runs only every 30 minutes.

          To the UW campus, the 73 and 372 seem like pretty good options, and the 372 becomes more frequent and gains weekend service.

          To Northgate, my recommendation would be to simply to Roosevelt and 80th and hop directly on the 67, without a transfer. It would be about 10 minutes extra of walking, compared to the 68, but you get a bus that comes every 15 minutes vs. every 30 minutes.

          I realize that from your particular location, taking transit almost anywhere will involve some amount of additional walking, but that’s the price that has to be paid for consolidating service into frequent corridors. A system designed to maximize the number of one-seat destinations from everybody’s front door is a system where nothing runs better than every hour or half hour or so. With the service change, the 65, 75, and 372 all get upgraded to run every 15 minutes, 6 days a week. This is huge.

      18. Also, isn’t there a peak express? (64, 76, 79, etc) I thought everywhere in the northern 71/72/73 areas had a peak express either shadowing it or nearby.

      19. It’s amazing to me that such inefficiency is considered acceptable. Late this year or early next the majority of DSTT users will be on Link. The DSTT really needs to be operated in a way to give the majority of the users the fastest, most reliable trip possible – and that means no joint ops.

          So you are suggesting that all the buses be kicked out of the tunnel so that the train riders can save two minutes. At the same time you believe that you magically know what is best for everyone, and that the only folks who oppose this are just afraid of change.

          Such arrogant bullshit. Look, even after the 71/72/73 will no longer operate in the tunnel, you have 35,000 or so people on buses that operate in the tunnel. That is roughly the number who ride Link today. There will be increased ridership on Link (obviously). But let’s assume that ridership doubles (which is very optimistic). You are basically saying we should screw over about a third of the riders so that the other two thirds of the riders get there two minutes faster. What the hell, man? We aren’t just talking a small delay, but we are talking about screwing up reliability on those other routes.

          We are also talking about something you obviously know nothing about: Transfers. Believe it nor, a very large percentage of the transit riders take two (or more) vehicles to get where they want to go. I know, shocking. So what do you think this huge increase in speed (two minutes) will do to transfers from these buses to the train? It will make them worse. Thus you will likely get lower ridership as a result. Someone who is coming from Renton and wants to go up to Capitol Hill will just take a local bus. Someone from Northgate who wants to head to Mount Baker might just take the 7.

          You really don’t get it. Metro is bending over backwards to try and promote Link usage. There are dozens of changes that will make Link just a little bit more appealing because of changes in the Metro routing. Not only do you have the big changes (that will inconvenience guys like Jeff — who you think is just a scaredy cat, rather than a guy who understands exactly what he is getting into), but you have little ones, like breaking up the 8 right at Mount Baker station. For about a week (while Link is open, and the 8 runs on the old schedule) someone in Rainier Valley headed to somewhere on Capitol Hill will consider the transfer to Link, do the math, and say to themselves “Naaaah, it just isn’t worth it — I’ll stay on the old 8”. Now, that option won’t be available. Depending on time and destination, they may still transfer to the 8 (from the 38) but it is just one more thing that will make Link appealing. Metro and the county are bending over backwards to try and pump the numbers for Link in anticipation of ST3 (even if it means screwing over their existing riders).

      20. I find it amusing that people are going to miss the 72/73. Yes, it was nice having a single seat ride downtown from NE Seattle, but in the past few years the reliability of the 72/73 has gotten SO BAD. 2 years ago, I was just getting frustrated by the buses getting stuck in traffic for 20 minutes at a time approaching downtown. 6 months ago, it was the 72/73 showing up 20 minutes late, or not showing up at all! There’s nothing quite like that feeling of waiting at a stop with an impatient 4-year-old in the wind and rain for a 72 that keeps being more and more delayed, only to finally have it pass by as a TRM bus.

          I look forward to the 72 going away, and wish they’d deleted the 73 as well instead of leaving it at a 30 minute frequency. But hey, maybe It’ll start using it again if the reliability improves.

      21. @Lazarus

          I base my travel time after the change on the current # 372 schedule . Right now I catch the # 72 that leaves NE Lake City Way and NE 125th at 626 am and gets to my stop around 633 am at NE 92nd and gets to the Westlake Station at around 659 am.

          The # 372 has a trip leaving NE Lake City Way and NE 125th at 631 am so it would take about 5 minutes to get to my stop at around 636 am. On the schedule it is to arrive on the UW Campus at the HUB at 648 am. However I have to ride to the next stop on Stevens Way so that should be around 650 am. Now I have the 5 minute or longer walk to the LT Station so I should get there at 655 am or so. Since ST has not announced a schedule for the UW Station lets say the next train leaves at 7 am and supposedly it will take 8 minutes to get to the Westlake Station which would be around 708 am or 10 minutes later then I do now.

          So I when posted earlier about taking longer I was not guessing but I was using the Metro schedule for the # 372 and the new schedule is not going to change the length of time it will take for the bus to go from my stop to Stevens Way.

