When Governor Jay Inslee appointed Lynn Peterson as the next WSDOT Director, urbanists and sustainable transportation advocates across the country cheered – and some dared to hope that WSDOT would scrap megaprojects like the Columbia River Crossing. But any WSDOT Secretary ultimately reports to the Governor, and indirectly to the legislature. Between the two governors, […]
The other day, I was taking a 554 back to the Eastside when I discovered that I was onboard one of those pesky early afternoon trips with a mid-line operator relief at Mercer Island. Judging from my past experiences with that trip, I wasn’t too bothered– for the most part, East Base operators are pretty […]
Earlier this month Tom Fucoloro at Seattle Bike Blog challanged those running against Mayor McGinn to offer a bold bike-friendly vision for Seattle: Because right now, the nervous pack of challengers is playing it “safe” and letting McGinn run away with the label as the most progressive and inspiring candidate on transportation issues. Is it just me or is this especially […]
WSDOT, ODOT, and their lead contractor David Evans & Associates (DEA) have waged a deliberate misinformation campaign since 2007 to frame the Columbia River Crossing Mega-Highway Project as imperative. It’s not. Let’s look at each of the major points. By the end of this series, I hope you’ll agree that the CRC Mega-Highway is a […]
People love walkable neighborhoods; so much so that they pay a significant premium to live in one. Interestingly, however, there’s no correlation between living in a walkable neighborhood and actually walking more. That’s the result of a UW study that included Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood. One way to read these results is to say that we’re foolish to […]
Seattleites, urbanists, and environmentalists: While we’ve been focused on saving Metro service, expanding rail, and working toward dense growth – we’ve lost sight of part of the bigger picture. By forgetting about a megaproject from another region, we’ve put in jeopardy funding for what we want built. The biggest threat to funding many of our […]
Late entrants in the Tacoma Link corridor selection. A First Hill Streetcar extension to Prospect? Two CT drivers wed at Mariner P&R. A history of the Seattle Center Monorail, focused on the mishaps. Seattle bike count results. Seattle City Council mulls higher incentive zoning fees. Auburn cutting developer fees to bring more development. New TOD […]
Last week Seattle Councilmemer Richard Conlin said something that made perfect sense to me: We may not be as successful if we devote our resources into the new housing in a very hot neighborhood in producing as much help for people who need affordable housing as if we focus our resources on, say, along the […]
What do the neighbors say when a real estate company tries to convert a run-down single family home in Snohomish that’s been empty since 2008 into “aPodments” renting for $400 to $500 a room? Sing along, I think you know the tune by now: But the plan is upsetting neighbors, who argue that the proposal […]
Sound Transit will be holding an open house on 4pm this Thursday, March 28 at Highland Community Center to show final designs for East Link. The project is entering final design phase, moving from 30% to 100% design complete. More info here. If you do attend, send us a report!
As longtime readers know, I was on the citizen advisory board for Seattle’s latest Transit Master Plan. I can hardly take the credit (or blame) for what it contains, but I was generally supportive of the plan’s emphasis on streetcar corridors. Streetcar skepticism is a completely coherent viewpoint for transit advocates to have, and I […]
by ANN DASCH The Washington State Legislature has many goals for ferry pricing policy. Fares need to provide an adequate percentage of operation and maintenance expenses (about 66% in 2012). Fares should encourage desirable behaviors – reducing vehicle peak demand, increasing non-peak ridership, etc. Simplifying the fare structure is a high priority. Ferry pricing policy […]
This week, the Spokane Street Viaduct widening project has officially come in under budget by $11.75 million. The savings stay in the city, to be used on other SDOT projects. The mayor and SDOT have released their highest priorities for this funding – and the list is something urbanists should be happy with, a good […]
In the comments to Bruce’s post on RapidRide E&F, some folks wondered how the routes were chosen, since the Metro routes being replaced have vastly different ridership numbers, as the Times reported recently. Well, I don’t have any answers, but this map of RapidRide routes overlaid on King County Council districts might shed some insight. […]
Here are the updated graphs from this post, plus a new one organized by Operations Year instead of Calendar Year. Link’s December ridership numbers led to some discussion last month about growth possibly slowing, but from this graph it is clear that December 2011 was just an abnormally high ridership month, making 2012’s growth appear more sluggish than […]
Although they seem very susceptible to bad ideas from constituents, the majority on the Bellevue City Council clearly isn’t the government’s kill-rail-at-all-costs version of Kemper Freeman. I salute them for responding to how much their city clearly wants rail. Buried in this snippy fight about posting pictures of homes is valuable reporting on which Seattle […]
The Seattle Department of Transportation has a pair of construction open houses tonight and tomorrow, both of which will be interesting for transit. First, tonight, from 5:00 to 6:00 PM, at the Bitter Lake Community Center, will be an open house on RapidRide-related transit improvements for the northern section (within Seattle) of Aurora Ave, from […]
1. Tolling is an extension of the time / money tradeoff that already exists in our transportation system. Setting the ideologically motivated aside, if one’s time is valuable in monetary terms, one usually drives; if one has more time than money, one uses transit. There are a few cases in the region where transit is […]