Seattle Transit Blog covers transit news for the the greater Seattle area. The blog also focuses on density and the urban form, and other forms of alternative transportation like bicycling and walking. Below is an introduction to everyone who’s ever had a byline at Seattle Transit Blog.
At the opening of Airport Link. Left to right: Eric Butler, Martin H. Duke, John Jensen, Ben Schiendelman, Oran Viriyincy, Sherwin Lee, and Adam B. Parast.
Current Staff
Martin H. Duke
Editor-in-chief Martin H. Duke joined the blog in Fall 2007 when he felt he needed a bigger platform to advocate for Prop 1. He grew up outside DC, attended college near Boston, spent six months in Lawton, OK, and finally moved to the Puget Sound in 1997. He is an Electrical Engineer by training.
Locally, he has lived in Lakewood, Belltown, Kirkland, Edmonds, and now lives near the Columbia City Station. He has worked at Ft. Lewis, the U-District, Redmond, Kent, Renton, Tukwila, and now a couple of miles from the Eastgate Park and Ride.
Commute: 8 or 42 to a carpool some days; bike to 217 or 554 on others.
Other Key Routes: Link, 7, 9, 39, 180.
John Jensen
Associate Editor John Jensen began contributing to the blog in 2008 in the run-up to the 2008 Prop. 1 transit package, and worked with Ben on the Mass Transit Now campaign. He grew up in the sprawl of Orange County, California before moving to the Puget Sound in 2003. John lived in Redmond and Bellevue for four years before moving to Capitol Hill, where he now resides.
John is a Software Engineer for a video game company in Kirkland. His greatest interest is walkable urban areas and trying to figure how to apply those walkable models to suburbia.
Commute: 43 or 49 to the 255.
Adam B. Parast
Contributor Adam B. Parast began writing for the blog in February 2009 after writing for several other blogs. His will hold a Masters in Transportation Engineering from the UW pending submission and acceptance of his research paper. He also holds a BS in Civil Engineering and a BA in Community, Environment, and Planning both from the UW. He is an Engineer in Training.
He currently works for the Transpo Group doing non-motorized transportation planning. During the 2009-2010 academic year he studies at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. There he took courses as well as conducted research and data collection for his masters project on transit information systems in Europe. This project includes a scan tour of information and branding in 25 cities across 10 different countries. Before this he was an intern at the Transpo Group working on ITS design, which was immediately proceeded by a two and a half year internship at WSDOT’s Traffic Management Center.
On the blog he mostly writes about pedestrian and bicycle facility design, ITS, urban design, and occasionally detail oriented topical pieces on.
Key Mode/Routes: Bicycle, 255, 71/72/73.
Sherwin Lee
Contributor Sherwin Lee is an urban planning, GIS, and architecture student at the University of Washington and currently lives in Bellevue. He has long had a passion for transit, having used to draw fantasy subway maps and take downtown tunnel buses with his grandmother. In his free time, Sherwin volunteers for the Seattle Architecture Foundation and community development organizations in the Chinatown-International District to help make local neighborhoods more walkable and livable.
Sherwin is also a contributor to the Seattle P-I’s Bellevue City News Blog.
Commute: 556, 271 or 550, 554, 212, 216, 218 and 71-74X series.
Oran Viriyincy
Contributor Oran Viriyincy is a graduate student in the UW Civil Engineering program, after living 10 years in Bangkok, a vibrant city with world-class traffic congestion that’s just beginning to expand its rail network.
Oran frequently contributes photos, video, and transit maps for the blog. He lives in Kingsgate and is an intern for the Seattle Department of Transportation downtown. (Seattle Transit Blog has a policy of full disclosure of his internship when a post of his deals with any subject pertaining to SDOT.)
Commute: 255 or 257.
Contributor Eric Butler lives on Capitol Hill and focuses on video contributions to the blog.
Contributor Gordon Werner joined in June 2010 and lives in the Queen Anne neighborhood. His short-lived 2007 blog on airline operations at Seatac is integrated with the STB archives.
Zach Shaner
Contributor Zach Shaner works for Pierce Transit as a Marketing/Communications Specialist for their Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) program. After spending his first 18 years in Coeur d’Alene Idaho, Zach found his love for transit on the “T” in Boston, on Denver’s rapidly-expanding LRT network, and on the railways of Britain and Spain. With a master’s degree in Ecological Economics and a undergraduate degree in Philosophy and History, Zach writes about the social aspects of transit use, the aesthetics of land-use, and sustainability. Car-free for the past 5 years, he lives in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood. He joined the blog in July 2010. Commute: Bike to Reverse Sounder. Key Routes: 2, 3, 8, Link, 111, 550, 560, 574, 592, 594, Sounder, Amtrak Cascades
- Past Staff
Founder and former Editor-in-chief Andrew M. Smith started the blog in April 2007, after he moved back to Seattle and discovered there was a campaign for light rail that year. Andrew grew up in Capitol Hill and Wallingford, and has lived in Tokyo, where he discovered his love for transit and walkability, and San Francisco.
Andrew stepped down from the blog in May 2009.
Ben Schiendelman
Former Associate Editor Ben Schiendelman joined in 2007 to better consolidate news and information about our upcoming transit expansions, and to build a better base to further grow our system. He previously wrote the blog Higher Frequency, and worked on the 2008 Mass Transit Now campaign. Ben refuses to own a driver’s license.
He found his love for transit, density and walkability in Japan, on the Shinkansen and in Kyoto, and later cemented it in France, both Strasbourg and Paris.
Ben is deeply involved in political activism for transit. He stepped down from the blog in July 2010.
Brian Bundridge
Brian Bundridge lives in Kent. He is particularly interested in heavy rail and the technical aspects of rail operations, and volunteers on the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad in his spare time as a conductor or engineer. He also is a very active semi-professional photographer and contributed those talents to the blog.
Brian originally ran his own Washington State Transportation blog, which was eventually merged with STB. He stepped down in June 2010.
Contributor Nick Lecarjegui was the first blogger to join Andrew at STB. He lives in Magnolia and works in South Lake Union.
Guest Contributors
We frequently accept guest contributions by authors from all walks of life that meet our editorial standards. Well-known and/or expert figures like former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond, former State Transportation Commissioner Virginia Gunby, onebusaway developer Brian Ferris, Rainier Valley Post editor Amber Campbell, and Transportation Choices Coalition Policy Associate Andrew Austin have written pieces here.
There are also guest pieces by private citizens Joan Devraun, former Metro driver Mark Dublin, Kevin Futhey, Chris Karnes, Chad Newton, Mike Skehan, Carl Stork, and Ben Woosley.