          @asdf2

          I live near Lake City Way and NE 92nd and that new stop at NE 85th for the # 522 is not going to do much good. For one thing it is uphill from NE 92nd to NE 85th, there is no sidewalk on the west side of Lake City Way and the one on the east side is in terrible condition with asphalt coming apart and trees and branches growing through and over the sidewalk.

          The same with walking to catch the # 73.

          The same with your suggestion about going to 80th and Roosevelt to catch the # 67 to Northgate since it would require the same walk but even further and no direct bus to that intersection. The only way I can catch the # 67 is to ride the # 372 to the UW Campus.

          @Mike Orr

          The # 79 was deleted several years ago.

          @Andres

          So you are happy to see the # 72 be deleted but tell that to myself and other riders who lose their direct service to the Roosevelt area and the upper part of the U District. It may have been slow but it provided a service that a lot of riders will miss and will let Metro know.

          @Rossb

          Thank you for your post but keep in mind that there are posters who think that Light Rail is the answer to every bit of transportation and nothing better delay those trains. You expressed so well by pointing out that there are many people who will continue to depend on buses and these changes are going to affect them a lot more then people on this forum realize.

      22. @RossB,

          Save your made-up anger and school yard insults for a situation where it might actually matter. Come 2017 or 2018 joint ops end and all the buses come out of the DSTT anyhow due to Convention Center construction. And if that doesn’t drive an oak stake through joint ops heart, then it will die the same death anyhow in 2019 when ST starts construction on the E-Link connection at the south end of the DSTT. Joint ops is dead man, dead.

          And 6 more routes come out on the 26th anyhow. They are doing that primarily to insure smooth operation of Link and joint ops. And if it isn’t enough, I.e. If the bus related disruptions continue, then more routes will come out at the next opportunity.

          And it isn’t just about the 2 minutes, it’s about the smooth andd reliable operation of Link and the DSTT. You just don’t tie your blue chip service to your least reliable, most problematic mode.

          At some point it will happen, joint ops will end, and the end is approaching rapidly.

      23. @Jeff P
          Unless I’m missing something here, the 312 should be a good option for you in the AM. ~15 minute one seat ride to downtown via express lanes and a stop at LCW & 95th.

      24. “So you are suggesting that all the buses be kicked out of the tunnel so that the train riders can save two minutes.”

          It raises the question of why the 74 and 301 should be in the tunnel when they’re peak-only. A tunnel that bypasses surface congestion and traffic lights should serve the highest-volume all-day areas. King County decided years ago that meant the U-District, Northgate, Bellevue, Kirkland, Renton, Southcenter/Kent, and SeaTac/Federal Way. Now there’s a case for putting the 512 in the tunnel for the same reason. And maybe some areas were left out that should have been in (West Seattle; Burien; Shoreline thinking of the 301 but it never had an all-day express). What we got was all-day services to different parts of the county, and a bunch of peak-only routes that robbed the tunnel of more all-day routes.It may be too late now to add all-day routes to the tunnel when all buses will have to leave it in a few years, but it’s a fair question why the peak-only routes can’t be evicted now to speed up the train, since the train serves more destinations and more people than the buses do.

      25. Hi Jeff P,

          Cascadia is right – you can catch the 312 at NE 95th/LCW at 6:35am and be at 6th and Union (two blocks from Westlake Station) at 6:46am. Seems to be an improved commute, at least to downtown. There’s another 312 20 minutes later that will get you there at 7:07am, if your arrival time isn’t set in stone. According to Metro’s trip planner, that’s the same schedule it runs on today.

          To Roosevelt/upper U District, that’s a bit different as you’d need to transfer; take the 372 to 65th and transfer to the 76 to get to Roosevelt (about 25 min). Making a transfer is something many will need to get used to (myself included) but it will make a better network so long as there is increased frequency. If you know when you transfer the second bus is coming shortly you don’t even think about it. To the north U District–yep, that’s when the trip gets a lot worse as you describe.

          Frankly, the city should have sidewalks on both sides of LCW along its entire length from 75th to 145th, which would make the walk to 20th at least possible. They dropped the ball on that. Where they really dropped the ball is by not widening Montlake from U Village to Husky Stadium and adding bus lanes – this would have been an immense game changer for NE Seattle and would have obviated the need for many of the routes to even enter campus. There is room available and the UW has evidenced a desire to work with the City on improving Montlake. That should be done regardless of Link’s progress northwards. Unfortunately, neither of those things will be available to help you on the 26th.

2. The electronic screen in the picture above says, “Departs to Seattle and SeaTac/Airport”
   This should say “To Downtown Seattle and SeaTac/Airport” The U District and Capitol Hill are already IN Seattle. This is confusing for wayfinding reasons. Also remove the word “Departs”. That’s already implied, as we never say trains are arriving from some place.

   1. +1

   2. It’s as unsurprising as the onboard signs saying “Beacon Hill Station”. Trains don’t stop at non-stations, so you don’t need the word station.

      The “Seattle” part is trying to explain that it goes downtown. “Seattle” and “SeaTac” will probably be permanent members of the destination signs.

   3. I also think that it could be clarified with either the words “via” or “then”. Train to Seatac via downtown Seattle. Or train to downtown then Seatac airport. That way people know the order of the stops.

      I routinely get confused if I’m on a bus route for the first time and it says something like “Route 65 Jackson Park Wedgwood”. I’ll be confused because I’m not sure which of those is the next destination and which is the final destination. Instinctively I think the first location is the immediately next stop, which is the opposite of what it usually means. And all the more confusing if the bus is around Lake City where “Wedgwood” and “Jackson Park” are in opposite directions.

      1. Right, for example for example the northbound Rt 40, after leaving Ballard and heading toward Northgate, still says Ballard. Whereas the one in the other direction is the one you’d want for Ballard.

   4. That was the very first thing that I noticed when I looked at that reader board. It should say downtown rather than Seattle. Once North Link opens, stations outside of city limits should read “to Seattle” or “to Downtown Seattle”.

   5. +1

      Also, no need to show the station name. Clearly by the time you get to the platform you already know where you are. It could instead show the current time and minutes until arrives larger.

      1. That’s a placeholder message for system alerts.

      2. The station name is also on other signs.

      3. @AeroNathan,

         Interesting, That makes total sense now that I think about it. Basically just reserving real estate for when it is needed for other purposes. Probably more productive than just leaving it blank.

3. Maybe every information-system contract should stipulate that the project team visit every single information location in the system. And also ride as many lines as possible as well. For at least a year.
   One thing every bit of transit information shares in common:

   The chance that any contract staff has ever gotten to our service area at all decreases with every foot of separation between headquarters and Seattle. Which evidence shows is on the same planet whose alien invaders designed Dupont and the new San Jose and Mountain View.

   Serious idea: Give first graders a school year’s class credit for working out our transit information. Make sure the girls get all the supervisory positions, and that the little boys get extra rides on LINK and the streetcars. Nowadays people that age have already been on computers since they were two.

   Mark

4. I hope they bring a couple hundred copies of Oran’s map. There aren’t that many places that actually loose service.

   People get freaked out when they see a long list of deleted routes, and after the recession cutbacks you can’t blame them too much. The map is better for showing what will exist.

   1. Yes. Better yet they should just hire Oran to make maps.

      1. Like Lee Marvin, playing a drunken ex-gunfighter in “Cat Ballou” said about five times: “I’ll drink to that! ” Or, “Do I have a second?” I thought Oran worked for them already.

         But come on, djw. I said Rob Johnson was valuable, not vulnerable. I wouldn’t assume that just because he looks like he would never hurt anybody it will be a mistake to consider him a target.

         Not only would he be an even better presence in Washington DC than Jimmy Stewart in the movie about Mr. Smith, but the taxpayers wouldn’t have to spend a dime on Secret Service. Because anybody who threatens Rob will be found ripped to shreds by sharp fingernails and savage girl-bites.

         Now Sturm und Drang” is another matter. Because overlooking Fourth Avenue, City Hall has a balcony that looks perfect for Juan Peron (you know, like in “Evita”) speeches, and also whatever Seattle uses for a Nuremburg Rally. Would be too bad if Rob got out of a late Council meeting and there was a full moon.

         Mark

5. That sign display looks way better than the ground level ones with the redundant distorted ST logo.

6. Up until his election to his present position, Councilmember Johnson has given the impression of a “whatever transit leaders want, no questions asked, no accountability” approach, much of what I’ve seen here. However, with his election to the Seattle City Council position, he’s raised my eyebrows with his rapid ascent to chairing a number of committees, such as Chair of the PSRC’s Transportation Policy Board (that’s a coup for a freshman councilmember) and Sound Transit’s Audit and Reporting Committee, the latter I hope will give him a sense of the importance of there being a “check and balance” to any entity that receives/relies on public funds. These outside committees – and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover more, complement his Seattle city leadership roles: Planning, Land Use & Zoning (Chair) and Sustainability & Transportation (Vice Chair). Now this. He’s definitely “walking the walk,” and with his ten years at Transportation Choices, is well versed in transit issues. He’s definitely hit the ground running, and that seems to be an understatement!

7. Did anyone go to this? I’m wondering what the general feel for the event was? Any frustration over the restructure, or mostly positive?

   1. I went. It was just some information tables so I looked at the maps, got some brochures, and left. SDOT has a sheet of Prop 1 contributions to the U-Link restructure, . Maybe STB can get a file copy of it because it would answer some people’s questions. Also the rider alert brochure is out.

   2. I saw an acquaintance of mine this evening who is on Rob Johnson’s staff. I asked how the meeting went and her one comment was about a bunch of neighbors on 70th who all showed up who object to the night/weekend routing of the new 62 on their street.

Comments are closed.